"You dare not do what I have done." "If there be a need I will do it. If I do it for a purpose there is no folly in it. That is folly where there is recklessness for no purpose." "I had a purpose!" "A purpose?--what? To call my attention to you, to make me admire your daring, all to no end. Or was it in mere inconsiderate prank? A man is not brave merely because he is so stupid that he does not see the consequences before him. A blind man may walk where I should shrink from treading. And stupidity blinds some eyes that they run into danger and neither see nor care for the danger or for the consequences that will ensue on their rashness." The girl flushed with anger. "I am not accustomed to be spoken to thus," she said, and stamped her foot on the pavement of the platform. "All the better for you that it is spoken at last." "And who are you that dare say it?" "I--I am Jean del' Peyra." The girl laughed contemptuously. "I never heard the name." "I have told you my name, what is yours?" asked the boy, and he picked up his staff and began once more to point it. There was indifference in his tone, indifference in the act, that exasperated the girl. "You do not care--I will not say." "No," he answered, scraping leisurely at the wood. "I do not greatly care. Why should I? You have shown me to-day that you do not value yourself, and you do not suppose, then, that I can esteem one who does not esteem herself." "You dare say that!" The girl flared into fury. She stooped to pick up the hammer. Jean put his foot on it. "No," said he. "You would use that, I suppose, to knock out my brains, because I show you no homage, because I say that you have acted as a fool, that your bravery is that of a fool, that your thoughts--aye, your thoughts of plunder and murder against the Bishop of Sarlat, your old owl--towhit, towhoo! are the thoughts of a fool. No--I do not care for the name of a fool." "Why did you run up the steps? Why did you cry to me to desist from knocking out the posts? Why concern yourself a mite about me, if you so despise me?" gasped the girl, and it seemed as though the words shot like flames from her lips. "Because we are of like blood--that is all!" answered Jean, coolly. "Like blood! Hear him--hear him! He and I--_he_--he and I of like blood, and he a del' Peyra! And I--I am a Noémi!" "So--Noémi! That is your name?" "And I," continued the girl in her raging wrath, "I--learn this--I am the child of Le Gros Guillem. Have you ever heard of the Gros Guillem?" she asked in a tone of triumph, like the blast of a victor's trumpet. Jean lowered his staff, and looked steadily at her. His brows were contracted, his lips were set firm. "So!" he said, after a pause. "The daughter of Gros Guillem?" "Aye--have you heard of him?" "Of course I have heard of him." "And of the del' Peyras who ever heard?" asked the girl with mockery and scorn, and snapped her fingers.