“Oh! in the first place, we shouldn’t have gone to the Grand Salon.”
“That was your sister’s fault.”
“Yes, but she’ll say it was mine. And then, I’ll tell you something. My mother’s inclined to favor Beauvisage, who shuts her eyes with galantine and never comes to the house without a chitterling eight inches long. Mother’s crazy over chitterlings, and she’d like to have me marry the pork man, so that she could always have a pig’s pudding on hand. But I have always refused to hear with that ear, and since then they all look crosswise at me at home. So they’ll lay the quarrel and the whole row on my shoulders. Oh! mon Dieu! I shall be beaten, I am sure!”
“Poor Nicette! I promise you that I will speak to your mother in your behalf.”
“Oh! I beg you to! You see, she’s quite capable of not letting me in, and making me spend the night in the street! That miserable Beauvisage! he’s the cause of it all! I’d rather jump into the river than be his wife!”
“Can you say as much about Finemouche?”
“Yes, monsieur; I want a husband to my taste, and I don’t like any of those jokers.”
“Then you have no lover?”
“No, monsieur.”
“But, at your age, one ought to love.”