Louison, at the familiarity, recoiled, while anger like a blast from an oven inflamed her face. Her hand stole to her bosom, and with a sudden movement she hid a knife behind her. Dossonville, feigning ignorance, appeared engrossed in the selection of a cockade from the abandoned basket. But as the girl in her passion leaped at him, he sprang aside, whipped out his sword, and flung himself behind a table.
Then, those without, flattening their noses against the window or peering through the doorway, beheld a furious combat between them; the man, always cool and alert, checking the rushes of the girl with the point of his sword, turning, retreating, or advancing as his assailant, with the rapidity of a bird, flew from point to point, darting, feinting, or striking for an opening. Meanwhile above the scuffle and the patter of feet the voice of Dossonville rose imperturbably in running comment:
"Hoop-là, parried! A little more to the left and you had me. Mordieu, who'd have thought a pretty woman would resent a kiss? Such a fraternal kiss, too, so full of gratitude! Perhaps that's the trouble; you never can tell with a woman. What now?"
Bounding on the table, the girl without a pause leaped full at him.
"Bravo! That's a jump for you. What a woman! Louison, you are splendid. Dame, what fury! À toi!"
Hard pressed with the recklessness of her attacks, he threatened her throat so closely that, with the slightest stiffening of his arm, he would have run her through.
"A life for a life! there's gratitude for you!"
From outside they cried to him offers of help.
"Never; any man that interferes, I'll shoot down. This little affair is between us,—eh, Louison? What now?"
He sprang away, barely avoiding a chair hurled to break down his guard.