If she made herself smart for this young man, and sat next him, and smiled, and talked to him, conscious as she would be--and he would be also--that she was so placed that she might become his wife, how afterwards could she hold her ground?
And if she were really resolute to hold her ground, would it not be much better that she should do so by giving up no point, even though her uncle's anger should rise hot against her?
But now she had promised her uncle, and she knew that she could not go back from her word.

It would be better for her, she told herself, to think no more about it.

Things must arrange themselves.

What did it matter whether she were wretched at Basle or wretched at Granpere?
The only thing that could give a charm to her life was altogether out of her reach.
After this conversation, Michel went upstairs to his young friend, and within a quarter of an hour had handed him over to his wife.

It was of course understood now that Marie was not to be troubled till the time came for her to sit down at table with her smart frock.
Michel explained to his wife the full amount of his success, and acknowledged that he felt that Marie was already pretty nearly overcome.
'She'll try to be pleasant for my sake this evening,' he said, 'and so she'll fall into the way of being intimate with him; and when he asks her to-morrow she'll be forced to take him.' It never occurred to him, as he said this, that he was forming a plan for sacrificing the girl he loved.