“Certainly. Does that surprise you very much? Ah, vil esclave ! Why, one month of that life would be better than all your previous existence. One month⁠— et après, le déluge! Mais tu ne peux comprendre. Va! Away, away! You are not worth it.⁠— Ah, que fais-tu? ”

For, while drawing on the other stocking, I had felt constrained to kiss her. Immediately she shrunk back, kicked me in the face with her toes, and turned me neck and crop out of the room.

“ Eh bien, mon ‘ utchitel ,’ ” she called after me, “ je t’attends, si tu veux. I start in a quarter of an hour’s time.”