"Marry!" she laughed a shrill laugh—"For why, Nicholas?—A tie-up to one man, hein?—to what good?—and yet who can say—to be an honored wife is the one experience I do not know yet!"—she laughed again—.
"And who is Georgine—you have not spoken of her before, Suzette?"
She reddened a little under her new terra cotta rouge.
"No?—Oh! Georgine is my little first mistake—but I have her beautifully brought up, Nicholas—with the Holy Mother at St. Brieux. I am then her Aunt—so to speak—the wife of a small shop keeper in Paris, you must know—She adores me—and I give all I can to St. Georges-des-Près—. Georgine will be a lady and marry the Mayor's son—one day—."
Something touched me infinitely. This queer little demi-mondaine mother—her thoughts set on her child's purity, and the conventional marriage for her—in the future. Her plebeian, insolent little round face so kindly in repose.
I respect Suzette far more than my friends of the world—.
When she left—it was perhaps in bad taste, but I gave her a quite heavy four figure cheque.
"For the education of Georgine—Suzette."
She flung her arms round my neck and kissed me frankly on both cheeks, and tears were brimming over in her merry black eyes.
"Thou hast after all a heart, and art after all a gentleman, Nicholas—Va!—"—and she ran from the room.