"Nonsense, Paul! I won't listen to such reasons as that; you can attend to your business to-morrow. I want you to have supper with us. I've invited you two or three times, and you always refuse. Crédié! if you don't come to-night, I shall think you're proud, and afraid of lowering yourself by sitting at the same table with me."
"Proud! proud of what, for God's sake?" muttered Jean, in so low a tone that Paul could not hear him. The latter hesitated a moment before replying:
"Oh! Sans-Cravate, you surely can't think that I am proud. Am I not a messenger, like you?"
"Very well, then; you'll come, that's settled. I must be off and do my errands. By the way, friends, if one of you sees Bastringuette before I do, just tell her where we sup. If we should feast without her, I should be a dead man to-morrow."
As he spoke, Sans-Cravate started off along the boulevard. Jean Ficelle waited a short time, then took the same direction, muttering:
"To be afraid that a woman will scold you, and not dare to treat yourself without her! that must be pleasant, on my word! And he calls himself a man! I call him a milksop. The real men aren't those who strike the hardest—but the sly dogs who know how to make dupes."
Monsieur Jean Ficelle had left the stand and Paul was about to follow his example, after a parting glance at the house in which the dressmaker lived, when a young woman with fair hair, blue eyes, and smiling red lips came out through the porte cochère, and, having nimbly crossed the gutter, walked toward the young messenger. She wore a coarse linen dress, and a black apron fastened about her waist by a silk cord; on her head was a very simple cap, unadorned with flowers or ribbons; but the simplicity of her costume did not prevent people from noticing her and, in many cases, from turning to glance after her; for her face was very pleasant to look upon, her figure perfectly proportioned, her carriage graceful, her gait light and springy; in a word, there was in her whole aspect that indefinable something which at once attracts and captivates the eye: a fortunate gift of nature, which carries with it all other gifts in the case of the women who possess it. I say women, because, in general, the something in question applies to women rather than to men. It is that indefinable something which compels us to submit to the empire of two eyes which do not need to be very large or very beautiful to lead us captive; it is enough if they have that something. O ye who possess it, envy not the regular beauties, the Greek or Roman profiles, the correct and faultlessly proportioned features, of your rivals! If you are not of those women whom men admire, you are of those whom they desire, and that is much better.
When he saw the girl coming toward him, Paul stood as if rooted to the spot; he could not go away. He quickly removed his cap, and at the same time lowered his eyes with a timid air, as if he dared not presume to salute the young dressmaker, but desired to manifest his respect for her.
But Elina stopped in front of him and said, with an amiable smile:
"Good-evening, Monsieur Paul! I am very glad to find you."