The girl turned round and laughed.
"I won't have it! I will not have it!" cried Noël Dorgeroux, rushing in her direction. "I won't have it, I tell you! Get out, you mischief!"
Bérangère ran away, without, however, displaying any great perturbation. She leapt on a stack of bricks, scrambled on to a long plank which formed a bridge between two barrels and began to dance as she was wont to do, with her arms outstretched like a balancing-pole and her bust thrown slightly backwards.
"You'll lose your balance," I said, while my uncle drew the curtain.
"Never!" she replied, jumping up and down on her spring-board.
She did not lose her balance. But the plank shifted and the pretty dancer came tumbling down among a heap of old packing-cases.
I ran to her assistance and found her lying on the ground, looking very white.
"Have you hurt yourself, Bérangère?"
"No . . . hardly . . . just my ankle . . . perhaps I've sprained it."
I lifted her, almost fainting, in my arms and carried her to a wooden bench a little farther away.