"If only he had had a master in the old days!" she sighed, "He would have been by now a famous man full of honours, with all the world can give in his possession."
"Hasn't he the best the world can give now that he has found you again?" said I, somewhat shyly.
Joanna gave a short laugh. "You talk sometimes like one's grandfather. I suppose that is because you became a student of philosophy at a tender age. Yes, your master has found me again; but after all, what is a woman? Just a speck of dust on top of the world."
She half seated herself on my painting stool, her back to the picture.
"Tell me, Asticot, is he at least happy?"
"Can you doubt it, Madame?" I cried warmly.
"I do so want him to be happy, Asticot. You see it was all through me that he gave up his career and took to the strange life he has been leading, and I feel doubly responsible for his future. Can you understand that?"
Her blue eyes were very childish and earnest. For all my love of Paragot, I suddenly felt something like pity for her, as for one who had undertaken a responsibility that weighed too heavily on slender shoulders. For the first time it struck me that Paragot and Joanna might not be a perfectly matched couple. Intuition prompted me to say:—
"My master is utterly happy, but you must give him a little time to accustom himself to the new order of things."
"That's it," she said. Then there was a pause. "You are such a wise boy," she continued, "that perhaps you may be able to do something for me. I can't do it myself—and it's horrid of me to talk about it—but do you think you might suggest to him that people of our class don't visit the Black Boar? I don't mind it a bit; but other people—my cousin Major Walters said something a day or two ago—and it hurt. They don't understand Gaston's Continental ways. It is natural for a man to go to a café in France; but in England, things are so different."