"Won't you please take this sandwich?"
Her outstretched arm more than what she said arrested his drifting
attention again.
"Why the devil do you want me to eat?" he inquired, fishing out his
empty pipe and filling it.
"You smoke too much. It's bad for you. It will do very queer
things to the lining of your stomach if you smoke your luncheon
instead of eating it."
He yawned.
"Is that so?" he said.
"Certainly it's so. Please take this sandwich."
He stood looking at the outstretched arm, thinking of other things
and the girl sprang to her feet, caught his hand, opened the
fingers, placed the sandwich on the palm, then, with a short laugh
as though slightly disconcerted by her own audacity, she snatched
the pipe from his left hand and tossed it upon the table. When she
had reseated herself on the lounge beside her pasteboard box of
luncheon, she became even more uncertain concerning the result of
what she had done, and began to view with rising alarm the steady
gray eyes that were so silently inspecting her.
But after a moment Drene walked over to the sofa, seated himself,
curiously scrutinized the sandwich which lay across the palm of his
hand, then gravely tasted it.
"This will doubtless give me indigestion," he remarked. "Why,
Cecile, do you squander your wages on nourishment for me?"
"It cost only five cents."
"But why present five cents to me?" "I gave ten to a beggar this
morning."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Was he grateful?"
"He seemed to be."
"This sandwich is excellent; but if I feel the worse for it, I'll
not be very grateful to you." But he continued eating.
"'The woman tempted me,'" she quoted, glancing at him sideways.
After a moment's survey of her: "You're one of those bright, saucy, pretty, inexplicable things that
throng this town and occasionally flit through this
profession--aren't you?"
"Am I?"
"Yes. Nobody looks for anything except mediocrity; you're one of
the surprises. Nobody expects you; nobody can account for you, but
you appear now and then, here and there, anywhere, even
everywhere--a pretty sparkle against the gray monotony of life, a
momentary flash like a golden moat afloat in sunshine--and what
then?"
She laughed.
"What then? What becomes of you? Where do you go? What do you
turn into?"
"I don't know."
"You go somewhere, don't you? You change into something, don't you?
What happens to you, petite Cigale?"