She rolled up her sleeve and displayed the shapeliest arm imaginable, as white and fresh as her hand was red and rough; a plump, round, dimpled arm, drawn from its merino sheath like a blade from the scabbard to dazzle Pons, who looked away.
“For every oyster the knife opened, the arm has opened a heart! Well, it belongs to Cibot, and I did wrong when I neglected him, poor dear, HE would throw himself over a precipice at a word from me; while you, sir, that call me ‘My dear Mme. Cibot’ when I do impossible things for you—”
“Do just listen to me,” broke in the patient; “I cannot call you my mother, nor my wife—”
“No, never in all my born days will I take again to anybody—”
“Do let me speak!” continued Pons. “Let me see; I put M. Schmucke first—”
“M. Schmucke! there is a heart for you,” cried La Cibot. “Ah! he loves me, but then he is poor. It is money that deadens the heart; and you are rich! Oh, well, take a nurse, you will see what a life she will lead you; she will torment you, you will be like a cockchafer on a string. The doctor will say that you must have plenty to drink, and she will do nothing but feed you. She will bring you to your grave and rob you. You do not deserve to have a Mme. Cibot!—there! When Dr. Poulain comes, ask him for a nurse.”
“Oh fiddlestickend!” the patient cried angrily. “Will you listen to me? When I spoke of my friend Schmucke, I was not thinking of women. I know quite well that no one cares for me so sincerely as you do, you and Schmucke—”
“Have the goodness not to irritate yourself in this way!” exclaimed La Cibot, plunging down upon Pons and covering him by force with the bedclothes.
“How should I not love you?” said poor Pons.
“You love me, really?... There, there, forgive me, sir!” she said, crying and wiping her eyes. “Ah, yes, of course, you love me, as you love a servant, that is the way!—a servant to whom you throw an annuity of six hundred francs like a crust you fling into a dog’s kennel—”