“Ye-es,” said Carlotta.
“Why have you come?” I asked.
“I had no money,” said Carlotta, with her expressive gesture of upturned palms. “I had nothing but that.” She pointed to a tiny travelling bag. “Everything else was at the Mont de Piete—the pawnshop—and they would not keep me any longer at the pension. I owed them for three weeks, and then they lent me money to buy my ticket to London. I said Seer Marcous would pay them back. So I came home.”
“But where—where is Pasquale?” I asked.
“He went five, six months ago. He gave me some money and said he would send some more. But he did not send any. He went to South Africa. He said there was a war and he wanted to fight, and he said he was sick of me. Oh, he was very unkind,” she cried with the quiver of her baby lips. “I wish I had never seen him.”
“Are you married?”
“No,” said Carlotta.
“Damn him!” said I, between my teeth.
“He was going to marry me, but then he said it did not matter in Paris. At first he was so nice, but after a little—oh, Seer Marcous dear, he was so cruel.”
There was a short silence. Antoinette wept by the door, uttering little half-audible exclamations “la pauvre petite, le cher ange!”