Part 3 (1/2)
”Fifine, listen to me, I entreat you!”
”Are you going to cry?”
”To go to the Baron de Marcey's, I must wear full evening dress.”
”Ah! I see what you're coming at--you want me to put on your curl-papers.”
”Curl-papers--I shall be glad if you will, it is true; for you do it to perfection.”
”Ah! the lion is quieting down!”
”But there is something else of which I am in urgent need, and that is my black silk stockings, which I lent you the last Sunday that it rained.”
”Your silk stockings?”
”Yes, mademoiselle.”
”The deuce! but they're a long way off, if they're still going!”
”What do you mean by that?”
”I mean that I lent them to Fdora, to play in private theatricals, and she admitted that she let her best friend wear them the next day, to a wedding; but as his calves are exceptionally big, he ripped a few st.i.tches when he took them off.”
”Mon Dieu! this is what comes of lending your things!”
”Is a person to presume that her lover will ask her to return what he lends her?”
”Mademoiselle, I am not a capitalist, a dealer in novelties. I have never pretended to play the _grand seigneur_ with you.”
”Oh! anyone can see that!--Catch it, Raoul.”
”Don't throw cherry-stones at me, please.--What am I to do? It's eight o'clock already; to be sure, I know that people go very late to large receptions.”
”Sometimes they don't go till the next day; it's more _comme il faut_.”
”But I counted on those stockings.”
”You must buy some more; there's a place across the street where they sell them.”
”Buy some? Oh, yes! that's very easy to say.--You shouldn't have made me spend twelve francs at the restaurant last Sunday.”
”We will spend fifteen next Sunday, my dear friend.”
”You always want to eat the things that cost most.”
”Nothing's too good for me.”
”Well, if I buy stockings, it's adieu to our country excursion for Sunday, I warn you.”
”That begins to move me.--Come, be calm, _loulou_; you're very lucky to have a sweetheart with some imagination. Stay here and begin to dress at the top; I'll go to look after the lower part!”[1]