"To the devil with friendship!" cried the unhappy wardrobe-dealer; "did
I dress you like the Empress Joséphine for friendship?"
"Do not mock yourself of it," she said reprovingly; "remember that 'Friendship is a beautiful flower, of which esteem is the stem.'" And, having thrown the adage to him, coupled with a glance that drove him to distraction, the little flirt jumped off the counter and was gone.
Much more reluctantly she contemplated parting with him whom the costumier had described as a "hungry poet"; but matrimony did not enter the poet's scheme of things, nor for that matter had she ever regarded him as a possible parti. Yet a woman may give her fancy where her reason refuses to follow, and when she imparted her news to Tricotrin there was no smile on her lips.
"We shall not go to balls any more, old dear," she said. "Monsieur
Pomponnet has proposed marriage to me—and I settle down."
"Heartless girl," exclaimed the young man, with tears in his eyes. "So much for woman's constancy!"
"Mon Dieu," she faltered, "did you then love me, Gustave—really?"
"I do not know," said Tricotrin, "but since I am to lose you, I prefer to think so. Ah, do not grieve for me—fortunately, there is always the Seine! And first I shall pour my misery into song; and in years to come, fair daughters at your side will read the deathless poem, little dreaming that the Lisette I sang to is their mother. Some time—long after I am in my grave, when France has honoured me at last—you may stand before a statue that bears my name, and think, 'He loved me, and I broke his heart!'"
"Oh," she whimpered, "rather than break your heart I—I might break the engagement! I might consider again, Gustave."
"No, no," returned Tricotrin, "I will not reproach myself with the thought that I have marred your life; I will leave you free. Besides, as I say, I am not certain that I should want you so much but for the fact that I have lost you. After all, you will not appreciate the poem that immortalises you, and if I lived, many of your remarks about it would doubtless infuriate me."
"Why shall I not appreciate it? Am I so stupid?"