The Marquis, always a despot, had latterly misused her most vilely.
That very morning, at breakfast, he had cursed the fishballs and sneered at the pickled onions.
She is a good cook. The neighbors will tell you so. And to be told by the base Marquis—a man who, previous to his marriage, had lived at the cheap eating-houses—to be told by him that her manner of frying fishballs was a failure—it was too much.
Her tears fell fast. I too wept. I mixed my sobs with her'n.
"Fly with me!" I cried.
Her lips met mine. I held her in my arms. I felt her breath upon my cheek! It was Hunkey.
"Fly with me. To New York! I will write romances for the Sunday papers—real French romances, with morals to them. My style will be appreciated. Shop girls and young mercantile persons will adore it, and I will amass wealth with my ready pen."
Ere she could reply—ere she could articulate her ecstasy, her husband, the Marquis, crept snake-like upon me.
Shall I write it? He kicked me out of the garden—he kicked me into the street.
I did not return. How could I? I, so ethereal, so full of soul, of sentiment, of sparkling originality! He, so gross, so practical, so lop-eared!
Had I returned, the creature would have kicked me again.