"
"Oh!" The gesture was dismayed. "You see! What's the good of gassing?
As soon as I ask anything of you, you dry up. Bah! I daresay you will
guy me just as much as all the rest, I know you!"
"If you weren't in trouble, I'd give you a thick ear for that," she
said. "You ungrateful brute!" She turned haughtily away,
"Clairette!"
"Oh, rats!"
"Don't get the needle! I'm off my rocker to-night."
"Ah! That's all right, cully!" Her hand was swift. "I've been there
myself."
"Clairette!" He caught her close.
"Here, what are you at?" she cried. "Drop it!"
"Clairette! Say 'yes.' I'm loony about you. There's a duck! I'll be a
daisy of a husband. Won't you?"
"Oh, I--I don't know," she stammered.
And thus were they betrothed.
To express what Flouflou felt would be but to harrow the reader's
sensibilities. What he said, rendered into English, was: "I'd rather
you had given me the go-by for any cove in the crowd than that swine!"
They were in the ladies' dressing-room. "The Two Bonbons" had not
finished their duet, and he was alone with her for a moment. She was
pinning a switch into her back hair, in front of the scrap of looking-
glass against the mildewed wall.
"You don't do yourself any good with me Flouflou, by calling Hercule
names," she replied icily.
"So he is!"
"Oh, you are jealous of him," she retorted.
"Of course I am jealous of him," owned Flouflou; "you can't rile me by
saying that.
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