--Veronica, you are strangely misusing the rights which I have allowed you
to take.

--Do not put yourself in a rage, Monsieur le Curé, if I talk to you so. I
wanted to persuade you thoroughly that you can rely upon me in everything,
that I can keep a secret, though you sometimes call me a tattler, and that
I am not, after all, such a worthless girl as you believe. We like, when
the moment has come to get ourselves appreciated, to profit by it to our
utmost.

--Veronica, said Marcel, I hardly know what you want to arrive at; but I
wish to speak frankly to you, since you have behaved frankly towards me. I
recognize all the wisdom of your proceeding, although you will agree it has
something offensive and humiliating for me, but after all, it is preferable
that you should come and tell me this to my face, than that you should go
and chatter in the village and tattle without my knowledge.

--Oh, Monsieur le Curé, Veronica is not capable of that.

--Therefore, since you have discovered ... discovered a secret which would
ruin me, what do you calculate on making from this secret, and what do you
demand?

--I, Monsieur le Curé, cried the servant, I demand nothing ... oh! nothing.

--You are hesitating. Yes, you want something. Come, it is you now who hang
your head and blush, while it is I who am the culprit.... Come, place
yourself there, close to me.

--Oh! Monsieur le Curé, I shall never presume.