“Just now--oh, no! It was a long time ago, mother. If you knew--but I won’t keep it from you any more; you shall know what a bad son I have been; but you will forgive me, when you know the cause. Mon Dieu! it was too much for me!” “You, a bad son, Georget; no, that is impossible; you do yourself an injustice, my child!” “No, for all this comfort that I offer you to-day, Monsieur Malberg proposed to me some time ago, when I spoke to you about going to his country house; it depended only on me to go there then with you, and I did not tell you that, because then I could not make up my mind to leave Paris; for--mon Dieu!--for I was in love--there! that is what I had at the bottom of my heart, and did not dare to tell you!” “Is it possible! you in love already! Why, you won’t be eighteen for two months.” “Still I have been in love a long time.” “Poor boy! then that is the reason why some days you were so sad and other days so gay! Lovers always go to extremes!--And it’s all over now, is it?” “Oh, yes! it’s all over, mother; I don’t propose to think of her any more; I don’t propose to see her, either, for if I should see her, I should treat her as she deserves; but that wouldn’t do any good, that wouldn’t prevent--what has happened. You see, mother, I believed that she was so virtuous, I would have gone into the fire for her, and she deceived me.” “Did she tell you that she loved you, my boy?” “She didn’t tell me so, except with her eyes,--at least it seemed to me that I could read it there. But I deceived myself, no doubt! However, let us not talk any more about her, mother, let us not talk any more about her. Pack up your things, take only what you need for a little while, and later I will come back and fetch the rest; the most important thing now is to go.” “But, my boy, our furniture, and these lodgings--we haven’t given notice.” “Don’t worry about all that, we will give it later. While you are getting ready, I will go and ask Baudoin, the concierge, if Monsieur Malberg is at his country house now.” Georget left his mother and ran quickly down to the concierge. Baudoin was keeping the lodge, for his wife had drunk so much the night before that she had been taken ill, and was not in condition to leave her bed. “Monsieur Baudoin, could you tell me if Monsieur Malberg is at his house at Nogent now, or if he is living here?” Georget asked as he entered the concierge’s lodge. That functionary, who was in very ill humor at being obliged to serve as his wife’s nurse, swore like several carters and said as he poured water into a cup: “Herb tea! I think I see myself making her herb tea, the miserable drunkard! Water is what she needs, to put out the fire that she keeps kindled in her insides!” “Will you answer me, please, Monsieur Baudoin?”