By degrees her old racy manner returned, and looking over her muff she permitted her eloquent mischief-making eyes to speak. "What else have you heard?"
"That—you are going to marry him."
"Ah—and that, of course, you do not believe!"
"For the matter of that, I never believe anything you say. How can I, how can anyone? You promised me—you know, what—and here you coolly talk to me about this other man, this wreck of a man, this sot, this Crabbe! And he is not the only one, I daresay Poussette gets his pay sometimes, and perhaps the priest as well!"
"Gets his—pay! Mon Dieu, but it is you, you, to insult a woman!
Yes, to insult me!"
"I am not intending it, I am not aiming insult, but I know whereof I speak. I impute no more than this; no man works for nothing. If Poussette harbours you, as he does, he must exact something, if only silly songs and smiles, the faculty of amusing him now that he has dropped drinking, and must feed his lower senses in some manner. I impute no more—no more than frivolity and waste of time, the abasement of impulses noble enough in themselves."
"Oh—what a creed, what a creed! I deny such a charge, such an imputation. I sing and act before Mr. Poussette as I would before you, and Miss Cordova too. We are artists—do you know what that means, Mr. Ringfield? And suppose we do not pay—what is that? Mr. Poussette is agreeable to the arrangement, it is a plentiful house, and always more than enough in it to eat and drink. I am Ma'amselle de Clairville and Sadie Cordova is my friend. We take our holiday here—that is all. Ma foy, but why must every one anger me? Why do you purposely misunderstand?"
She stamped her foot and trembled.
"I have only one thing to ask you. Do you intend to—my God, that I should have to ask it—to marry him?"
"Certainement." A return to her natural manner was characterized by more French than she customarily used. "I am considering it, thinking of it, as you did when coming to St. Ignace."