"The world is small," returned the poet, ignoring the fact that he had come to the shop. "And am I yet remembered?"
"It is not likely I should forget you in a few days," she said, more practically; "I didn't forget about the breakfast, either, but Alphonse put his foot down."
"Pig!" said the poet. "And yet it may be better so! How could I eat in such an hour?"
"However, you are not disconsolate this evening?" she suggested. "Mais vrai! what a swell you are!"
"Flûte! some fashionable assembly that will bore me beyond endurance," he sighed. "With you alone, Lisette, have I known true happiness—the train rides on summer nights that were joyous because we loved; the simple meals that were sweetened by your smile!"
"Ah, Gustave!" she said. "Wait, I must give you a flower for your coat!"
"I shall keep it all my life!" vowed Tricotrin. "Tell me, little one—I dare not stay now, because my host lives a long way off—but this evening, could you not meet me once again? For the last time, to say farewell? I have nearly two francs fifty, and we might go to supper, if you agree."
It was arranged before he took leave of her that she should meet him outside the débit at the corner of the rue de Sontay at eleven o'clock, and sup with him there, in a locality where she was unlikely to be recognised. Rash enough, this conduct, for a young woman who was to be married to another man on the next day but one! But a greater imprudence was to follow. They supped, they sentimentalised, and when they parted in the Champs Elysées and the moonshine, she gave him from her bosom a little rose-coloured envelope that contained nothing less than a lock of her hair.
The poet placed it tenderly in his waistcoat pocket; and, after he had wept, and quoted poetry to the stars, forgot it. He began to wish that he had not mixed his liquors quite so impartially; and, on the morrow, when he woke, he was mindful of nothing more grievous than a splitting headache.
Now Touquet, who could not sleep of nights because the pastrycook was going to marry Lisette, made a practice of examining the pockets of all garments returned to him, with an eye to stray sous; and when he proceeded to examine the pockets of the dress-suit returned by monsieur Tricotrin, what befell but that he drew forth a rose-tinted envelope containing a tress of hair, and inscribed, "To Gustave, from Lisette. Adieu."