But, on her part, Catherine watched over the dignity of Pitou.
In the evening, when the young man approached her, and asked her at what hour he ought to go out to rejoin the shepherds, she said, smiling,—
“You will not go out at all.”
“And why so?” said Pitou, with astonishment.
“I have made my father comprehend that the education you have received places you above the functions which he had allotted to you. You will remain at the farm.”
“Ah! so much the better,” said Pitou. “In this way, I shall not leave you.”
The exclamation had escaped the ingenuous Pitou. But he had no sooner uttered it, than he blushed to his very ears; while Catherine, on her part, held down her head and smiled.
“Ah! forgive me, Mademoiselle. It came from my heart in spite of me. You must not be angry with me on that account,” said Pitou.
“I am not angry with you, Monsieur Pitou,” said Catherine; “and it is no fault of yours if you feel pleasure in remaining with me.”
There was a silence of some moments. This was not at all astonishing, the poor children had said so much to each other in so few words.
“But,” said Pitou, “I cannot remain at the farm doing nothing. What am I to do at the farm?”
“You will do what I used to do. You will keep the books, the accounts with the work-people, and of our receipts and expenses. You know how to reckon, do you not?”
“I know my four rules,” proudly replied Pitou.
“That is one more than ever I knew,” said Catherine. “I never was able to get farther than the third. You see, therefore, that my father will be a gainer by having you for his accountant; and as I also shall gain, and you yourself will gain by it, everybody will be a gainer.”
“And in what way will you gain by it, Mademoiselle?” inquired Pitou.
“I shall gain time by it, and in that time I will make myself caps, that I may look prettier.”
“Ah!” cried Pitou, “I think you quite pretty enough without caps.”
“That is possible; but it is only your own individual taste,” said the young girl, laughing. “Moreover, I cannot go and dance on a Sunday at Villers-Cotterets, without having some sort of a cap upon my head. That is all very well for your great ladies, who have the right of wearing powder and going bareheaded.”
“I think your hair more beautiful as it is, than if it were powdered,” said Pitou.
“Come, come, now; I see you are bent on paying me compliments.”
“No, Mademoiselle, I do not know how to make them. We did not learn that at the Abbé Fortier’s.”
“And did you learn to dance there?”
“To dance?” inquired Pitou, greatly astonished.
“Yes—to dance?”
“To dance, and at the Abbé Fortier’s? Good Lord, Mademoiselle!—oh! learn to dance, indeed!”
“Then, you do not know how to dance?”
“No,” said Pitou.
“Well, then, you shall go with me to the ball on Sunday, and you will look at Monsieur de Charny while he is dancing. He is the best dancer of all the young men in the neighborhood.”
“And who is this Monsieur de Charny?” demanded Pitou.
“He is the proprietor of the Château de Boursonne.”
“And he will dance on Sunday?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“And with whom?”
“With me.”
Pitou’s heart sank within him, without his being able to ascertain a reason for it.
“Then,” said he, “it is in order to dance with him that you wish to dress yourself so finely.”
“To dance with him—with others—with everybody.”
“Excepting with me.”
“And why not with you?”
“Because I do not know how to dance.”
“You will learn.”
“Ah! if you would but teach me,—you, Mademoiselle Catherine. I should learn much better than by seeing Monsieur de Charny, I can assure you.”
“We shall see as to that,” said Catherine. “In the mean time, it is bedtime. Good-night, Pitou.”
“Good-night, Mademoiselle Catherine.”
There was something both agreeable and disagreeable in what Mademoiselle Catherine had said to Pitou. The agreeable was, that he had been promoted from the rank of a cow-keeper and shepherd to that of book-keeper. The disagreeable was, that he did not know how to dance, and that Monsieur de Charny did know. According to what Catherine had said, he was the best dancer in the whole neighborhood.