Page:Pierre and Luce.djvu/132

122 She laughed. Then, kissing her friend, she said:

"We have chanted our little duet well. What do you say, my friend Pierrot?"

"Yea, verily, Jessica," he replied.

"My poor Pierrot," she returned, "we are none too well equipped for this world, where people know how to sing nothing else but the Marseillaise! . . ."

"Good enough if they even knew how to sing that!"

"We have got off at the wrong station, we left the train too early."

"I'm afraid," said Pierre, "that the next station would have been still worse. Can you see us, my darling, in the social fabric of the future—the hive they promise us, where none will have the right to live except for the queen bee's service or for the republic?"

"Laying eggs from morning to night like a mitrailleuse or from morning to night licking the eggs of others. . . . Thank you for that choice!" said Luce.

"Oh, Luce, little ugly one, how ugly you talk," said Pierre laughing.