Georget asked himself all these questions in less than a minute. But the last was the one of all others which he would have given everything in the world to be able to answer! Of what was she thinking at that moment?
Is not that always what a lover asks, when he can observe his mistress unseen, and when he sees that she is thoughtful? But it is also the question which most frequently remains unanswered.
Quite a long time passed and Georget was still in the same spot, with his eyes fixed upon Violette, who did not see him. More than once the young man was pushed aside and jostled by the passers-by, by people carrying flowers.
"Look out!" they would shout at him; "stand out of the way! let us pass! Is the fellow stuck to the concrete?"
But Georget did not stir, he did not even hear, he did not even feel the jostling; it seemed as if his whole being were concentrated in his eyes, and as if he only existed through them.
But he had no choice save to emerge from his trance and to reply, when he suddenly felt a pair of wiry arms thrown about him, and someone began to dance up and down in front of him and embrace him, exclaiming the while:
"Ah! so here you are, my poor Georget! You're not dead, or melted! How glad I am! I thought you must be in the canal or in a well, or caught in a slide in the Montmartre quarries! Let me embrace you, _saperlotte_! You villain! you brute! to disappear like this and leave your friends in despair! Let me embrace you!"
Georget recognized his former comrade, and he felt touched by the joy Chicotin showed as he gazed at him.
"Yes, it is I, Chicotin; thanks; so you have not forgotten me?"
"Forgotten you! what a stupid you are! What does that mean? why should I have forgotten you? weren't we friends? I should like to know if friends part like an old pair of breeches, which you never expect to put on again? Forgotten! why, I've hunted for you in every corner of Paris! I've been to your house, after asking Mamzelle Violette for your address, for I didn't know it!"
"You asked Mamzelle Violette for my address?"
"To be sure; I had to ask her, to find out."
"And what did she say when you mentioned me?"
"Pardi! she told me that you lived on Rue d'Angoulême. I went there, and I found a tall, thin brute of a concierge who was as drunk as a fool and fighting with a woman--she must have been his wife, for she called him a blackguard!"