"Against one poison; but against the Society Lady that is arisen there is no victory," said the Count. "It has already been done, as my transformation shewed. It's no longer with sunni-délit that one poisons you, but with coulaïde; I recognised it by the sinister face that forms itself from the dregs, and from the faint but horrific sound of 'oh, yeah!' that issues forth therefrom. If you had drunk what Mme. de Villefaramir has just poured in thy glass, Valartine, thou wert lost, and thine would be the death that turneth its victims into pitchers with fatuous smile, and maketh them say 'Oh yeah!' ere they expire."
"But, mon Érou!" cried the girl. "Why pursueth she me thus?"
"What! You are so good, so sweet, so unbelieving in evil that you do not understand, Valartine? You are rich, Valartine; you have two hundred thousand fats-hobbites in rent, and of those two hundred thousand fats-hobbites you have depriven her cat. And that is why M. and Mme. d'Imrahil died, so that you would inherit from your parents; that is why, from the day he made you his heir, M. Tête-de-pomme... M. Dénéthoirtier was condemned; that is why you, in turn, Valartine, must die: it is so that your father and stepmother inherit from you, and their cat (they call him, though he owns their entire mansion as the atelier of his scratchings) inherit from them."
"Thibaut! Poor child; it is for him that one commits all these crimes?" Oh, mon Érou! provided all that not rebound upon his feline head!"
"Valartine, you are an Aïnou."
