"How do I know! You come here, and first begin by insulting me."
"Insult you?"
"Yes,—you ask who'll have your bread. I first say—I. Mont Saint-Jean did not ask for it till afterwards, and yet you give her the preference. Enraged at that, I rushed at you with my uplifted knife—"
"And I said to you, 'Kill me, if you like, but do not let me linger long,' and that is all."
"That is all? Yes, that is all. And yet these words made me drop my knife,—made me—ask your pardon,—yes, pardon of you who insulted me. Is that natural? Why, when I recovered my senses, I was ashamed of myself. The evening you came here, when you were on your knees to say your prayers,—why, instead of making game of you, and setting all the dormitory on you, did I say, 'Let her alone; she prays, and has a right to pray?' Then the next day, why were I and all the others ashamed to dress ourselves before you?"
"I do not know, La Louve."
"Indeed!" replied the violent creature, with irony. "You don't know! Why, no doubt, it is because, as we have all of us said, jokingly, that you are of a different sort from us. You think so, don't you?"
"I have never said that I thought so."
"No, you have not said so; but you behave just as if it were so."