"I owe most to those two," she said. "But for them I should not know what a bird is, or a plant, or a tree—the meaning of real things."
"It wasn't them, however, who taught you to dance on a tight rope and manage a circus," said Saint-Quentin, chaffing her.
"I've always danced on the tight rope. Some people are born poets. I was born a rope-dancer. Dancing is part of me. I get that from my mother who was by no means a theatrical star, but simply a fine little dancer, a dancing-girl of the music-halls and the English circus. I see her still. She was adorable; she could never keep still; and she loved stuffs of gorgeous colors ... and beautiful jewels even more."
"Like you," said Saint-Quentin in a low voice.
"Like me," she said. "Yes: I take an extravagant pleasure in handling them and looking at them. I love things that shine. All these stones throw out flames which dazzle me. I should like to be very rich in order to have very fine ones that I should wear always—on my fingers and round my neck."
"And since you will never be rich?"
"Then I shall do without them."
For all that she had been brought up anyhow, deprived of mentors and good advice, having only before her eyes as example the frivolous life her parents led, she had acquired strong moral principles, always maintained a considerable natural dignity, and remained untroubled by the reproaches of conscience. That which is evil is evil—no traffic in it.
"One is happy," she said, "when one is in perfect agreement with good people. I am a good girl. If one lets one's self be guilty of a doubtful action, one repeats it without knowing it and one ends by yielding to temptation as one picks flowers and fruit over the hedge by the roadside."
Dorothy did not pick flowers and fruit over the hedge.