“For you, monsieur? Why, yes. What am I to read for you?”
I gave her a hand-bill; at the first glance her eyes sparkled, the color deepened under her coat of amber tan; she caught her breath and read rapidly to the end. 175
“Oh, how beautiful,” she said, softly. “Am I to read this in the square?”
“I will give you a franc to read it, Jacqueline.”
“No, no—only—oh, do let me come in and see the heavenly wonders! Would you, monsieur? I—I cannot pay—but would—could you let me come in? I will read your notice, anyway,” she added, with a quaver in her voice.
The flushed face, the eager, upturned eyes, deep blue as the sea, the little hands clutching the show-bill, which fairly quivered between the tanned fingers—all these touched and amused me. The child was mad with excitement.
What she anticipated, Heaven only knows. Shabby and tarnished as we were, the language of our hand-bills made up in gaudiness for the dingy reality.
“Come whenever you like, Jacqueline,” I said. “Ask for me at the gate.”
“And who are you, monsieur?”
“My name is Scarlett.”