"Certes! But your terms are too generous,—and—and, you know the object of my heart, mademoiselle."
"Toujours! And I will help you attain that object if possible," she said, warmly, pressing his hand.
"You are too good, mademoiselle," he responded. "Next to one woman I think you are the best woman I ever knew!"
He took her in his strong arms and kissed her tenderly, though she struggled faintly.
"Enough! enough! You must not do that, monsieur! I do not like it. Remember how I hate men, spoony men,—they disgust me! As a woman I can be nothing to you; as a friend I may be much. Save your caresses, monsieur, for the woman you love! You understand?"
"There! no offence, little one. Am I not your brother?" he asked, laughing.
She nervously readjusted her blonde hair before the little glass and did not reply. But it was evident that she was not very angry, for Mlle. Fouchette was explosive and went off at a rude touch.
At the same moment a terrible racket rose from the stairway,—the sound of a woman's voice and blows and the howling of a dog. Leaning over the banister the young couple saw a woman, short, broad, bareheaded, and angry, wielding a broom-handle. The passage was rather narrow, so that more than half of the whacks at the dog were spent upon the wall and balustrade, though the animal, lashed to the latter, yelped at every blow the same.
Now, in Paris a dog is a sort of a privileged animal, not quite sacred. Rome was saved by geese, pigeons are venerated in Venice. Dogs preserved Paris in the fearful day of the great siege by suffering themselves to be turned into soups, steaks, sausage, etc. Since which Paris has become the dog paradise, where all good dogs go when they die. They not only have the right of way everywhere, but the exclusive right of the sunny sidewalks in winter and shady side in summer. A Frenchman will beat his wife, or stab his mistress in the back, club his horses fiendishly, but he will never raise hand or foot against a dog.
From every landing came a burst of remonstrance and indignation. Vituperative language peculiar to a neighborhood that has enjoyed the intimate society of two thousand years of accumulated human wisdom and intellectual greatness, and embellished and decorated by the old masters, rose and fell upon the sinful dog-beater, with the effect of increasing the blows.