“She did not limp either when she scampered through the wood like a fawn,” thought Ange.
She imagined she had succeeded and that Pitou had seen and heard nothing. Giving way to delight, mean in so fine a spirit, she said:
“So Captain Pitou is riding his high horse; proud of his new rank, he scorns us rustics from being a military officer.”
Pitou felt wounded. Even a dissimulated sacrifice almost requires some reward, and as Catherine only mystified Pitou or jested at him, no doubt contrasting him with the intelligent Charny, all his good intentions vanished. Self-esteem is a charmed serpent, on which it is perillous to step unless you crush it once for all.
“It seems to me that you are the haughty one,” he returned, “for you drove me off the farm on the grounds that there was no work for me. I haven’t told Master Billet so far I have arms for earning my bread, thank God! However, you are the mistress under your own roof. In short, you sent me away. Hence, as you saw me at the Charny Lodge, and we were not enemies, it was your place to speak to me instead of running away like a boy stealing apples.”
The viper had bitten; Catherine dropped out of her calm.
“I, run away?” she exclaimed.
“As though fire had broken out on the farm. I had not time to shut up my book before you were on the back of Younker, where he was concealed in the foliage, after barking an ashtree, and ruining it.”
“What do you mean by ruining?”
“That is right enough,” continued Pitou: “while you were gathering houseleeks, Younker was browsing, and in an hour a horse eats a heap of stuff. It must have taken quite an hour for him to strip that sized tree of bark. You must have collected enough plants to cure all the wounds inflicted in taking the Bastile—it is a great thing for poultices!”