“Shall we take a turn there?”

“Willingly,” replied his gay friend.  “Ah, ha! we are then beginning to enjoy ourselves a little, Monsieur Violette!  Go to Bullier’s? so be it.  I am not sorry to assure myself whether or not I still love the Parisians.”

They started off, smoking their cigarettes.  Upon the highway, going in the same direction as themselves, were victorias carrying women in spring costumes and wearing bonnets decked with flowers.  From time to time the friends were elbowed by students shouting popular refrains and walking in Indian-file.

Here is Bullier’s!  They step into the blazing entrance, and go thence to the stairway which leads to the celebrated public ballroom.  They are stifled by the odor of dust, escaping gas, and human flesh.  Alas! there are in every village in France doctors in hansom cabs, country lawyers, and any quantity of justices of the peace, who, I can assure you, regret this stench as they take the fresh air in the open country under the starry heavens, breathing the exquisite perfume of new-mown hay; for it is mingled with the little poetry that they have had in their lives, with their student’s love-affairs, and their youth.

All the same, this Bullier’s is a low place, a caricature of the Alhambra in pasteboard.  Three or four thousand moving heads in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, and an exasperating orchestra playing a quadrille in which dancers twist and turn, tossing their legs with calm faces and audacious gestures.

“What a mob!” said Amedee, already a trifle disgusted.  “Let us go into the garden.”

They were blinded by the gas there; the thickets looked so much like old scenery that one almost expected to see the yellow breastplates of comic-opera dragoons; and the jet of water recalled one of those little spurts of a shooting-gallery upon which an empty egg-shell dances.  But they could breathe there a little.

“Boy! two sodas,” said Maurice, striking the table with his cane; and the two friends sat down near the edge of a walk where the crowd passed and repassed.  They had been there about ten minutes when two women stopped before them.

“Good-day, Maurice,” said the taller, a brunette with rich coloring, the genuine type of a tavern girl.

“What, Margot!” exclaimed the young man.  “Will you take something?  Sit down a moment, and your friend too.  Do you know, your friend is charming?  What is her name?”

“Rosine,” replied the stranger, modestly, for she was only about eighteen, and, in spite of the blond frizzles over her eyes, she was not yet bold, poor child!  She was making her debut, it was easy to see.

“Well, Mademoiselle Rosine, come here, that I may see you,” continued Maurice, seating the young girl beside him with a caressing gesture.  “You, Margot, I authorize to be unfaithful to me once more in favor of my friend Amedee.  He is suffering with lovesickness, and has a heart to let.  Although he is a poet, I think he happens to have in his pocket enough to pay for a supper.”