"Yes."

"Why?"

"They are very bons garçons, they are clean, and they are fine men, they have sentiment, too—Yes, it is difficult not to feel," she sighed.

"What do you do when you fall in love then, Suzette?"

"Mon ami, I immediately go for a fortnight to the sea—one is lost if one falls in love dans le metier—The man tramples then—tramples and slips off—For everything good one must never feel."

"But you have a kind heart Suzette—you feel for me?"

"Hein?"—and she showed all her little white pointed teeth—"Thou?—Thou art very rich, mon chou. Women will always feel for thee!"

It went in like a knife it was so true—.

"I was a very fine Englishman once," I said.

"It is possible, thou art still, sitting, and showing the right profile—and full of chic—and then rich, rich!"17

17

"You could not forget that I am rich, Suzette?"

"If I did I might love you—Jamais!"

"And does the sea help to prevent an attack?"—

"Absence—and I go to a poor place I knew when I was young, and I wash and cook, and make myself remember what la vie dure was—and would be again if one loved—Bah! that does it. I come back cured—and ready only to please such as thou, Nicholas!—rich, rich!"

 

And she laughed again her rippling gay laugh—

We had a pleasant evening, she told me the history of her life—or some of it—They were ever the same from Lucien's Myrtale.

 

When all of me is aching—Shall I too, find solace if I go to the sea?

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