u are not going to bore me again with your ideas of
marriage?"

The captain made a movement of protestation; but Bobinette went on:

"No, no, old dear, no chains for me! No gag, no muzzle for me! We are
both independent, let us remain so! Free! Long live liberty!"

Brocq now got in a word: "In the first place," he said, "you know
quite well you would do a very stupid thing if you married me; I have
not the usual dowry, far from it! Then I am not of your world. Can you
see me in a drawing-room, playing my tricks with the colonel's wife,
the general's wife, with the whole blessed lot of them? Zut! I am just
what I am, just Bobinette."...

Brocq now got in a word: "In the first place," he observed, "as
regards the dowry, you know very well, my pretty Bobinette, that I
have already taken steps about it, on your behalf--now don't protest!
It gives me pleasure to make your future safe, as far as I can: a
modest competence. On the other hand, I am not a society man, and if
you wish it."...

The captain drew nearer his mistress and brushed her lips with his
moustache.

Bobinette drew back, got up from the divan, stood in front of her
lover, erect, arms crossed, her look sullen: "No, I tell you, I wish
to be free, my own mistress."...

Brocq grew impatient: "But in spite of your ideas of independence, my
poor darling, you are always in a state of servitude! Why, only to
give one example, for the last two years you have been content to
occupy an inferior position in the house of this Bavarian diplomat--or
Austrian--I don't know what he is?"

"Naarboveck?" asked Bobinette, surprised. "But don't imagine that I am
the Baron de Naarboveck's servant: still, if it were otherwise, I
can't play proud. I can't bring out the title-deeds and pedigree of
my ancestors for inspection!"

"It's not a question of that," observed Brocq.

Bobinette had launched forth. She continued:

"But that is the question. You are always imagining that I have things
given me to do which lower me. I have told you a hundred times how it
was I went to the Naarboveck's. One day the poor man came to the
hospital: he was almost beside himself. His daughter Wilhelmine, who
is barely nineteen, had just been taken ill--it was typhoid fever--he
was obliged to go away and leave her--not a soul in whose care he
could leave the child with confidence. I was recommended to
Naarboveck. I came, I nursed Wilhelmine. This went on for a month,
then for two, then thr