"There are many things you can do, Toutou," she said. "And you are chief. Nobody questions that. But remember that if the others are afraid of you, I am not. And I say that you shall not do this. Something you owe to the band. More, still, you owe to me. You know me well enough to appreciate that I intend to secure what I consider due me."
Toutou growled in his throat, and his pupils began to contract. The slack look left his mouth.
"It is time you feared me," he snarled. "Go away, I am through with you. I never wish to see you again. You shall have your share of this coup, then you shall leave the band."
"But I thought there was to be no more band," sneered Hélène. "I thought Toutou was to become an honest bourgeois, with a dove-cot—"
"You shall feel my knife," he barked at her.
"Why should I fear your knife?" she retorted. "The last time a woman threatened you, you fled from her knife."
Her face was white with rage, and Toutou's whole frame seemed to draw together as an animal does when it prepares to spring. His long arms curved before him, his right hand at the level of his belt.
"You do not know when a man tires of you, it seems," he exclaimed. "Can you not see we wish to be by ourselves?"
She made a violent effort to regain her self-control.
"For the last time," she said quietly, "will you heed the opinion of your colleagues and leave this girl alone?"