"Don't!" he quivered on the word. "It's horrible!—to think that you..." He swallowed hard, remembering the pretty flat, with the Fantine of old, proud and brilliant—and now ... this!
"I'm going to be married," he said quickly—"At least I hope so. But that's no reason why I shouldn't help an old friend."
Fantine drew herself up erect.
"If I choose to take——" her voice was sharp—"I give too! That is honest, I think. I have never asked for charity. But ... oh, mon Dieu!" she broke down under McTaggart's pitiful glance. "Life is hard. C'est un sale métier! And I can't sink—I can't ... I can't ..." a sob broke from the painted lips—"not to ... that!"
She pointed straight to the lights beyond the silvery arch, to Piccadilly, broad and smooth.
McTaggart felt suddenly humbled. He thought for a moment painfully of the lives of those other women, placed for ever outside the pale, sacrificed to man's desire...
Then he spoke.
"Look here, Fantine. I think you're a splendid little woman! I'd feel proud to be your friend. The pluck of you!"—(he meant it, too). "I wouldn't dream of insulting you by—well—by offering financial help without any equivalent. But there's something you can do for me—if you will?—and it's not too dull?"
She stared at him wonderingly. A faint glimmer of hope shone in the tragic depths of her topaz eyes. The reddened lips parted a little. "Eh bien?"
He felt the strain in her voice and hurried on, full of compassion.