“But give me some explanations,” he implored. “I can’t strike a bargain with you in perfect ignorance of everything. For two days past I have been quite in the dark as to what’s going on. How do I know that you are not cheating me?”
“Bah! you’re a simpleton,” replied Félicité, who had retraced her steps at Antoine’s doleful appeal. “You are very foolish not to trust yourself implicitly to us. A thousand francs! That’s a fine sum, a sum that one would only risk in a winning cause. I advise you to accept.”
He still hesitated.
“But when we want to seize the place, shall we be allowed to enter quietly?”
“Ah! I don’t know,” she said, with a smile. “There will perhaps be a shot or two fired.”
He looked at her fixedly.
“Well, but I say, little woman,” he resumed in a hoarse voice, “you don’t intend, do you, to have a bullet lodged in my head?”
Félicité blushed. She was, in fact, just thinking that they would be rendered a great service, if, during the attack on the town-hall, a bullet should rid them of Antoine. It would be a gain of a thousand francs, besides all the rest. So she muttered with irritation: “What an idea! Really, it’s abominable to think such things!”
Then, suddenly calming down, she added:
“Do you accept? You understand now, don’t you?”