“Oh, if I were a man!” Suzanne declared, enthusiastically, “I’d make a fool of myself for Helia! Tell me all about her,” she went on. “Love-stories are so amusing!”
Phil told about the little Saint John, the lamb, the game of Wolf, the poster-umbrella, the dressing-room under the benches, and his last interview with Helia, when she had given him the address of the Hôtel des Artistes and his letter of introduction.
Suzanne drank in his words, turn by turn moved to tenderness or laughter.
“Oh, it does me good to hear it! There’s love for you!” she cried, putting her hand to her heart with a gesture of the stage.
“I see that you are an actress,” Phil observed.
“An actress? I? Penses-tu, bébé? I appeared once in a cabaret artistique—it disgusted me with the theater for the rest of my life!”
“You forget that you play the Muse at our reunion,” Poufaille interrupted.
“Oh, yes! the Muse,” Suzanne replied. “You see, Phil, since they bore themselves to death in Paris, those from each province meet together and give balls and receptions and lectures and what not; and they give dinners, too—and sing to the sound of the hurdy-gurdy.”
“I’m the hurdy-gurdy!” cried Poufaille.
“And I’m the one that sings,” added Suzanne. “I eat garlic that day and improvise in patois—and every one thinks I belong to his province. Et aïe donc, et vive la joie!”