Everywhere and always the same, the egotistical and amiable Maurice takes the lion’s share, and Amedee, listening only with one ear to the large Margot, who is already begging him to make an acrostic for her, thinks Rosine is charming, while Maurice says a thousand foolish things to her.  In spite of himself, the poet looks upon Maurice as his superior, and thinks it perfectly natural that he should claim the prettier of the two women.  No matter!  Amedee wanted to enjoy himself too.  This Margot, who had just taken off her gloves to drink her wine, had large, red hands, and seemed as silly as a goose, but all the same she was a beautiful creature, and the poet began to talk to her, while she laughed and looked at him with a wanton’s eyes.  Meanwhile the orchestra burst into a polka, and Maurice, in raising his voice to speak to his friend, called him several times Amedee, and once only by his family name, Violette.  Suddenly little Rosine started up and looked at the poet, saying with astonishment: 

“What!  Is your name Amedee Violette?”

“Certainly.”

“Then you are the boy with whom I played so much when I was a child.”

“With me?”

“Yes!  Do you not remember Rosine, little Rosine Combarieu, at Madame Gerard’s, the engraver’s wife, in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs?  We played games with his little girls.  How odd it is, the way one meets old friends!”

What is it that Amedee feels?  His entire childhood rises before him.  The bitterness of the thought that he had known this poor girl in her innocence and youth, and the Gerards’ name spoken in such a place, filled the young man’s heart with a singular sadness.  He could only say to Rosine, in a voice that trembled a little with pity: 

“You!  Is it you?”

Then she became red and very embarrassed, lowering her eyes.

Maurice had tact; he noticed that Rosine and Amedee were agitated, and, feeling that he was de trop, he arose suddenly and said: 

“Now then, Margot.  Come on! these children want to talk over their childhood, I think.  Give up your acrostic, my child.  Take my arm, and come and have a turn.”

When they were alone Amedee gazed at Rosine sadly.  She was pretty, in spite of her colorless complexion, a child of the faubourg, born with a genius for dress, who could clothe herself on nothing-a linen gown, a flower in her hat.  One who lived on salads and vegetables, so as to buy well-made shoes and eighteen-button gloves.

The pretty blonde looked at Amedee, and a timid smile shone in her nut-brown eyes.

“Now, Monsieur Amedee,” said she, at last, “it need not trouble you to meet at Bullier’s the child whom you once played with.  What would have been astonishing would be to find that I had become a fine lady.  I am not wise, it is true, but I work, and you need not fear that I go with the first comer.  Your friend is a handsome fellow, and very amiable, and I accepted his attentions because he knew Margot, while with you it is very different.  It gives me pleasure to talk with you.  It recalls Mamma Gerard, who was so kind to me.  What has become of her, tell me? and her husband and her daughters?”