"Marry Blanquette! Marry——"
He regarded me in simple, undisguised amazement which took his breath away. He passed his hand through his hair and sat on the nearest seat.
"Nom de Dieu!" said he, "I never thought of it!"
Then he leaped up and caught me in the old way by the shoulders, and cried in French, as he did in moments of great excitement:
"But it's colossal, that idea! It is the solution of everything. And I never thought of it though it has been staring me in the face. Why I love her, our little Blanquette. I have loved her all the time without knowing it as the good Monsieur Jourdain spoke prose. Sacré nom d'un petit bonhomme! Why didn't you tell me before, confounded little animal that you are?"
He swung me with a laugh, to the other side of the room, and waved his arms grotesquely, as he continued his dithyrambic eulogy of the colossal idea. I have never seen two minutes produce a greater change in a human countenance. Ten years fell from it. He looked even younger than when he had broken his fiddle over Mr. Pogson's head and received the inspiration of our vagabondage. His blue eyes cleared, and in them shone the miraculous light of laughter.
"But it was written, my son Asticot. It was preordained. She is the one woman in the world to whom I need not pretend to be other than I am. She is real, nom de Dieu! What she says is Blanquette, what she does is Blanquette, and her sayings and doings would grace the greatest Queen in Christendom. But, have you thought of it? I have come indeed to the end of my journey. I started out to find Truth, the Reality of Things. I have found it. I have found it, my son. It is a woman, strong and steadfast, who looks into your eyes; who can help a man to accomplish his destiny. And the destiny of man is to work, and to beget strong children. And his reward is to have the light in the wife's eyes and the welcome of a child's voice as he crosses the threshold of his house. And it cleanses a man. But Blanquette——" he smote his forehead, and burst into excited laughter. "Why did it not enter into this idiot head before?"
The laughter ceased all of a sudden, and at least three years returned to his face.
"It takes two parties to make a marriage," said he in a chastened tone. "Blanquette is young. I am not. She may be thinking of a future quite different. It is all very well to say I will marry Blanquette, but will Blanquette marry me?"
"Master," said I, feeling a person of elderly experience, "it was entirely on your account that Blanquette refused the quincaillier at the corner of the street."