“I often feel like that,” Blynn confessed, “with men, I mean.”
“Of course, you do,” Bardek arched his brows. “You are human being wit’ nerves,” he said “ner-r-ufs”—“and you have gr-reat power of affection bottled up, corked, inside of you. But, you are ashamed, eh? to show it?”
“Undoubtedly, quite ashamed. I often want to throw my arms over a good man friend—like Leopold, for instance—but—I’d die first.”
“There!” he turned to Gorgas. “He would die for that! For a little not’ing peoples die. In Turkey the lady would die if she show the lip; in America, the lady would die if she show the foot; in Paris, the lady would die if she not show the foot. In England, the lady and the man sneak away quiet and take the baths in boxes in the ocean; in America they dance together in the water and show the ladies how to float, so! And, oh! so little clothes. Poof! Bah! I would die but for only one thing—when I cannot longer get a good breath! All else is jus’ foolishness. I—”
“Bardek,” interrupted Gorgas, “if you talk any longer I’ll turn you over to the police as a public nuisance.”
“See!” he cried. “How queek I be still. Me voilà! Silencieux comme une carpe—still like fish!”
“This is strictly business, Mr. Blynn. Bardek has been helping me with my exhibition at the Applied Arts—”
“And it is won-derful, her work. I—ach! That is one thing I die for, if they pass law to make me to shut up.”
“They’re going to give me a special exhibition—‘One-man Show,’ they call it. Bardek came back in August, and we’ve been working together in my smithy—the old spring-house, you know. I couldn’t go down the Valley any longer; it wouldn’t look right—”
“Nom d’une pipe!” he blurted. “The land of liberty. Bah!... Excuse!—Toujours silencieux!”