On approaching the place where the pretty girl kept her booth, Georget felt his legs tremble and give way under him. His heart beat so violently that he placed his hand against it, trying to suppress its throbbing. The poor boy had never been so intensely agitated. He longed, yet dreaded, to turn his eyes toward the place where he used formerly to stop so often. At last, taking advantage of a moment when many people were between him and that spot, he raised his eyes and looked; he saw Violette, and after that his glance remained fastened upon her. At that moment indeed, the flower girl, being busily engaged in making bouquets, was looking at her tray and was paying no attention to the passers-by. Violette was as fascinating as ever; but the rosy tinge of her complexion had almost entirely disappeared, her brow was careworn, and all her features bore the stamp of melancholy; far from impairing her beauty, however, it gave a new charm to her whole person. Georget instantly observed the change, the pallor which had replaced the roses that formerly adorned Violette's cheeks; and in a second, twenty thoughts rushed through his mind. "Why that sad, downcast expression?--Why this change, this pallor?--Why, even while arranging her flowers, does her brow remain pensive and careworn?--Is she sick?--Is she unhappy?--Who can make her so?--What is she thinking about at this moment?" Georget asked himself all these questions in less than a minute. But the last was the one of all others which he would have given everything in the world to be able to answer! Of what was she thinking at that moment? Is not that always what a lover asks, when he can observe his mistress unseen, and when he sees that she is thoughtful? But it is also the question which most frequently remains unanswered. Quite a long time passed and Georget was still in the same spot, with his eyes fixed upon Violette, who did not see him. More than once the young man was pushed aside and jostled by the passers-by, by people carrying flowers. "Look out!" they would shout at him; "stand out of the way! let us pass! Is the fellow stuck to the concrete?" But Georget did not stir, he did not even hear, he did not even feel the jostling; it seemed as if his whole being were concentrated in his eyes, and as if he only existed through them. But he had no choice save to emerge from his trance and to reply, when he suddenly felt a pair of wiry arms thrown about him, and someone began to dance up and down in front of him and embrace him, exclaiming the while: "Ah! so here you are, my poor Georget! You're not dead, or melted! How glad I am! I thought you must be in the canal or in a well, or caught in a slide in the Montmartre quarries! Let me embrace you, _saperlotte_! You villain! you brute! to disappear like this and leave your friends in despair! Let me embrace you!" Georget recognized his former comrade, and he felt touched by the joy Chicotin showed as he gazed at him.