Here, Kleber."
The animal lifted its head toward its master; then it climbed upon him, mounted his shoulders, and, after a thousand caresses and a thousand pretty tricks, rolled itself around the captain's neck, like a handkerchief.
Rose said nothing. She seemed vexed.
Then an infernal idea flashed into my mind.
"I will bet you," I said, suddenly,—"I will bet you, Captain, that you would not eat your ferret."
The captain looked at me with profound astonishment, and then with infinite sadness. His eyes became round, his lips quivered.
"Kleber?" he stammered; "eat Kleber?"
Evidently this question had never occurred to him, who had eaten everything. A sort of new world, strangely comestible, appeared before him.
"I will bet," I repeated, ferociously, "that you would not eat your ferret."
Bewildered, distressed, moved by a mysterious and invincible shock, the old captain had risen from his bench.
He was extraordinarily agitated.
"Just say that again, and see!" he stammered.
For the third time, violently, separating each word, I said:
"I will bet that you would not eat your ferret."
"I would not eat my ferret?
What's that you say?
You say that I would not eat it?
Yes, you say that?
Well, you shall see. I tell you that I eat everything."
He seized the ferret. As one breaks a loaf of bread, he broke the little beast's back with a snap, and threw it, dead without a shock, without a spasm, on the sandy path, shouting to Rose:
"Make me a stew out of that for dinner!"
And, madly gesticulating, he ran to shut himself up in the house.
For some minutes I felt a real and unspeakable horror.
Still completely dazed by the abominable action that I had just committed, I rose to go.
I was very pale.
Rose accompanied me.
With a smile she confided to me:
"I am not sorry for what has just happened.
He was too fond of his ferret.
I do not wish him to love anything.
He loves his flowers already too much to suit me."
After a short silence, she added:
"But he will never forgive you for that.
He is not a man to be defied. An old soldier, you know!"
Then, a few steps farther on:
"Pay attention, my little one.
They are beginning to gossip about you in the neighborhood.
It seems that you were seen the other day, in the garden, with Monsieur Lanlaire.
It is very imprudent, believe me.
He will get you into trouble, if he hasn't already done so. You want to look out for yourself."
And, as she closed the gate behind me:
"Well, au revoir!
Now I must go to make my stew."
All day long I saw before my eyes the body of the poor little ferret, lying there on the sandy path. _____
This evening, at dinner, when dessert was being served, Madame said to me, very severely:
"If you like prunes, you have only to ask me for them; I will see if I can give you any; but I forbid you to take them."
I answered: "I am not a thief, Madame, and I do not like prunes."
Madame insisted:
"I tell you that you have taken some prunes."
I replied: "If Madame thinks me a thief, Madame has only to pay me and let me go."