She turned quickly, and saw Parpon on a table in the corner, his legs drawn up to his chin, his black eyes twinkling.
“Idiot!” she cried, and threw the meal at him. He had a very long, quick arm. He caught the basin as it came, but the meal covered him. He blew it from his beard, laughing softly, and twirled the basin on a finger-point.
“Like that, there will need two bags!” he said.
“Imbecile!” she cried, standing angry in the centre of the room.
“Ho, ho, what a big word! See what it is to have the tongue of fashion!”
She looked helplessly round the room. “I will kill you!”
“Let us die together,” answered Parpon; “we are both sad.”
She snatched the poker from the fire, and ran at him. He caught her wrists with his great hands, big enough for tall Medallion, and held her.
“I said ‘together,”’ he chuckled; “not one before the other. We might jump into the flume at the mill, or go over the dam at the Bois Noir; or, there is Farette’s musket which he is cleaning—gracious, but it will kick when it fires, it is so old!”
She sank to the floor. “Why does he clean the musket?” she asked; fear, and something wicked too, in her eye. Her fingers ran forgetfully through the hair on her forehead, pushing it back, and the marks of small-pox showed. The contrast with her smooth cheeks gave her a weird look. Parpon got quickly on the table again and sat like a Turk, with a furtive eye on her. “Who can tell!” he said at last. “That musket has not been fired for years. It would not kill a bird; the shot would scatter: but it might kill a man—a man is bigger.”