Then Frisonnette hung over her baby, saying, "And one boon, besides: let her marry her sweetheart and always remember that a husband's love is better than an ermine cloak!"—an allusion which moved Floromond to such tenderness that he forthwith took his wife in his arms, regardless of us all; and which reminded your obedient servant of their story.
When Floromond beheld her first, she was in a shop window—the most tempting exhibit that a shop window had displayed to him, in all his five-and-twenty years. If he had stayed in the quarter where he belonged, it would not have happened. It was early on a spring morning, and she was posing a hat, for the enticement of ladies who would tread the rue La Fayette later in the day. Floromond, sunning himself like a lord, though he was nothing better than a painter, went on to the Garden of the Tuileries, noting how nicely the birds sang, and thinking foolish thoughts. "Had I a thousand-franc note in my pocket, instead of an importunate note from a washer-woman," ran his reverie, "I would go back and buy that hat; and when she asked me where it was to be sent, I would say, 'I do not know your name and address, mademoiselle.' Then, having departed, without another word, leaving her speechless with amazement and delight, I should never see her any more—until, not too long afterwards, we found ourselves, by accident, in the same omnibus. Ciel! how blue her eyes were."
And, though he did not omit to reprove himself, in the most conscientious manner, and the weather changed for the worse, his admiration drew him to the rue La Fayette, at the same hour, every day.
Frisonnette's demeanour, behind the plate glass, was propriety itself. But she could not be unconscious that the young man's pace always slackened in the downpour, as he approached madame Aureole's—she could not be insensible of the homage of his gaze. That Tuesday morning, when, dripping, he bowed, his salutation was so respectful that she felt she would be inhuman to ignore it.
So the time came when they trod the rue La Fayette together, making confessions to each other, after the shop shut.
"I used to wonder at first whether you noticed me as I went by," he told her wistfully.
"I noticed you from the beginning," she owned, "you have such a funny walk. The day that you were late——"
"My watch was in pawn. Sapristi, how I raced! It makes me perspire to think of it."
"I took five minutes longer than usual to dress the window, waiting for you."