Ha! ha! you're a Don Jean, as they say in fashionable society. But you must take care that you don't get robbed yourself. Bless me! those things happen to everybody."

Paul shrugged his shoulders, and made no further reply to Jean Ficelle; but he went to Sans-Cravate, whose back was still turned to him, and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Are you still angry with me?" he said. "Well, Sans-Cravate, you are all wrong; yes, you are wrong, for I have done nothing to make you angry. I love you still, for all your roughness and your hot temper, because I know that you have a good heart. I never gave you bad advice, and it seems to me that I deserve your confidence; but you prefer to listen to those who take you to the wine shop, with such people as that Laboussole."

Sans-Cravate turned his head little by little; at first, he was determined to pick a quarrel with Paul; but, as he listened to him, he felt that his anger subsided, in spite of himself; and when he looked at him, when he saw his gentle, honest eyes looking into his, he could not control his emotion, his genuine affection for his young comrade stirred anew in the depths of his heart.

Paul divined what was taking place in Sans-Cravate's heart, and he held out his hand, saying:

"Oh! I know well enough that you are not a bad fellow! You cannot believe that I am Bastringuette's lover, since you know that I am in love with the young dressmaker who works in the house opposite--Mademoiselle Elina. And even if I weren't, as if I could ever give a thought to my friend's mistress! Somebody has spoken ill of me to you, and you listened because you had drunk a little too much; but now that you are cool, you must see that that was all nonsense. Come, give me your hand, and let us forget the past!"

Sans-Cravate put out his hand to grasp Paul's, but drew it back again, crying:

"Yes, _sacredie!_ it makes me unhappy to be at odds with you. I liked you, and I feel that I'd be glad to like you still. But it ain't a question of what anybody's told me about you, but of what I've seen with my own eyes. You say that you have nothing to do with Bastringuette, that you don't go with her; prove it, and I'm your friend. It ain't that I still care about Bastringuette, or want to make up with her; oh!

there's no danger of that! but I just want to be sure that my friend hasn't gone back on me--played a trick on me, as they say; that's all."

"What do you want me to do? How can I prove it, if my word isn't enough?"

"Oh! it's easy enough: that day we met you dressed like a gentleman, on the corner of Rue Barbette, you came out of a house on Vieille Rue du Temple. Bastringuette came out of the same house a few minutes after you; I saw her--do you hear! You say that you wasn't with her; that may be, although it looks bad! To clear the thing up, just you tell me who you'd been to see--where you'd been in that house. It will be easy for me to go and find out whether you're telling the truth; it won't take me long to walk there. Come, tell me; and if there hasn't been any fooling with my false wench, why, then I'll come back and open my arms to you; I'll beg your pardon, and hug you till I stifle you!"

Sans-Cravate's eyes were wet; it was clear that his most earnest desire was to be able to call Paul his friend once more, and he waited anxiously for his reply. But Paul hung his head, his face became serious, and he dropped the hand he was holding out to his comrade.

"I am sorry that I cannot satisfy you," he said; "but I cannot tell you what you ask. I tell you again that it was not Bastringuette whom I went to see in that house; if she did go there, it was probably a mere coincidence; but it is certain that she was no more looking for me than I was looking for her."

Jean Ficelle, who had softly drawn near and waited with manifest curiosity for Paul's reply, began to whistle the air of: _Go and see if they're coming, Jean, go and see if they're coming._

"What's that!" rejoined Sans-Cravate, with an angry gesture; "you can't tell me who you went to see--who it is you know in that house! It seems to me there's no difficulty in doing that--and when a man ain't doing something crooked, he don't make such a mystery about it."

"Probably I have reasons for acting as I do."

"And you won't tell me your reasons?"

"It is impossible!"

Sans-Cravate stamped the ground angrily, and uttered an energetic oath.

"All right, then; all's over between us; I don't know you any more; you are no mate of mine; I forbid you to speak to me--do you hear? I forbid you; and if you should ever come within range of my eyes, with Bastringuette--not that I care a hang about her! I despise her! I hate her!--but, never mind; if I should see you with her, look out! I shan't always be patient, and you'd be likely to pa.s.s a bad quarter of an hour."

Paul made no reply, but took his _crochets_ and carried them some fifty yards away, toward the house where Elina worked; and there he took his stand.

Jean Ficelle went up to Sans-Cravate, who pretended to look in the direction of the boulevard, and said:

"You did well to give that sneak his walking ticket! What a fool he looked when you asked him who he went to see; he couldn't answer.

