“What a beautiful night!”

“Yes!  It does one good to breathe the fresh air.”

They continued their walk without speaking.  Oh, how fresh and sweet it was under these trees!

At last they reached the door of Rosine’s dwelling.  With a slow movement she pressed her hand upon the bell-button.  Then Amedee, with a great effort, and in a confused, husky voice, asked whether he might go up with her and see her little room.

She looked at him steadily, with a tender sadness in her eyes, and then said to him, softly: 

“No, certainly not!  One must be sensible.  I please you this evening, and you know very well that I think you are charming.  It is true we knew each other when we were young, and now that we have met again, it seems as if it would be pleasant to love each other.  But, believe me, we should commit a great folly, perhaps a wrong.  It is better, I assure you, to forget that you ever met me at Bullier’s with big Margot, and only remember your little playmate of the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.  It will be better than a caprice, it will be something pure that you can keep in your heart.  Do not let us spoil the remembrance of our childhood, Monsieur Amedee, and let us part good friends.”

Before the young man could find a reply, the bell pealed again, and Rosine gave Amedee a parting smile, lightly kissing the tips of her fingers, and disappeared behind the doer, which fell together, with a loud bang.  The poet’s first movements was one of rage.  Giddy weather-cock of a woman!  But he had hardly taken twenty steps upon the sidewalk before he said to himself, with a feeling of remorse, “She was right!” He thought that this poor girl had kept in one corner of her heart a shadow of reserve and modesty, and he was happy to feel rise within him a sacred respect for woman!

Amedee, my good fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure.  You had better give it up!

CHAPTER XII

SOCIAL TRIUMPHS

For one month now Amedee Violette’s volume of verses, entitled Poems from Nature, had embellished with its pale-blue covers the shelves of the book-shops.  The commotion raised by the book’s success, and the favorable criticisms given by the journals, had not yet calmed down at the Cafe de Seville.

This emotion, let it be understood, did not exist except among the literary men.  The politicians disdained poets and poetry, and did not trouble them selves over such commonplace matters.  They had affairs of a great deal more importance to determine the overthrow of the government first, then to remodel the map of Europe!  What was necessary to over throw the Empire?  First, conspiracy; second, barricades.  Nothing was easier than to conspire.  Every body conspired at the Seville.  It is the character of the French, who are born cunning, but are light and talkative, to conspire in public places.