“Poor Raymond! This partie fine will have been very profitable to him, won’t it? But here’s the Château d’Eau; someone is waiting for me here, and I must leave you.”
“What! already?”
“Our play is ended, my dear girl; we can be of no further assistance to each other; let us not postpone our separation until ennui succeeds pleasure, and the fumes of the champagne have entirely vanished; we shall retain a pleasant memory of this meeting, at all events.”
“Adieu, then, my dear Eugène! may we enjoy ourselves as much when we next meet!”
Agathe went her way, and I started to make the circuit of the Château d’Eau.
XVI
THE ROSE WITHOUT THORNS
Six times I had walked around the pond. From time to time I halted in front of the lions, which I contemplated from every point of view; then, for variety’s sake, I listened to the plash of the water as it fell into the passage through which it flows back to the canals. All this was most entertaining, no doubt, and still I began to weary of it. The sentinel watched me closely; doubtless he began to look upon me as a suspicious character.
It grew dark, and I was on the point of going away, when I saw coming toward me a woman in a little cap. Was it she at last? I dared not flatter myself that it was; I had been mistaken so many times, for my eyesight is not very good; but she continued to approach me. Yes, it was really she. Caroline accosted me with a smiling face; she was not in her best clothes; but there was a certain daintiness in her costume: her cap was neatly tied, and her hair had been in curl papers all day, I would have sworn; a woman does not take so much pains for a man to whom she does not intend to listen. The girl seemed to me a sly minx enough! But although the champagne had made me even more reckless than usual, I was not inclined to offer my arm to a grisette, in a cap, within the walls of Paris.
“I was beginning to lose all hope of seeing you,” I said.
“Why? it’s only a quarter past eight, and I can’t get away from my shop any earlier.”