"Voyons donc, my Pierrot!" she said. "It is not a funeral to which we go to-morrow, at least! Thou must be gay, for we have much to talk of, thou knowest. One dines at La Boîte?"
"The dinner is there, such as it is," replied Pierre gloomily.
"What it is now, is not the question," said Mimi, with confidence, "but what I make of it—pas? And then there is to-morrow! Oh, lala, lalala! What a pleasure it will be, if only the good God gives us beautiful weather. Dis, donc, great thunder-cloud, dost thou know it, this Poissy?"
Pierre had begun a caricature on the back of the wine-card, glancing now and again at his model, an old man selling newspapers on the curb. He shook his head without replying.
"Eh, b'en, my little one, thou mayest believe me that it is of all places the most beautiful! One eats at the Esturgeon, on the Seine,—but on the Seine, with the water quite near, like that chair. He names himself Jarry, the proprietor, and it is a good type—fat and handsome. I adore him! Art thou jealous, species of thinness of a hundred nails? B'en, afterwards, one takes a boat, and goes, softly, softly, down the little arm of the Seine, and creeps under the willows, and, perhaps, fishes. But no, for it is the closed season. But one sings, eh? What does one sing? Voyons!"
She bent forward, and, in a little voice, like an elf's, very thin and sweet, hummed a snatch of a song they both knew.
"C'est votre ami Pierrot qui vient vous voir:
Bonsoir, madame la lune!"
"And then," she went on, as Pierre continued his sketch in silence, "and then, one disembarks at Villennes and has a Turin under the arbors of Bodin. Another handsome type, Bodin! Flut! What a man!"
Mimi paused suddenly, and searched his cloudy face with her earnest, tender little eyes.