After all--soon or late--the end would be always the
same. What matter!
She would weep a little to-morrow, and she would not kneel any more at
the shrine in the garden wall; and then--and then--she would stay here
and marry the good boor Jeannot, just the same after a while; or drift
away after him to Paris, and leave her two little wooden shoes, and her
visions of Christ in the fields at evening, behind her forevermore, and
do as all the others did, and take not only silken stockings but the
Cinderella slipper that is called Gold, which brings all other good
things in its train;--what matter!
He had meant this from the first, because she was so pretty, and those
little wooden sabots ran so lithely over the stones; though he was not in
love with her, but only idly stretched his hand for her as a child by
instinct stretches to a fruit that hangs in the sun a little rosier and a
little nearer than the rest.
What matter--he said to himself--she loved him, poor little soul, though
she did not know it; and there would always be Jeannot glad enough of a
handful of bright French gold.
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