The boatman sent a loud laugh over the water. Hortense drew her cloak closer about her.
'I'm afraid there is none.'
'Isn't there a right of self-defence?'
'To be sure there is—it's one I ought to know something about. But it's one that ces messieurs at the Palais make short work with.'
'In South America and those countries, when a man makes life insupportable to you, what do you do?'
'Mon Dieu! I suppose you kill him.'
'And in France?'
'I suppose you kill yourself. Ha! ha! ha!'
By this time they had reached the end of the great breakwater, terminating in a lighthouse, the limit, on one side, of the inner harbor. The sun had set.
'Here we are at the lighthouse,' said the man; 'it's growing dark. Shall we turn?'