Gigolo by Edna Ferber Chapter 3 Page 50

She talked in French and English. The gigolo confessed, one day, to understanding some English, though he seemed to speak none. After that Mary, when very much in earnest, or when enthusiastic, spoke in her native tongue altogether. She claimed an intense interest in European after-war conditions, in reconstruction, in the attitude toward life of those millions of young men who had actually participated in the conflict. She asked questions that might have been considered impertinent, not to say nervy.

“Now you,” she said, brutally, “are a person of some education, refinement, and background. Yet you are content to dance around in these — these — well, back home a chap might wash dishes in a cheap restaurant or run an elevator in an east side New York loft building, but he’d never — — ”