"Too much so," Barabant retorted. "I admit I am impressionable, but to-night the blow seemed to fall from above our own heads."
"You are superstitious. You will be telling me next that you had a premonition about your own neck."
"Hardly; but, my friend, yours is so long and the chances of politics are so many--"
"Don't trouble yourself," replied Goursac, laughing, and with a mock gesture he extended his fist. "As for my neck, Madame Guillotine, I defy you to take it." He turned to Barabant. "You, my friend, are so gallant that I won't answer for yours."
They passed into the Rue Royale, Goursac slightly in advance. Barabant, rubbing shoulders with the departing crowd, felt a pull on his arm and heard the voice of Nicole saying mischievously:
Too astonished to make answer, he remained dumbly gazing into the teasing countenance; but at that moment Goursac, perceiving them, called out indulgently:
"That's right, children; we don't live long enough for lovers to quarrel. I'll keep discreetly ahead."
Barabant persisting in his silence, Nicole continued pleadingly:
She said it in such a gentle tone, sighing slightly, that Barabant's anger held no longer; still, as a measure of policy, he kept silent.
Goursac, preparing to wheel into a side street, called back, with a laugh of which only Nicole could guess the cost:
"Good-by, my children; I leave you in peace. Love-making is disconcerting to the older generation. Reconcile yourselves quickly."
Barabant and Nicole, thus left to themselves, continued arm in arm silently homeward, avoiding the thronged thoroughfares, the noise and the lights, plunging by preference down quiet ways where only an occasional window reddened the sides of the night. Barabant struggled to maintain his just anger; Nicole, who had yielded to an impulse in accosting him, searched for some means to regain the ground which she felt she had surrendered.
"You don't answer," she said at last, withdrawing her arm half-way. "You want me to go?"
He freed himself brusquely and faced her with the angry cry:
"No, that I am not!" she cried, and seizing his arm, she said rapidly: "Barabant, it is not true. You have no right to say that!"
"You still believe I am playing with you?"