The strong voice of Lisa, the fruit girl, jarred on her as she passed the
stall under its yellow awning that was flapping sullenly in the evening
wind.
"Oh he, little fool," the mocking voice cried, "the rind of the fine pine
is full of prickles, and stings the lips when the taste is gone?--to be
sure--crack common nuts like me and you are never wanting--hazels grow
free in every copse. Prut, tut! your grand lover lies a-dying; so the
students read out of this just now; and you such a simpleton as not to
get a roll of napoleons out of him before he went to rot in Paris. I dare
say he was poor as sparrows, if one knew the truth. He was only a
painter after all."
Lisa tossed her as she spoke a torn sheet, in which she was wrapping
gentians: it was a piece of newspaper some three weeks old, and in it
there was a single line or so which said that the artist Flamen, whose
Gretchen was the wonder of the Salon of the year, lay sick unto death in
his rooms in Paris.
Bebee stood and read; the strong ruddy western light upon the type, the
taunting laughter of the fruit girl on her ear.
Pages:
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222