"I think I see you!" said Boulotte, putting on her jaunty little hat; "this evening you will smoke!"
XIX
THE END OF THE YEAR
After forming the resolution never to see Madame Dermont again, Adhémar, unable to resist successfully his intense longing to meet her, to catch a glimpse of her, even at a distance, suddenly determined to go to England. He gave himself hardly time enough to pack a valise, took plenty of money, and hurried to the railway, which took him to Boulogne, whence he soon crossed the straits. He thought that he could escape from his memories by leaving his country, and went at once to London. He passed six weeks there, which seemed to him six years, did his utmost to fall in love with an Englishwoman, and, failing miserably, returned at last to Paris.
"I believe it will be easier for me to fall in love with a Parisian," he thought; "at all events, it's all over, so far as Nathalie is concerned; I never think of her now, and she probably spends her time with the young man that she met at the Jardin des Plantes. After this, the sight of her will not make the slightest impression on me, and my heart would beat no faster if I should meet her face to face. I no longer love her!"
However, his first act, on reaching Paris, was to go and gaze at the windows of her whom he declared that he no longer loved. He walked up and down in front of her house for a long time, scrutinized everybody who went in or out, and returned home at last, saying to himself that that was simply the remains of an old habit, and that it would soon wear out.
For a week he continued his daily promenades on Rue de Paradis-Poissonnière. On the eighth day, as he was going in the same direction, he remembered that it was just a year since he and his three friends had met at the café at the corner of the boulevard and Faubourg Poissonnière, and that they had all agreed to meet at the same place at the end of a year. So he changed his direction and went to the café, being curious to see whether his friends had remembered the appointment, and at the same time ready to seize any opportunity to obtain even momentary relief from his one haunting thought.
On entering the café, Adhémar spied Philémon Dubotté taking his ease with a glass of punch and a newspaper.
"Bravo!" cried Philémon, as they shook hands; "here are two men of their word! two men with a memory! I never doubted you, my dear fellow. How are you? You look a little pale. Didn't the air of London agree with you? I understand you have been in England?"
"Yes; the London air isn't very clear. It is composed in great part of smoke and fog; but it's not unhealthy, I believe, as the neighborhood of the sea drives away the noxious vapors."
"Did you make a lot of conquests over there? But of course you did."