"Voyons!" he explained, "thou dost not believe me angry! Mais non, mais non! But listen. It is I who am the next to the last of idiots, since I have never a sou in pocket, never! And the imbecile restaurateur, whose wife I have been painting, will not return until to-morrow, and so I am not paid. Voilà!"
He placed his five-franc piece upon the table, and shrugged his shoulders.
"One full moon!" he said, and piled the three sous upon it. "And three soldiers. As I sit here, that is all, until to-morrow night. We cannot go!"
Brave little Mimi! Already she was winking back her tears, and smiling.
"But that—that is nothing!" she answered. "I do not care to go. No—but truly! Look! We shall spend the day in the studio, and breakfast on the balcony, and pretend the rue Visconti is the Seine."
"I am an empty siphon!" said Pierre, yielding to desperation.
"Non!" said Mimi firmly.
"I am a pierced basket, a box of matches!"
"Non! Non!" said Mimi, with tremendous earnestness. "Thou art Pierrot, and I love thee! Let us say no more. I shall go back and prepare the dinner, and thou shalt remain and drink a Pernod. It will give thee heart. But follow quickly. Give me the key."
She laid her wide-spread hand on his, palm upward, like a little pink starfish.