tter from America ... from some
swain she had had over there ... a letter glowing with love and regret.
Yes, Nunkie knew how to hold his nieces, the architect explained, laughing
... watched them like a Spanish duenna, confiscated the letters that came
for them, if necessary, the old rogue, and calmed their ardors with a few
drops of bromide in a glass of water, every evening, on the pretense of
keeping them from catching cold in the drafts. Oh, the old rogue! And Thea
had almost fainted with grief in her dressing-room when she read the
letter.

"Quite a business, Lily! A scandal in their little home! Very funny, eh?"
he added, as he ogled Lily's pigeon's eggs and rolled a cigarette.

Lily, who had seen poor Thea cry before and who knew to what extent her
lover's treachery had humiliated her, was secretly furious to hear that
josser talk carelessly of things like that: did he imagine, the idiot,
that they weren't built like other people, in the profession, that they
had no feelings? What need had the public to know about their lives? It
was among themselves, quite among themselves, all that!

"Get out of my sight, you damned josser!" said Lily. "Go and eat coke!"

But the other, greatly amused, described his latest discovery, a pearl, in
an out-of-the-way neighborhood ... at Vaugirard fair ... an extraordinary
girl, showing off on a couple of trestles in front of a canvas booth, in
which her man lifted weights to the light of the Argand burners:

"Picture this girl, Lily," said the enthusiastic josser, "picture this
girl on her trestles, doing weights, balancings, all sorts of things. A
body like a boy's, all muscle, and thin: whew! Not _that_ much fat on her,
no hips, arms and shoulders, like Michael Angelo's flayed model. And I
talked to her afterward! And her man gave me a queer look you know ... I
got a blow...."

"Well done!" cried Lily, clapping her hands. "The beam, eh? That'll teach
you to meddle in other people's business! Oh, you don't know those
tenters! One of these days you'll be picked up with your face smashed in,
or shot through the chest with a revolver."

"I say, though," the architect interrupted, "that girl ... I don't know
how we came to speak of you ... she knows you, Lily!"

"That's right! Now I have mountebanks among my acquaintances!" said Lily,
with an air of disgust. "Get out of this, I say!... You wanted Jimmy;
there he is, look!"

And Lily, furious, jerked her head toward the passag