"You are mistaken; I haven't been on a spree; you know perfectly well that it's not my custom."
"Not with us, that's true; but you play the nobleman with your mistresses, it seems. Oh! I can understand that when a man's been doing the handsome thing by his girl for ten days, he don't feel inclined to treat his friends to a glass. And then, you have so many girls at once! Ha! ha! you're a Don Jean, as they say in fashionable society. But you must take care that you don't get robbed yourself. Bless me! those things happen to everybody."
Paul shrugged his shoulders, and made no further reply to Jean Ficelle; but he went to Sans-Cravate, whose back was still turned to him, and put his hand on his shoulder.
"Are you still angry with me?" he said. "Well, Sans-Cravate, you are all wrong; yes, you are wrong, for I have done nothing to make you angry. I love you still, for all your roughness and your hot temper, because I know that you have a good heart. I never gave you bad advice, and it seems to me that I deserve your confidence; but you prefer to listen to those who take you to the wine shop, with such people as that Laboussole."
Sans-Cravate turned his head little by little; at first, he was determined to pick a quarrel with Paul; but, as he listened to him, he felt that his anger subsided, in spite of himself; and when he looked at him, when he saw his gentle, honest eyes looking into his, he could not control his emotion, his genuine affection for his young comrade stirred anew in the depths of his heart.
Paul divined what was taking place in Sans-Cravate's heart, and he held out his hand, saying:
"Oh! I know well enough that you are not a bad fellow! You cannot believe that I am Bastringuette's lover, since you know that I am in love with the young dressmaker who works in the house opposite—Mademoiselle Elina. And even if I weren't, as if I could ever give a thought to my friend's mistress! Somebody has spoken ill of me to you, and you listened because you had drunk a little too much; but now that you are cool, you must see that that was all nonsense. Come, give me your hand, and let us forget the past!"
Sans-Cravate put out his hand to grasp Paul's, but drew it back again, crying:
"Yes, sacrédié! it makes me unhappy to be at odds with you. I liked you, and I feel that I'd be glad to like you still. But it ain't a question of what anybody's told me about you, but of what I've seen with my own eyes. You say that you have nothing to do with Bastringuette, that you don't go with her; prove it, and I'm your friend. It ain't that I still care about Bastringuette, or want to make up with her; oh! there's no danger of that! but I just want to be sure that my friend hasn't gone back on me—played a trick on me, as they say; that's all."
"What do you want me to do? How can I prove it, if my word isn't enough?"