“What difference would that have made, if you had been sure of the contrary? You kiss people’s lips, not the words that come out of them!”
“Something more than words used to come out of your lips, on occasion.—Do you remember that night we caught you with the miller?”
“It was all your fault,” she said, “or mine, if you like to say so, but, Colas, you that have so much penetration, did you know one thing? I took him out of pure spite, because you went off that time with Pinon? I had been angry with you for a long time, ever since that evening,—I don’t know if you recollect it,—when you despised me.”
“I? Never in the world!”
“Yes, you, surely you remember one evening when I fell asleep in the garden, and you came and picked me up, but dropped me like a hot potato?”
“Belette,” said I earnestly, “let me tell you all about it.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” said she, “but how if it were to do over again?”
“I think that I should do just the same.”
“What a mutton-head it is!” cried she. “But on my soul! I believe that is the reason why I loved you,—still I thought I would have some fun with you, after that; you deserved to suffer a little, and who could have thought that you would be fool enough to go away from the hook, instead of swallowing it?”
“Much obliged!” said I; “but hooks have sharp points to them.”