The lump of butter cast into the frying-pan sizzled, and Blanquette sighed again. I must explain that I had come, as I often did, to share Paragot's midday meal, but as he was still abed, Blanquette had enticed me into her tiny kitchen. The omelette being for my sole consumption I may be pardoned for my interest in its concoction.
"So that you could be married and have lovers?" I asked in a superior way.
"Too many lovers make life unhappy," she replied sagely. "If I were pretty I should only want one—one to love me for myself."
"And for what are you loved now?"
"For my omelettes," she said with a deft turn of the frying-pan.
"Blanquette," said I, "je t'adore."
She laughed with an "es-tu bête!" and ministered to my wants as I sat down to my meal at a corner of the kitchen table. She loved this. Great as was her pride in the speckless and orderly salon, she never felt at her ease there. In the kitchen she was herself, at home, and could do the honours as hostess.
"Do you think the beautiful lady is in love with the Master?"
"You have been reading the feuilletons of the Petit Journal and your head is full of sentimental nonsense," I cried.
"It is not nonsense for a woman to love the Master."