But at last these dark suggestions settled down into a belief that Jean took her chiefly for ballast; and thereafter she was familiarly called "Femme de Ballast." Talking was no virtue in her eyes.

What was going on in her mind no one ever knew.

She was more phlegmatic than an Indian; but the tails of the sheep on the Town Hill did not better show the quarter of the wind than the changing colour of Aimable's face indicated Jean's coming or going.
For Mattresse Aimable had one eternal secret, an unwavering passion for Jean Touzel.

If he patted her on the back on a day when the fishing was extra fine, her heart pumped so hard she had to sit down; if, passing her lonely bed of a morning, he shook her great toe to wake her, she blushed, and turned her face to the wall in placid happiness.

She was so credulous and matter-of-fact that if Jean had told her she must die on the spot, she would have said "Think of that!" or "Je te crais," and died.