Taffy drew a long breath into his manly bosom, and kept it there as he read this characteristic French doggerel (for so he chose to call this touching little symphony in ère and ra). His huge frame thrilled with tenderness and pity and fond remembrance, and he said to himself (letting out his breath): "Dear, dear Trilby! Ah! if you had only cared for me, I wouldn't have let you give me up—not for any one on earth. You were the mate for me!"
And that, as the reader has guessed long ago, was big Taffy's "history."
The Laird was also deeply touched, and could not speak. Had he been in love with Trilby, too? Had he ever been in love with any one?
He couldn't say. But he thought of Trilby's sweetness and unselfishness, her gayety, her innocent kissings and caressings, her drollery and frolicsome grace, her way of filling whatever place she was in with her presence, the charming sight and the genial sound of her; and felt that no girl, no woman, no lady he had ever seen yet was a match for this poor waif and stray, this long-legged, cancan-dancing, quartier-latin grisette, blanchisseuse de fin, "and Heaven knows what besides!"
"Hang it all!" he mentally ejaculated, "I wish to goodness I'd married her myself!"
Little Billee said nothing either. He felt unhappier than he had ever once felt for five long years—to think that he could gaze on such a memento as this, a thing so strongly personal to himself, with dry eyes and a quiet pulse! and he unemotionally, dispassionately, wished himself dead and buried for at least the thousand and first time!
All three possessed casts of Trilby's hands and feet and photographs of herself. But nothing so charmingly suggestive of Trilby as this little masterpiece of a true artist, this happy fluke of a happy moment. It was Trilbyness itself, as the Laird thought, and should not be suffered to perish.
They took the keys back to Madame Vinard in silence.
She said: "Vous avez vu—n'est-ce pas, messieurs?—le pied de Trilby! c'est bien gentil! C'est Monsieur Durien qui a fait mettre le verre, quand vous êtes partis; et Monsieur Guinot qui a composé l'épitaphe. Pauvre Trilby! qu'est-ce qu'elle est devenue! comme elle était bonne fille, hein? et si belle! et comme elle était vive elle était vive elle était vive! Et comme elle vous aimait tous bien—et surtout Monsieur Litrebili—n'est-ce pas?"