Page:Colas breugnon.djvu/139

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BELETTE
125

fork as usual, while she sat opposite with her elbows on the table, and when our eyes met, she gave me a smile.

"Are you feeling a little better?"

"Stomach empty, heart heavy, belly full, heart light! that's what the old song tells us," said I. She was silent, but her big clever mouth twitched at the corners, and I kept on talking of the first thing that came into my head, while we looked at one another, and thought of all that had passed between us.

"Breugnon," said she, at last," I can tell you, now that it does not matter, it was you I was in love with."

"I knew it all the time," said I calmly.

"And if you knew so much, why did you say nothing about it?"

"Because, of course, you would have been just perverse enough to contradict me."

"What difference would that have made, if you had been sure of the contrary? You kiss people's lips, not the words that come out of them!"

" Something more than words used to come out of your lips, on occasion. — Do you remember that night we caught you with the miller? "

"It was all your fault," she said, " or mine, if you like to say so, but, Colas, you that have so much