_Pardi!_ I guess not; he'd have to own up that he'd done wrong. I'll give you a comparison: it's just the same as if you saw me opening your trunk, and you says: 'What are you looking in there for?' and I says: 'I can't tell you what I'm looking for;' and you says: 'Tell me!' and I----"

"All right! enough of that! you're never done with your comparisons, and they don't amuse me."

"That's all right! Look here, I'm going to suggest something better. The sight of your rival has put you in a bad humor--that's natural; if I had someone in front of me as had turned my girl away from me, I wouldn't be satisfied till I'd given him a good licking; that would be rather hard, to be sure, as I don't happen to have any girl just now. As I was saying, you're out of sorts, but you've got some c.h.i.n.k. That fat woman who's owed you a long while for moving her, and came and paid you this morning--you didn't expect that, so it's just the same as money found; and when you find money, you must spend it right away, or it'll bring you bad luck! So, let's not work to-day; let's go and take something. I know all the good places, you know; we'll just fold up our _crochets_ and enjoy our youth. How does that strike you?"

Sans-Cravate hesitated.

"Not work to-day," he muttered, "in the middle of the week, when everybody's at work----"

"_Ouiche!_ everybody--who feels like it! I'll show you a lot of good fellows to-day, who know how to enjoy themselves! Besides, can't a man take a good dinner once in a while, and loaf a bit if he feels like it?

There's days when you can't help it. Anyway, it's getting late."

"Late! it's only half-past nine."

"Well, you see there's no business doing; we won't get anything to do to-day; it's the dead season; no one's doing anything."

"Drinking ain't the way to save money to send a marriage portion to my sister Liline."

"You've told me that your sister was pretty; and when a girl's pretty, she don't need a marriage portion; and then, ain't there a lady at Clermont who takes an interest in her, and has taken her into her family and given her an education?"

"Yes, but----"

"Well, she'll find a husband for your sister, that's plain enough; so you don't need to worry about her."

"Poor Liline! I'm very fond of her; she's so pretty and gentle--as gentle as I am rough! I mean to go down into the country next spring, and see my sister and my father; and perhaps I'll stay with them, for I have nothing at all to keep me in Paris now."

Sans-Cravate sighed profoundly as he spoke, and his eyes scanned the boulevards as if he were looking for someone.

"Well, that's all right; you can go home next spring, and I'll show you out of the city; if you want, I'll wait for you at the barrier till you come back; but at the present time, if you don't take a little pleasure, you'll be as yellow and dry as parchment; you've changed already, you're losing your fine color."

"Oh! I don't care about that now! there's n.o.body I want to please."

"n.o.body knows! n.o.body knows! you mustn't get careless. A man ought to be handsome all the time, as he's made to seduce; that's all I know. A comparison: it's like a horse that's never curry-combed; his coat loses all its gloss."

"It's sure enough that there's twelve francs here," said Sans-Cravate, tapping his pocket, "that I didn't count on at all."

"We must squeeze 'em dry. You've got twelve francs and I've got fifteen sous; we'll put 'em together, and spree it till they're dead! What do you say?"

Sans-Cravate was still hesitating, when he turned and saw Paul with his eyes fastened on him; thereupon he sprang to his feet and kicked his _crochets_ aside, crying:

"Yes, yes! let's go and enjoy ourselves; to the devil with work! you're right. And while that lasts, I shan't have to look at people I hate.

Let's be off, Jean Ficelle! No more work as long as the money holds out!"

"Bravo! that's talking! I imagine I am listening to Solomon himself."

In another moment, Jean Ficelle had bestowed the _crochets_ in their usual place, and the two messengers walked away arm in arm, Sans-Cravate without looking at Paul, while Jean Ficelle, on the contrary, ostentatiously cast a sneering glance at their young comrade.

"Poor Sans-Cravate!" said Paul to himself, when he saw the two men leave their stand and their work; "he lets Jean Ficelle entice him away, and perhaps he will end by becoming as much of a ne'er-do-well as his companion!"

But the young man soon turned his eyes once more on the neighboring porte cochere; he was sorely disappointed because Elina did not come out, and wondered what she could think of him, when she had failed to find him in his usual place for eleven days.

He kept his eyes fixed on the door of the house in which the little dressmaker worked, almost every minute of the day; if he went away to do an errand, his eyes turned instantly in that direction when he came back; and he waited and waited, hoping that his love would come out; but she did not appear.

At last the night came, and the hour at which the girls ceased their labors, unless they were detained by some unusual press of work. Paul had determined not to go away without seeing Elina, even if he had to pa.s.s the whole evening in the street.