The other Icelandes present were disappointed at not having been warned in time, like the fishers of Ploubazlanec, of the fortune that was skirting their very shores.
But it was too late now, worse luck! So they gave their arms to the lasses, the violins began to play, and joyously they all tramped out.
At first Yann had only paid her a few innocent compliments, such as fall to a chance partner met at a wedding, and of whom one knows but little.
Amidst all the couples in the procession, they formed the only one of strangers, the others were all relatives or sweethearts.
But during the evening while the dancing was going on, the talk between them had again turned to the subject of the fish, and looking her straight in the eyes, he roughly said to her: "You are the only person about Paimpol, and even in the world, for whom I would have missed a windfall; truly, for nobody else would I have come back from my fishing, Mademoiselle Gaud." At first she was rather astonished that this fisherman should dare so to address her who had come to this ball rather like a young queen, but then delighted, she had ended by answering: "Thank you, Monsieur Yann; and I, too, would rather be with you than with anybody else." That was all.

But from that moment until the end of the dancing, they kept on chatting in a different tone than before, low and soft-voiced.
The dancing was to the sound of a hurdy-gurdy and violin, the same couples almost always together.

When Yann returned to invite her again, after having danced with another girl for politeness' sake, they exchanged a smile, like friends meeting anew, and continued their interrupted conversation, which had become very close.

Simply enough, Yann spoke of his fisher life, its hardships, its wage, and of his parents' difficulties in former years, when they had fourteen little Gaoses to bring up, he being the eldest.

Now, the old folks were out of the reach of need, because of a wreck that their father had found in the Channel, the sale of which had brought in 10,000 francs, omitting the share claimed by the Treasury.