VI
THE ADVENTURE OF FLEURETTE
One day, when Aristide was discoursing on the inexhaustible subject of woman, I pulled him up.
“My good friend,” said I, “you seem to have fallen in love with every woman you have ever met. But for how many of them have you really cared?”
“Mon Dieu! For all of them!” he cried, springing from his chair and making a wind-mill of himself.
“Come, come,” said I; “all that amorousness is just Gallic exuberance. Have you ever been really in love in your life?”
“How should I know?” said he. But he lit a cigarette, turned away, and looked out of window.
There was a short silence. He shrugged his shoulders, apparently in response to his own thoughts. Then he turned again suddenly, threw his cigarette into the fire, and thrust his hands into his pockets. He sighed.
“Perhaps there was Fleurette,” said he, not looking at me. “Est-ce qu’on sait jamais? That wasn’t her real name—it was Marie-Joséphine; but people called her Fleurette. She looked like a flower, you know.”