"Is that all you're buying this morning, monsieur?"
"But you don't answer my proposition, Violette. Don't you understand that I am offering you a brilliant future--all the enjoyments, all the pleasures of life? And that won't interfere with your remaining virtuous."
"It's too risky in that business! No, thank you, monsieur, all this don't tempt me; it amuses me to see other people act, but it don't make me want to act myself. Everyone to his taste, and I prefer my flowers to your stage."
"Nonsense! it isn't possible that you refuse, when I undertake to remove all obstacles."
"Buy this bouquet;--just see what a pretty one it is, and what a sweet smell! I'll bet that it don't smell so good in your wings."
"Surely, this isn't your last word, Violette? You will think it over, and you will accept."
"Oh! my reflecting's all done, monsieur; it don't take long with me; I know right off what suits me. I don't feel any calling for the stage."
"Don't take the trouble to say any more, monsieur; you'll just waste your words, and that would be a pity, as you make your business out of them, and you sell wit on paper."
Jéricourt was so vexed by the rejection of his proposition, when he expected a complete triumph, that he was tongue-tied, and could not think of a single word to answer the flower girl.
At that moment he felt a hand on his arm, and someone said to him:
"Good-day, Monsieur Jéricourt; I recognized you from behind by your cane; I said: 'That's my neighbor's cane.'--How are you?"
Jéricourt turned and found himself face to face with the little young man who squinted so horribly and whom we have already met at the Château d'Eau flower market, with his mother and sister--Monsieur Astianax Glumeau, whose room was on the floor above his parents, on the same landing as Jéricourt's apartment.
"Ah! is it you, young man?" said the author, as, with a patronizing air, he offered a finger to little Astianax, who deemed himself highly honored by that favor; because, in his eyes, a man who wrote plays which were actually performed was a demigod. "What are you here for, my little rake? to buy a bouquet for some fair one whom you are courting, I suppose?"
"Oh! upon my word, Monsieur Jéricourt! I should not dare--I am too young as yet. However, it isn't the inclination that is lacking."