“It is the first thing I ever knew you and Julie Campionet to agree on yet—that the two of you are ‘everybody’. But mind what I say—no flirtations. Duvernet beats his wives, you know; and you come of people who don’t beat their wives, although you are only a little third-rate actress at a fourth-rate theater.”
Fifi’s eyes blazed up angrily at this, but it did not disturb Cartouche in the least.
“And you couldn’t stand blows from a husband,” Cartouche continued, “and that’s what the women in Duvernet’s class expect. Look you. My father was an honest man, and a good shoemaker, and kind to my mother, God bless her. But sometimes he got in drink and then he gave my mother a whack occasionally. Did she mind it? Not a bit, but gave him back as good as he sent; and when my father got sober, it was all comfortably made up between them. But that is not the way with people of your sort—because you are not named Chiaramonti for nothing.”
“It seems as if I were named Chiaramonti for nothing, if I am, as you say, only a little third-rate actress at a fourth-rate theater,” replied Fifi, sulkily.
To this Cartouche answered only:
“At all events, there’s no question of marrying for you, Fifi, unless you marry a gentleman, and there is about as much chance of that, as that pigs will learn to fly.”
“So, I am to have neither lover nor husband, no flirtations, no attachments—” Fifi turned an angry, charming face on Cartouche.
“Exactly.”
“Cartouche,” said Fifi, after a pause, and examining Cartouche’s brawny figure, “I wish you were not so big—nor so overbearing.”
“I dare say you wish it was my arm instead of my leg that is stiff,” said Cartouche.