"Dreadful? Pardieu, not so dreadful," he answered, smiling, and striving
to give the dispute a playful turn. "You have seen more in a week than
you would have seen at Vrillac in a lifetime, Mademoiselle."

"And I choke!" she retorted; "I choke! Do you not see how they look at
us, at us Huguenots, in the street? How they, who live here, point at us
and curse us? How the very dogs scent us out and snarl at our heels, and
the babes cross themselves when we go by? Can you see the Place des
Gastines and not think what stood there? Can you pass the Greve at night
and not fill the air above the river with screams and wailings and
horrible cries--the cries of our people murdered on that spot?" She
paused for breath, recovered herself a little, and in a lower tone, "For
me," she said, "I think of Philippa de Luns by day and by night! The
eaves are a threat to me; the tiles would fall on us had they their will;
the houses nod to--to--"

"To what, Mademoiselle?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders and assuming a
tone of cynicism.

"To crush us! Yes, Monsieur, to crush us!"

"And all this because I left you for a moment?"

"For an hour--or well-nigh an hour," she answered more soberly.

"But if I could not help it?"

"You should have thought of that--before you brought me to Paris,
Monsieur. In these troublous times."