"I am an honest woman--"
"So much the worse for you. It is not every one by a long chalk that
can find some one to keep them, and kept I am, and in slap-up style,
madame."
"So much the worse! What do you mean? Oh, you may toss your head and
go about in scarves, you will never have as many declarations as I
have had, missus. You will never match the _Belle Ecaillere of the
Cadran Bleu_."
Heloise Brisetout rose at once to her feet, stood at attention, and
made a military salute, like a soldier who meets his general.
"What?" asked Gaudissart, "are you really _La Belle Ecaillere_ of whom
my father used to talk?"
"In that case the cachucha and the polka were after your time; and
madame has passed her fiftieth year," remarked Heloise, and striking
an attitude, she declaimed, "'Cinna, let us be friends.'"
"Come, Heloise, the lady is not up to this; let her alone."
"Madame is perhaps the New Heloise," suggested La Cibot, with sly
innocence.
"Not bad, old lady!" cried Gaudissart.
"It is a venerable joke," said the dancer, "a grizzled pun; find us
another old lady--or take a cigarette."
"I beg your pardon, madame, I feel too unhappy to answer you; my two
gentlemen are very ill; and to buy nourishment for them and to spare
them trouble, I have pawned everything down to my husband's clothes
that I pledged this morning. Here is the ticket!"
"Oh! here, the affair is becoming tragic," cried the fair Heloise.
"What is it all about?"
"Madame drops down upon us like--"
"Like a dancer," said Heloise; "let me prompt you,--missus!"
"Come, I am busy," said Gaudissart.
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