“But!” said Toto, tearing a daisy’s head off, “imagine having money to spend, as much as one wanted.” “I have.” “Imagine having a carriage and horses.” “That would be nice; at least, I would sooner, I think, go in omnibuses—one would be very desolate all alone in a carriage. It is the people who make omnibuses so delightful; one wonders where they are going to and what they have in their baskets; and some read books, and one tries to imagine what they read of. And then the hats one sees! they make one want to laugh and weep. Sometimes they are not so bad, but sometimes they are frightful; often have I wished to say, ‘Madame, let me retrim your hat; I will do it for love, and use my own thread,’ but I have never dared.” “Well, imagine being able to ride in omnibuses all day long.” Célestin smiled, and looked away into the blue distance, as if she were watching an ethereal omnibus filled with her familiar angels. “Well, you could do that all day if you were rich.” “I could not take Dodor.” Toto, the tempter, felt that she had him there, but he was not tempting her in the ordinary acceptation of the word. “You love Dodor very much?” Her eyes swept round to him, and rested full upon his. “Tell me, Célestin: could you not love me a little too?” When they got back to the picnic they found the cloth spread, the places laid, and the Perigord pie eaten; they had, in fact, been away over two hours, and the poet had not waited. There was cold tongue, and part of a fowl and rolls and butter left, all of which Gaillard offered with effusion; he had expected a scolding for beginning without them, but he did not get it. Toto did not care, Célestin did not know; cold tongue or Perigord pie, it did not matter—they were in love. The poet smiled upon them like a father, and piled their plates, and gave them what was left of the champagne. “Here’s to Églantine!” said Toto, toasting the provider of the feast in a glass of Mumm, from which Célestin had taken a sip. “Has she brown eyes or blue?” “Blue,” said Gaillard. “Blue as the skies above Pentelicus.” “Well, tell her what I say, and give me a cigarette.” “There is only one left,” replied the poet, as he hastily lit it. CHAPTER III. THE GENESIS OF “PANTIN.” They returned to Paris at five, leaving the luncheon basket at the Montmorency Station. “Églantine will send for it,” said Gaillard. At the Nord they took an open carriage driven by a cabman in a white beaver, and drawn by two white ponies. In this conveyance they tore down the Rue de Faubourg St. Denis, along the Boulevard Nouvelle, and down the Rue Richelieu. Toto sat beside Célestin; Gaillard on the front seat, his stick between his legs, chattered like a magpie, so delighted was he to find himself back in his dear Paris. “Gaillard,” cried Toto, when Célestin had been deposited at her own door, with a whispered word in her ear and a promise on her lips for a rendezvous on the morrow, “I am in love.” “_Ma foi!_ I know.”