"I? fainting!" exclaimed Bertha, endeavoring to laugh. "Nonsense, we don't have city manners here!"
"Nevertheless, you are as pale as your linen, my pretty girl."
"Goodness! you talk of shooting a man as you would a rabbit in a hedge!"
"Not at all the same thing," said the sub-lieutenant; "for a rabbit is good to eat, whereas a dead Chouan is good for nothing."
Bertha could not prevent her proud, energetic face from betraying, by its expression, the disgust she felt at the jokes of the young officer.
"Ah, ça!" said the lieutenant, "you are not as patriotic as your mistress. I see we sha'n't get much help from you."
"I am patriotic; but much as I hate my enemies, I can't see them killed with a dry eye."
"Pooh!" said the officer, "you'll get accustomed to it, just as we soldiers get accustomed to sleeping on the high-roads instead of our beds. To-night, when the letter of that cursed peasant came to the guard-house at Saint-Martin, and obliged me to start off at once, I damned the State to all the devils. Well, I now see I was wrong, for it has its compensations,--in fact, instead of cursing and swearing, I find the expedition charming."
So saying, and as if to add to the pleasures of the situation, he stooped and tried to snatch a kiss from the neck of the young girl. Bertha, who did not suspect his amorous intention, felt the young man's breath upon her face and started away, red as a pomegranate, her nostrils quivering, her eyes sparkling with indignation.
"Oh, oh!" continued the lieutenant, "you are not going to get angry for a silly kiss, are you, my beauty?"