"You are mad, Señor; no one that I know—I less than anyone—has any intention to injure these ladies in any way. Since their arrival here at Casa-Frama, you cannot deny that they have been treated with the greatest attention and respect. Of what do they complain?"
"They complain of being exposed to misplaced and almost dishonouring attentions on your part; moreover, they say with reason that, far from giving them that liberty that you had engaged to give them, you sequester them, and treat them as if they were your captives."
Don Pablo shrugged his shoulders with disdain.
"The women are all alike," said he, with irony; "nothing will satisfy them. I am in a better position than these ladies are to judge what is fitting for them.
"Besides, if they will keep quiet, they will not have long to remain here, and if the sight of my companions shocks them, they will soon be delivered from it."
"It is not the sight of your companions which shocks them, but yours and your brothers—the ridiculous homage with which you fatigue them every hour of the day, and the pretentions that you do not fear to make everyone acquainted with."
The features of the partisan contracted, a terrified pallor covered his face, and his eyebrows were knitted till they met.
"Take care, Señor," cried he in a sullen and forced tone, repressing with great difficulty the anger which he felt; "take care; you are in my power—do not forget that; and I am the man whom his enemies have called the bear of Casa-Frama."
"What matters it to me the names they give you?" cried Emile, forgetting all bounds: "One only will suit you, if you persist in the fatal course you have entered on—that of bandit."
"Vive Dieu!" cried he, with violence, "This insult deserves blood! A coward only dares thus to outrage a man without arms."