Marpasse opened her mouth wide, a black circle of mute expostulation.
Denise looked in her eyes.
“Why not both of us?” she asked.
Marpasse’s mouth still stood open as though to scoff at her own redemption. Denise closed it with her own.
“There is a clean kiss,” she said, “let us keep it for each other.”
And Marpasse caught her to her, and was a long while silent.
Whatever these two women may have said to one another, the fact was proven that Marpasse did not rejoin her band of vagabonds that night, for she and Denise sat on under the tree, and counted up the money that they could boast between them. They were like a couple of girls talking over some new dress, their heads close together, and their hearts lighter than they had been for many a day. But Marpasse had her whims. She would not mix her money with Denise’s, but kept it apart with a sort of scorn, handling it gingerly as though the coins were hot.
Moreover Marpasse had a practical nature, and an attitude towards the ways and means of life that betokened that they were the accursed riddles that gods put to men each inevitable day. In truth Marpasse’s life had been one long riddle, and she had grown sick of seeking to solve it, and had put the enigma out of her mind.
“Heart of mine,” said she, “we are very much on a dust heap, so far as I can gather. My mouth was made to eat and drink! I cannot turn beast like the king did and eat grass. I have a little bread here in my bag,” and she brought out the small sack that she carried slung to her girdle under her cloak.
Denise was drinking in new hope.