In front of the Gymnase Theatre, Roncherolle felt a hand on his arm, and he turned and recognized his former neighbor, young Alfred de Saint-Arthur.
"Ah! good-morning, my dear monsieur, delighted to meet you!"
"Good-morning, my dear Monsieur de Roncherolle. I can no longer say my neighbor, for you are not my neighbor now. You went off like a bomb without telling me, without leaving me your address; that was very unkind. That idiot of a Beauvinet,—you know, the young man at the hotel,—insisted upon it that you lived at Passage I-don't-know-where. Ah! that was a good one! that was very good!"
"You didn't try to find me at that place?"
"Oh, no! I wasn't taken in by that blockhead of a Beauvinet. I said to myself: 'My neighbor must have had reasons for moving and not leaving his address; such things happen every day, and indeed I think that it may happen to me very soon.'—But I regretted you all the same; on my word of honor I regretted you."
"That is too kind of you."
"But there was someone who regretted you much more than I did. Can't you guess?"
"Faith, no."
"It was Zizi—you know—Zizi Dutaillis."
"Oh, yes! I remember perfectly—a very agreeable little woman."