"My name," she explained, with an odd clipping of her speech, "eet ees Celeste, an' my good frien' here," she continued with an easy gesture of the cigarette, "she ees Fritzie—chust a bar-bar-ous German."
Mary looked at her with a gaze large and listless.
"An' you' name?" pursued Celeste, "eet ees—what?"
Fritzie supplied the answer, speaking in a ponderous contralto.
"Her name is Mary," said she.
"Bien—a pretty name," Celeste rattled on, precisely as if her unwilling entertainer had made the response. "I like eet well; but"—and she studied with unobtrusive care the russet-framed, indignant face before her—"eet ees not so good as ees yourself. I t'ink—let me see—yaas: I t'ink I shall call you 'Violet.'—Violet, why you don't eat more een dees 'ouse?"
"I'm hardly ever hungry," said Mary.
"Not hongry?—Oh-h, but you mohst be hongry! Anyone so young mohst want to eat, and anyone so beautiful mohst eat so as not to loose the beauty.—Ees eet not so, Fritzie?"
The German girl smiled gently and nodded her blonde head.
"Ach, yes," she rumbled. "The liebchen!"