Thus it is that man always finds a way to compromise with his conscience and to put himself on pleasant terms with it.
Violette smiled pleasantly at Georget, saying:
“So you’re not travelling all over Paris to-day, Georget?”
“No, mamzelle, my travels are ended; Monsieur Malberg doesn’t want me to go on looking for his man.—But what has become of Chicotin? I never see him here now.”
“That’s true, he doesn’t come so much as he did. I am not sorry, for he frequently knocked my customers down, and that would have ended by injuring my trade.”
“Your customers! You mean the fine gentlemen who come here to make sweet speeches to you! Do you still see those fellows?”
“Dear me! when it pleases them to buy flowers of me I can’t refuse to sell them.”
“Ah! if I was rich, Mamzelle Violette, you wouldn’t sell anything at all, you would have a home of your own, and a lovely room, with nothing else to do but arrange your hair!”
“Really, Georget, you would give me all that?”
“Indeed I would, and much more too if I had it!”