"Hoot, toot, pretty innocent, so you are no better than the rest of us,"
hissed her enemy, Lisette, the fruit girl, against her as she went by the
stall one evening as the sun set. "Prut! so it was no such purity after
all that made you never look at the student lads and the soldiers, eh?
You were so dainty of taste, you must needs pick and choose, and, Lord's
sake, after all your coyness, to drop at a beckoning finger as one may
say--pong!--in a minute, like an apple over-ripe! Oh he, you sly one!"
Bebee flushed red, in a sort of instinct of offence; not sure what her
fault was, but vaguely stung by the brutal words.
Bebee walked homeward by him, with her empty baskets: looked at him with
grave wondering eyes.
"What did she mean? I do not understand. I must have done some wrong--or
she thinks so. Do you know?"
Flamen laughed, and answered her evasively,--
"You have done her the wrong of a fair skin when hers is brown, and a
little foot while hers is as big as a trooper's; there is no greater sin,
Bebee, possible in woman to woman."
"Hold your peace, you shrill jade," he added, in anger to the fruiterer,
flinging at her a crown piece, that the girl caught, and bit with her
teeth with a chuckle.
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