He had been touched by her trust in him, and by the unconscious beauty of her fancies, into a mood that was unlike all his life and habits.

But after all, he said to himself-- After all!-- Where he stood in the golden evening he saw the rosy curled mouth, the soft troubled eves, the little brown hands that still tried to fasten the rosebud, the young peach-like skin where the wind stirred the bodice;--she was only a little Flemish peasant, this poor little Bebee, a little thing of the fields and the streets, for all the dreams of God that abode with her.

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.
He pushed the gate gently against her; her hands fastened the rosebud and drew open the latch themselves.
"Will you come in a little ?" she said, with the happy light in her face.
"You must not stay long, because the flowers must be watered, and then there are Annemie's patterns--they must be done or she will have no money and so no food--but if you would come in for a little?
And see, if you wait a minute I will show you the roses that I shall cut to-morrow the first thing, and take down to St.Guido to Our Lady's altar in thank-offering for to-day.

I should like you to choose them--you yourself--and if you would just touch them I should feel as if you gave them to her too.