I dress you like the Empress Josephine for friendship?"

"Do not mock yourself of it," she said reprovingly; "remember that
'Friendship is a beautiful flower, of which esteem is the stem.'" And,
having thrown the adage to him, coupled with a glance that drove him to
distraction, the little flirt jumped off the counter and was gone.

Much more reluctantly she contemplated parting with him whom the
costumier had described as a "hungry poet"; but matrimony did not enter
the poet's scheme of things, nor for that matter had she ever regarded
him as a possible parti. Yet a woman may give her fancy where her
reason refuses to follow, and when she imparted her news to Tricotrin
there was no smile on her lips.

"We shall not go to balls any more, old dear," she said. "Monsieur
Pomponnet has proposed marriage to me--and I settle down."

"Heartless girl," exclaimed the young man, with tears in his eyes. "So
much for woman's constancy!"

"Mon Dieu," she faltered, "did you then love me, Gustave--really?"

"I do not know," said Tricotrin, "but since I am to lose you, I prefer
to think so. Ah, do not grieve for me--fortunately, there is always the
Seine! And first I shall pour my misery into song; and in years to
come, fair daughters at your side will read the deathless poem, little
dreaming that the Lisette I sang to is their mother. Some time--long
after I am in my grave, when France has honoured me at last--you may
stand before a statue that bears my name, and think, 'He loved me, and
I broke his heart!'"