Garron half wheeled and faced her as her breath touched his coarse ear.
"Eh bien! what is it?" he exclaimed, searching vainly for something else to say.
"Eh ben! Ça! Nom de Dieu!" returned his mate nodding to the bundle. "It is pretty—that!"
"Tu m'accuses, hein?" he snarled.
"They do not leave bundles of that kind at the wrong door," she retorted in reply, half closing her blue eyes and her red hands.
"Allons! allons!" he exclaimed with heat, still at a loss for his words.
With her woman's instinct she brushed past him and started to pick up the bundle, but he was too quick for her and drew her roughly back, gripping her waist so sharply that he felt her wince.
"It does not pass like that!" he cried sharply. "Eh ben! listen to me. I'm too old a rat to be made a fool of—to be tricked like that!"
"Tricked!" she laughed back—"No, my old one—it is as simple as bonjour, and since it is thine thou wilt keep it. Thou'lt—keep what thou—"