And that Mignon, who goes loafing about the pavement in
behalf of his harridan of a wife, whom nobody wants because she's so
lean! What a foul lot! What a foul lot!"
She was choking, and she paused for breath
"Oh, that's what they say, is it? Very well, my little Francis, I'll go
and look 'em up, I will. Shall you and I go to them at once? Yes, I'll
go, and we'll see whether they will have the cheek to go telling about
kicks on the bottom. Kick's! I never took one from anybody! And nobody's
ever going to strike me--d'ye see?--for I'd smash the man who laid a
finger on me!"
Nevertheless, the storm subsided at last. After all, they might jolly
well what they liked! She looked upon them as so much filth underfoot!
It would have soiled her to bother about people like that. She had a
conscience of her own, she had! And Francis, seeing her thus giving
herself away, what with her housewife's costume and all, became familiar
and, at parting, made so bold as to give her some good advice. It
was wrong of her to be sacrificing everything for the sake of an
infatuation; such infatuations ruined existence. She listened to him
with bowed head while he spoke to her with a pained expression, as
became a connoisseur who could not bear to see so fine a girl making
such a hash of things.
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