“That delicious little _crémerie_!” murmured Célestin, and they started.
They crossed the Place de la Concorde, Célestin laughing, Toto talking, and Gaillard walking silent like a froward child. He would have returned to the Rue de Turbigo had he not been absolutely penniless, for the five francs had all vanished, devoured by a rose, a cigar, and a cab.
“I will be silent,” thought Gaillard, “and spoil this wretched Toto’s pleasure; I will turn his feast into a funeral. Nineteen francs, _mon Dieu!_ and three people, and a day in the country! The mind revolts!”
But ten minutes later he was calling for honey, declaring that he could not eat his roll and butter without it, and joining in the conversation. He could no longer endure the agony of holding his tongue; besides, he remembered the thousand francs Toto had promised him if he conducted himself decorously and with discretion.
“I know where we will go!” cried the Prince.
“Barbizon?” queried Gaillard, putting six lumps of sugar in his coffee.
“No, Montmorency; the chestnut trees will look splendid to-day. They are not in flower yet; but no matter—one cannot have everything.”
“True,” said Gaillard, trying to ogle Célestin and failing, for she was entirely engrossed with Toto and the bread and butter; “one cannot have everything. We will go to Montmorency, and sit beneath the chestnut trees and tell each other fairy tales.”
“I will tell you the tale of the giant and the dwarf,” resumed Gaillard. “It is my own—one of a series of _fin-de-siècle_ fairy tales I am writing for Lévy. There is a terrible battle in it, and the giant beats the dwarf. In the olden tales the dwarf beats the giant invariably, but I have changed all that. The giant in my story is the type of sin; he pelts the dwarf with roses, nothing more; the dwarf replies with mud; he is Virtue, and has a hump, and is hairy. Rousseau had a châlet at Montmorency; it is there still. I will leave you two amongst the primroses whilst I go and cast a stone at it—wretched man, murderer of his own children, destroyer of the _haute noblesse_, progenitor of the bourgeoisie!”
“Oh, bother Rousseau!” cried the Prince, helping Célestin to more honey. “We don’t want to think of him; we want to be happy.”