The damsel had turned wasp, and asked nothing better than to sting.
Our philosopher stood abashed, glancing alternately at the girl and the goat in utter confusion. “Holy Virgin!” he exclaimed at last, when surprise allowed him to speak, “here’s a determined pair!”
The gipsy girl broke the silence in her turn. “You must be a very bold rascal!”
“Forgive me, mademoiselle,” said Gringoire with a smile. “But why did you marry me, then?”
“Was I to let them hang you?”
“So,” replied the poet, somewhat disappointed in his amorous hopes, “you had no other idea in wedding me than to save me from the gibbet?”
“And what other idea should I have had?”
Gringoire bit his lips. “Well,” said he, “I am not quite such a conquering hero as I supposed. But then, what was the use of breaking that poor pitcher?”
But Esmeralda’s dagger and the goat’s horns still remained on the defensive.
“Mademoiselle Esmeralda,” said the poet, “let us come to terms. I am not clerk of the Chatelet, and I shall not pick a quarrel with you for carrying concealed weapons in Paris, in the face of the provost’s orders and prohibition. Yet you must know that Noel Le scrivain was sentenced to pay ten Paris pence only a week ago for wearing a broadsword. Now, that is none of my business, and I will come to the point. I swear to you, by all my hopes of paradise, that I will not come near you without your sovereign leave and permission; but give me some supper.”
To tell the truth, Gringoire, like Despréaux, was “very little of a Don Juan.” He was not one of the chivalric, musketeering kind who take girls by storm. In the matter of love, as in all other matters, he was always for temporizing and compromising; and a good supper, in friendly society, struck him, especially when he was hungry, as an excellent interlude between the prologue and the issue of an intrigue.
The gipsy made no answer. She gave her usual scornful little pout, cocked her head like a bird, then burst out laughing, and the dainty dagger disappeared as it came, Gringoire being still unable to discover where the bee hid her sting.
A moment later, a rye loaf, a slice of bacon, a few withered apples, and a jug of beer were on the table. Gringoire began to eat greedily. Judging by the fierce clatter of his iron fork against his earthen-plate, all his love had turned to hunger.
The young girl seated near him looked on in silence, evidently absorbed in other thoughts, at which she occasionally smiled, while her gentle hand caressed the intelligent head of the goat as it rested idly against her knee.
A yellow wax candle lit up this scene of voracity and reverie.
However, the first cravings of hunger appeased, Gringoire felt somewhat ashamed to find that there was but one apple left. “You don’t eat, Mademoiselle Esmeralda?”
She answered by a shake of the head, and her pensive gaze was fixed on the arched roof of the cell.
“What the devil is she thinking about?” thought Gringoire; and, looking to see what she was looking at: “It can’t be the wry face of that stone dwarf carved upon yonder keystone which so absorbs her attention. What the devil! I’m sure I can stand the comparison!”
He raised his voice: “Mademoiselle!”
She did not seem to hear him.
He spoke still louder: “Mademoiselle Esmeralda!”
Labor lost. The girl’s mind was elsewhere, and Gringoire’s voice had no power to call it back. Luckily the goat interfered, by softly pulling her mistress by the sleeve.
“What do you want, Djali?” said the gipsy, hastily, as if roused suddenly.
“The creature is hungry,” said Gringoire, delighted to open the conversation.
Esmeralda began to crumple some bread, which Djali nibbled daintily from the hollow of her hand.
However, Gringoire gave her no time to resume her reverie. He risked a delicate question:— “Then you don’t want me for your husband?”
The young girl looked steadily at him, and replied, “No.”
“For your lover?” continued Gringoire.
She pouted, and answered, “No.”
“For your friend?” went on Gringoire.
She looked at him fixedly once more, and after an instant’s reflection, said, “Perhaps.”
This “perhaps,” so dear to philosophers, emboldened Gringoire.
“Do you know what friendship is?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered the gipsy; “it is to be brother and sister; two souls which meet without mingling, two fingers of one hand.”