“Do you not know, Agnelette, that it is very imprudent of you to speak to me here like that?”
“And why, Thibault?” asked the young woman.
“We are alone here together; it is dark, and not a man of the open would dare to come into the forest at this hour; and know, the King is not more master in his kingdom than I am here?”
“I do not understand you, Thibault?”
“I mean that having prayed, implored, and conjured, I can now threaten.”
“You, threaten?”
“What I mean is,” continued Thibault, paying no heed to Agnelette’s words, “that every word you speak does not excite my love for you more than it rouses my hatred towards him; in short, I mean that it is imprudent of the lamb to irritate the wolf when the lamb is in the power of the wolf.”
“I told you, Thibault, before, that I started to walk through the forest without any feeling of fear at meeting you. As I was coming to, I felt a momentary terror, remembering involuntarily what I had heard said about you; but at this moment, Thibault, you will try in vain to make me turn pale.”
Thibault flung both hands up to his head.
“Do not talk like that,” he said, “you cannot think what the devil is whispering to me, and what an effort I have to make to resist his voice.”