“It is charming to hold you like this. One would think you had no bones.”
She replied, closing her eyes:
“It is because I love you. Love seems to dissolve my bones; it makes me as soft and melting as a pig’s foot à la Ste. Menebould.”
Hereupon Théophile came in, and Bouchotte called upon him to thank Monsieur Maurice d’Esparvieu, who had been amiable enough to be the bearer of a handsome offer from Madame la Comtesse de la Verdeliére.
The musician was happy, feeling the quiet and peace of the house after a day of fruitless applications, of colourless lessons, of failure and humiliation. Three new collaborators had been thrust upon him who would add their signatures to his on his operetta, and receive their share of the author’s rights, and he had been told to introduce the tango into the Court of Golconda. He pressed young d’Esparvieu’s hand and dropped wearily on to the litle couch, which, being now at the end of its strength, gave way at the four legs and suddenly collapsed.
And the angel, precipitated to the ground, rolled terror-struck on to the watch, match-box and cigarette-case that had fallen from Maurice’s pocket, and on to the bombs Prince Istar had left behind him.
