"So much the worse for you. It is not every one by a long chalk that can find some one to keep them, and kept I am, and in slap-up style, madame."
"So much the worse! What do you mean? Oh, you may toss your head and go about in scarves, you will never have as many declarations as I have had, missus. You will never match the Belle Ecaillere of the Cadran Bleu."
Heloise Brisetout rose at once to her feet, stood at attention, and made a military salute, like a soldier who meets his general.
"What?" asked Gaudissart, "are you really La Belle Ecaillere of whom my father used to talk?"
"In that case the cachucha and the polka were after your time; and madame has passed her fiftieth year," remarked Heloise, and striking an attitude, she declaimed, "'Cinna, let us be friends.'"
"Come, Heloise, the lady is not up to this; let her alone."
"Madame is perhaps the New Heloise," suggested La Cibot, with sly innocence.
"Not bad, old lady!" cried Gaudissart.
"It is a venerable joke," said the dancer, "a grizzled pun; find us another old lady—or take a cigarette."
"I beg your pardon, madame, I feel too unhappy to answer you; my two gentlemen are very ill; and to buy nourishment for them and to spare them trouble, I have pawned everything down to my husband's clothes that I pledged this morning. Here is the ticket!"