Judge, then, of his despair when he heard that she had agreed to marry Pomponnet! She told him the news with the air of an amiable gossip when she came to return a ball-dress that she had borrowed.
"Enfin," she said—perched on the counter, and swinging her remorseless feet—"it is arranged; I desert the flowers for the pastry, and become the mistress of a shop. I shall have to beg from my good friend monsieur Touquet no more—not at all! I shall be his client, like the rest. It will be better, hein?"
Touquet groaned. "You know well, Lisette," he answered, "that it has been a joy to me to place the stock at your disposal, even though it was to make you more attractive in the eyes of other men. Everything here that you have worn possesses a charm to me. I fondle the garments when you bring them back; I take them down from the pegs and dream over them. Truly! There is no limit to my weakness, for often when a client proposes to hire a frock that you have had, I cannot bear that she should profane it, and I say that it is engaged."
"You dear, kind monsieur Touquet," murmured the coquette; "how agreeable you are!"
"I have always hoped for the day when the stock would be all your own, Lisette. And by-and-by we might have removed to a better position— even down the hill. Who knows? We might have opened a business in the Madeleine quarter. That would suit you better than a little cake-shop up a side street? And I would have risked it for you—I know how you incline to fashion. When I have taken you to a theatre, did you choose the Montmartre—where we might have gone for nothing—or the Moncey? Not you!—that might do for other girls. You have always demanded the theatres of the Grand Boulevard; a cup of coffee at the Café de la Paix is more to your taste than a bottle of beer and hard-boiled eggs at The Nimble Rabbit. Heaven knows I trust you will be happy, but I cannot persuade myself that this Pomponnet shares your ambitions; with his slum and his stale pastry he is quite content."
"It is not stale," she said.
"Well, we will pass his pastry—though, word of honour, I bought some there last week that might have been baked before the Commune; but to recur to his soul, is it an affinity?"
"Affinities are always hard up," she pouted.
"Zut!" exclaimed Touquet; "now your mind is running on that monsieur Tricotrin—by 'affinities' I do not mean hungry poets. Why not have entrusted your happiness to me? I adore you, I have told you a thousand times that I adore you. Lisette, consider before it is too late! You cannot love this—this obscure baker?"
She gave a shrug. "It is a fact that devotion has not robbed me of my appetite," she confessed. "But what would you have? His business goes far better than you imagine—I have seen his books; and anyhow, my sentiment for you is friendship, and no more."