“No, certainly not; the game is in their woods, it is fed on their grass, and you have no right to throw your boar-spear at a buck which belongs to my lord the Duke of Orleans.”
“And who told you that I threw a boar-spear at his buck?” replied Thibault, advancing towards Agnelette in an almost threatening manner.
“Who told me? why, my own eyes, which, let me tell you, do not lie. Yes, I saw you throw your boar-spear, when you were hidden there, behind the beech-tree.”
Thibault’s anger subsided at once before the straightforward attitude of the girl, whose truthfulness was in such contrast to his falsehood.
“Well, after all,” he said, “supposing a poor devil does once in a way help himself to a good dinner from the super-abundance of some great lord! Are you of the same mind, Mademoiselle Agnelette, as the judges who say that a man ought to be hanged just for a wretched rabbit? Come now, do you think God created that buck for the Baron more than for me?”
“God, Monsieur Thibault, has told us not to covet other men’s goods; obey the law of God, and you will not find yourself any the worse off for it!”
“Ah, I see, my pretty Agnelette, you know me then, since you call me so glibly by my name?”
“Certainly I do; I remember seeing you at Boursonnes, on the day of the fête; they called you the beautiful dancer, and stood round in a circle to watch you.”
Thibault, pleased with this compliment, was now quite disarmed.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he answered, “I remember now having seen you; and I think we danced together, did we not? but you were not so tall then as you are now, that’s why I did not recognise you at first, but I recall you distinctly now. And I remember too that you wore a pink frock, with a pretty little white bodice, and that we danced in the dairy. I wanted to kiss you, but you would not let me, for you said that it was only proper to kiss one’s vis-á-vis, and not one’s partner.”