"Was it because I seemed ungrateful for the little love you offered me?"
The two tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped upon his wrist. With quivering mouth she strove to frame what her face confessed would be a lie.
He no longer hesitated, but caught her to his breast and crushed the naughty falsehood with his lips.
How long the operation would have lasted it is impossible to guess, for two shining eyes set in slumber-flushed cheeks peered suddenly from the distant cot, and a prattling voice, unabashed and lusty, shouted:—
"Tiss me too—Dot Dandy!"
Romance of the Coulisses.
"Menez moi dit ma belle
A la rive fidele
Ou l'on aime toujours."
The difficulty of apprehending the female character is well-nigh insurmountable. Woman has been called chameleon, weathercock, enigma; but an enigma has a solution which may be reached by patience or accident, a weathercock will confess the bent of the wind for however short a space, and the colour of a chameleon can be periodically proved by its dietary. But woman—she is a reiterating question, an argument sans crux, a volume with uncut leaves dotted about through the most exciting chapters. Without the right clue you must dip and skip, now pricked, now irritated, till you approach a frenzy bordering on madness. For you like to know the sort of creature you are dealing with—a painter especially, since his fame hangs on his knowledge—hence these ruminations round Betty.