" And when I laugh in his face,
he say again, "And if he thought he wasn't its father, he would cut
out the liver of the other--eh?" And I laugh, and say, "My Jacques
would follow him to hell to do it." Then he say, Voban, he say to
me, "That is the difference between you and us. We only kill men who
meddle with our mistresses!" Ah, that M'sieu' Doltaire, he put a
louis in the hand of my babe, and he not even kiss me on the cheek.
Pshaw! Jacques would sell him fifty kisses for fifty louis. But sell
me, or a child of me? Well, Voban, you can guess! Pah, barber, if
you do not care what he did to the poor Mathilde, there are other
maids in St. Roch.'"
Voban paused a moment then added quietly, "How do you think I bear
it all? With a smile? No, I hear with my ears open and my heart
close tight. Do they think they can teach me? Do they guess I sit
down and hear all without a cry from my throat or a will in my body?
Ah, m'sieu' le Capitaine, it is you who know. You saw what I would
have go to do with M'sieu' Doltaire before the day of the Great
Birth. You saw if I am coward--if I not take the sword when it was
at my throat without a whine. No, m'sieu', I can wait. Then is a
time for everything.
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