“Good! now you are in good spirits, and that is the way I love to see you, the way I would like you to be always, because—Well, it is changing already! your brow is clouded and you turn pale;—what is the matter, Georget? Don’t you feel well?”
The young messenger had, in fact, changed color, and his smiling face, his eyes beaming with happiness, had suddenly assumed a different expression. A single glance in the distance had sufficed to cause this revolution: Georget had caught sight of Monsieur Jéricourt, the handsome man who was in love with the flower girl, walking very slowly in front of the Château d’Eau, not like a person who was going elsewhere, but like one who had come there with a purpose.
Violette followed the direction of Georget’s eyes, and speedily discovered the cause of his change of countenance; thereupon she shrugged her shoulders impatiently and cried:
“Mon Dieu! is it going to begin again?—You are going to do your errand, I hope, Georget?”
“Yes, mamzelle, yes, I’m going, I’m going right away; for if I didn’t, I might do more foolish things. Here comes that perfumed dandy who makes love to you—here he comes again; it seems that he means to come every day now; it’s a regular thing!”
“That gentleman is perfectly free to walk on the boulevard; what makes you think it’s on my account?”
“What makes me think so? why, it’s plain enough; you know as well as I do that it’s on your account. Oh! what a pity that the boulevard’s free to everybody!—I’m going, mamzelle, I’m going!”
Georget made up his mind to go, at last; he passed Jéricourt, upon whom he bestowed a savage glance; but that gentleman did not notice him.
On the previous day the young author had been flatly snubbed by the flower girl, and before witnesses too, which made his discomfiture even more unpalatable. While dining at Bonvalet’s restaurant, with his friend Saint-Arthur and the piquant little actress who was his friend’s mistress, Jéricourt had had to submit to the raillery of Beau Alfred, who, to compensate himself for having been thrown down and having broken his suspenders, had not ceased to repeat:
“It was Jéricourt’s fault! he was making love to the flower girl, and there seemed to be no end to it; but the pretty peddler didn’t bite at his gallantries—I fancy that our dear friend will have nothing to show for his seductive propositions. Ha! ha! ha! repulsed with heavy loss by a flower girl! It’s incredible, it’s most annoying! He doesn’t choose to admit it, but I am sure that he’s terribly annoyed.”