“Why did you stop and talk right in front of me? I should have had to stuff my ears to keep from hearing. Still, I didn’t pay much attention to your words, until monsieur began to talk about Mademoiselle Violette the flower girl; then I listened with all my ears, it is true, because it interested me, because I know Mamzelle Violette, because I know that she’s an honest girl, who doesn’t listen to what men say to her, when they try to induce her to make a fool of herself; and you said that she wasn’t cruel to everybody, that she wasn’t virtuous, that she wasn’t a model of virtue! You lied, and I couldn’t listen to that without saying something, for I should have been a coward if I had heard you insult Violette without taking up her defence.”
“It seems that this is another lover of the flower girl,” said Chambourdin, turning toward Astianax to laugh; but the latter had turned as red as a rooster, and he said to Georget:
“I might send you to the devil; but I am willing to answer you. I didn’t lie in what I said about the flower girl. No, I didn’t lie, I said nothing that I’m not sure of. No, Mademoiselle Violette isn’t virtuous; for girls who mean to remain virtuous aren’t in the habit of calling on young men who live all alone.”
“Do you mean to say that Violette has been to your house?”
“No, not to mine! but to the rooms of a young man who lives on the same landing that I do,—his door is just opposite mine.—I say, Monsieur Chambourdin, it’s Monsieur Jéricourt the author, who came to our party at Nogent with a friend of his, who was dressed so nicely——”
“That he looked like a tailor’s manikin.—Oh! I remember those two gentlemen perfectly!”
Georget, who had turned pale at the mention of Jéricourt’s name, said to Astianax:
“I too know the gentleman you speak of; I have seen him often enough come here and play the gallant with Mamzelle Violette; but she has never listened to him, and it was he who lied when he told you that she had been to his room.”
“He didn’t need to tell me anything, because I saw,—do you hear?—because I saw the pretty flower girl come out of his room.”
“No, no! you made a mistake; it wasn’t her, it couldn’t have been!”