"What is it now? Quelle bétise! Stupid—I wasn't with him! I meant—about that time. But if you want the dress, take it, take it! Mon Dieu! what a state your nerves must be in!"
"I'm much better than when I came here," said Miss Cordova quickly.
"Say, Pauline,—did you know I thought of sending for the children?"
"Your children? To come here?"
"Yes. Now, Pauline, it sounds queer, I know, and worse than anything I've ever done, yet—it isn't as bad as it sounds. But, but—well, I may just as well out with it. Mr. Poussette has proposed!"
"To you?"
Miss Cordova stopped in her work. "Yes. He seems to be serious and I like it here, like him too, so I guess we'll fix it up somehow. Of course his wife's living, but she's not right in her head, so she don't count."
"And your two husbands are alive, but as one drinks and the other was married when he met you, they don't count." Miss Clairville was staring in front of her. "My dear girl—have you never heard of such a thing as bigamy? You're talking nonsense, and you must not allow Mr. Poussette to get you into trouble. You can't marry him, Sara!"
"Of course. I know that. But we are both willing to wait. Schenk can't last long; he's drinking harder than ever from last accounts, and Stanbury—well, perhaps I'd better stop short of saying anything about English swells, but Charlie Stanbury had no right to me in the first instance, and now I'm not going to let the faintest thought of him stop me in my last chance of a home and quiet, peaceful living. Oh—Pauline—I was never the same after I discovered how Stanbury wronged me! Nothing seemed to matter and I went from bad to worse. But since I've been here, I've seen things in a different light, and I'd like to stay here and bring the children away from New York and let them grow up where they'll never hear a word about their father or about me and Schenk."
She spoke with sad conviction, her eyes filling, her hands trembling as she worked on at Pauline's skirt.
"You'd give up the theatre and all the rest of it, and come and live at
St. Ignace if you could?"