“Poor Ameyric,” she reiterated with a sigh.
He had already darted after the flower and, kneeling, he picked it up and pressed it to his lips. She looked down on his eager, flushed face, and there crept a soft, almost motherly look in her eyes.
“If you only knew,” he said moodily, “how it hurts!”
“Just now you wished me to know how good it was to love,” she riposted lightly.
“That is just the trouble, Nicolette,” the lad assented, and rose slowly to his feet; “it is good but it also hurts; and when the loved one is unkind, or worse still, indifferent, then it is real hell!”
Then, as she said nothing, but stood quite still, her little head thrown back, breathing in the delicious scented air, which had become almost oppressive in its fragrance, he exclaimed passionately:
He put out his arms and drew her to him, longing to fasten his lips on that round white throat, which gleamed like rose-tinted marble.
“Nicolette,” he pleaded, because she had pushed him away quickly—almost roughly. “Are you quite sure that you cannot bring yourself to love me?”
“But you cannot go on like this,” he argued, “loving no one. It is not natural. Every girl has a lad. Look at them how happy they are.”
In truth they were a happy crowd these children of Provence. It was the hour after _déjeuner_, and in groups of half a dozen or more, boys and girls, men and women squatted upon the ground under the orange trees, having polished off their bread and cheese, drunk their wine and revelled in the cakes which Margaï always baked expressly for the harvesters. There was an hour’s rest before afternoon work began. Every girl was with her lad. Ameyric was quite right: there they were, unfettered in their naïve love-making; the boys for the most part were lying full length on the ground, their hats over their eyes, tired out after the long morning’s work: the girls squatted beside them, teasing, chaffing, laughing, yielding to a kiss when a kiss was demanded, on full red lips or blue-veined, half-closed lids.
Anon, one or two of the men, skilled in music, picked up their galoubets whilst others slung their beribboned tambours round their shoulders. They began to beat time, softly at first, then a little louder, and the soft-toned galoubets intoned the tender melody of “_Lou Roussignou_” (“The Nightingale”), one of the sweetest of the national songs of Provence. And one by one the fresh young voices of men and maids also rose in song, and soon the mountains gave echo to the sweet, sad tune, with its quaint burden and its haunting rhythm, and to the clapping of soft, moist hands, the droning of galoubets and murmur of tambours.