“Oh! pardon me, monsieur, if I have unintentionally slighted your charmer. Mademoiselle Nicette probably sells herring at the Marché des Innocents?”
“No, mademoiselle; she sells nothing but flowers.”
“Flowers! Why, that is superb! Ah! so she’s a flower girl! I am no longer surprised at your consideration for her.”
“She certainly deserves more consideration than many women who wear fashionable bonnets.”
“Or who make them, eh?”
“The argument is even stronger as to them.”
“Monsieur is vexed because I venture to doubt the virtuous morals of a girl who comes, very innocently no doubt, to sleep with a young man, who has himself turned Cato in twenty-four hours! Look you, Eugène, I don’t care what you say, it isn’t possible.”
“I shall say nothing more, because I attach no value to your opinion.”
“Again! No matter, let’s make peace; and I will believe, if it will give you pleasure, that your friend was the Maid of Orleans.”
Mademoiselle Agathe came to me and kissed me; she was almost on my knees; she embraced me very lovingly, and I believe that it rested with me to betray my successor, but I had no desire so to do. My mind was still full of Nicette; I was angry with the woman who refused to believe in her innocence and virtue, and who made sport of my heroic behavior. When one has had to make such a mighty effort to do a good deed, the person who seeks to rob us of our satisfaction therein is always unwelcome. So that I received Mademoiselle Agathe’s caress very coolly.