"And I am not to look for Monsieur de Roncherolle any more?"
"But monsieur will still employ me when he needs a messenger?"
Georget went away in a sad frame of mind, for at the bottom of his heart he was not content with himself. As he passed through the reception room, he made no reply when Pongo called out to him:
"Monsieur Georget, Carabi not so bad now, he no claw nothing but my ear."
To Georget's mind, the best way to find an excuse for his wrongdoing was to go to her who was the cause of his committing it; so that was what he did not fail to do; and as he looked at the fascinating flower girl, he said to himself:
"As if it would have been possible for me to live without seeing her! Oh, no! I should have died of grief, and that would have made my mother more unhappy than all the rest! So I did well not to accept Monsieur Malberg's offer."
Thus it is that man always finds a way to compromise with his conscience and to put himself on pleasant terms with it.
Violette smiled pleasantly at Georget, saying:
"So you're not travelling all over Paris to-day, Georget?"
"No, mamzelle, my travels are ended; Monsieur Malberg doesn't want me to go on looking for his man.--But what has become of Chicotin? I never see him here now."
"That's true, he doesn't come so much as he did. I am not sorry, for he frequently knocked my customers down, and that would have ended by injuring my trade."
"Your customers! You mean the fine gentlemen who come here to make sweet speeches to you! Do you still see those fellows?"
"Dear me! when it pleases them to buy flowers of me I can't refuse to sell them."
"Ah! if I was rich, Mamzelle Violette, you wouldn't sell anything at all, you would have a home of your own, and a lovely room, with nothing else to do but arrange your hair!"
"Really, Georget, you would give me all that?"
"Indeed I would, and much more too if I had it!"
"Do you think that I would accept it from you rather than from another man?"
"Why, mamzelle, when a man has only honorable sentiments; you may be sure that I wouldn't offer that to you as a mistress, but as--as--as--Oh! Violette, you understand me well enough, but you are not willing to help me a little!"
"No, Georget, I do not choose to understand you, because I don't choose to take seriously the foolish things that you say to me."
