`I'd rather be called sentimental than frozen meat,' Fanny blurted. Paul knew she referred to Clara, and he smiled.
`Do you say such nasty things about me?' he laughed.
`No, my duck,' the hunchback woman answered, lavishly tender. She was thirty-nine. `No, my duck, because you don't think yourself a fine figure in marble and us nothing but dirt. I'm as good as you, aren't I, Paul?' and the question delighted her.
`Why, we're not better than one another, are we?' he replied.
`But I'm as good as you, aren't I, Paul?' she persisted daringly.
`Of course you are. If it comes to goodness, you're better.'
She was rather afraid of the situation. She might get hysterical.
`I thought I'd get here before the others--won't they say I'm deep! Now shut your eyes--' she said.
`And open your mouth, and see what God sends you,' he continued, suiting action to words, and expecting a piece of chocolate. He heard the rustle of the apron, and a faint clink of metal. `I'm going to look,' he said.
He opened his eyes. Fanny, her long cheeks flushed, her blue eyes shining, was gazing at him. There was a little bundle of paint-tubes on the bench before him. He turned pale.
`No, Fanny,' he said quickly.
`From us all,' she answered hastily.
`No, but--'
`Are they the right sort?' she asked, rocking herself with delight.
`Jove! they're the best in the catalogue.'
`But they're the right sorts?' she cried.
`They're off the little list I'd made to get when my ship came in.' He bit his lip.
Fanny was overcome with emotion. She must turn the conversation.
`They was all on thorns to do it; they all paid their shares, all except the Queen of Sheba.'
The Queen of Sheba was Clara.
`And wouldn't she join?' Paul asked.
`She didn't get the chance; we never told her; we wasn't going to have her bossing this show. We didn't want her to join.'
Paul laughed at the woman. He was much moved. At last he must go. She was very close to him. Suddenly she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him vehemently.
`I can give you a kiss today,' she said apologetically. `You've looked so white, it's made my heart ache.'
Paul kissed her, and left her. Her arms were so pitifully thin that his heart ached also.