"My dear boy, I am very glad I came with you, but I've had enough; if I went any farther I should have the pip, and I believe I should break in two. Deuce take it! you have a way of walking that leaves cabs and omnibuses nowhere. Au revoir; I'll call and say good-day to you at Nogent, but I shall go all alone, and take my own time walking; I prefer that way."
Georget presented himself before his master, decidedly shamefaced; he was afraid of being scolded because he was not on hand punctually at the place which his patron had appointed; but the count simply said to him:
"As I didn't find you at the place I mentioned, I concluded that you had forgotten the time at the flower market, with the pretty flower girl, and I went there to look for you."
"You went there, monsieur? Did you see Violette?"
"Yes, I saw her and talked with her."
"You talked with her? Ah! I didn't speak to her! With one of my old comrades, named Chicotin, who wouldn't believe that Violette had behaved badly, I followed that Monsieur Jéricourt, the man to whose rooms she—she went; and as Chicotin knows that man, he begged him to tell us the truth about the flower girl. As I expected, he confirmed what I had already heard."
"It's a pity, for that girl is very interesting, and I discovered in her features a resemblance to a person who was very pretty also—long ago!"
"Oh! isn't Violette lovely, monsieur? I told you so! And—excuse me if I ask you a question—but what did she have to say to monsieur?"
"She talked about you, my boy."
"About me! about me! why on earth did she speak of me, when she doesn't love me and has made me so unhappy? Why does she think of me, when another man has her love, when she did not care for mine, which was so true, so sincere? Is it to make me unhappy again? is it to make me still more desperate, that she speaks of me? I don't want her to talk about me, I will tell her not to!"