"Ta-ta-ta! Enough of your stuff and nonsense," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "You are too big a simpleton—a little woman like that will always get the best of you."
"But there is no quarrel, and I am not in the least interested."
"Oh, avec ça—keep away—better keep away! You will burn your fingers. Just the kind of a little doll that is dangerous. Women like that are like half colors between one thing and the other—very dangerous! A young girl—jeune fille—would bore you now, and an old campaigner like Emma Fornez would amuse you; but a little thing like that is too puzzling for you. I see just how it is," she continued, placing her hands on her hips and bobbing her head energetically, while Beecher, very much pleased to be so lectured, listened with a mocking look. "Yes, yes, I know very well! She gets you—how do you say?—going and coming. When she is an actress you say she is different from the rest—what a child! And when she is playing the child, you say what a difference—she is such an artist! You laugh—see!"
Beecher broke out laughing at this characterization which came so near the truth.
"What I have said is very good—very good," repeated Emma Fornez, pleased. "It's all studied, very carefully studied out, but it takes with young simpletons, big geese, good-looking boys—don't I know? Est-ce-que j'en ai joué de ces tours là? Come, now, what did you fight about?"
Beecher had an inclination to take her into his confidence; but he resisted the impulse, and to turn the conversation said artfully:
"By Jove, you look stunning! You won't have to sing a note."
She was in a filmy peignoir, and, as his glance showed an amused admiration, she said, with a look of apology which she did not feel at all, gathering the peignoir closer with a perfectly simulated modesty:
"It's very bad—my receiving you like this. I am going through my costumes. They are dreams. Wait, you shall see—you wish to see them? Good!" All at once she stopped and, seizing his arm, cried: "Teddy, I am in a cold fright—I shiver all over whenever I think of it. New York audiences are terrible. It will be a big, big failure, won't it?"
"There, I'll give you my lucky piece," he said, patting her shoulder as he would a child's.