We mounted to the attics and I was duly installed.
"I would have put some flowers if I had known you were coming," said Blanquette.
We went down again and she prepared food for me, her plain face beaming as she talked. She was entirely happy. No one so perfect as the Master had ever been the head of a household. Of course he was untidy. But such was the nature of men. If he did not make stains on the floor with muddy boots and lumps of meat thrown to Narcisse, and litter the rooms with clothes and tobacco and books, what occupation would there be for a housekeeper? As it was she worked from morning to night. And the result; was it not neat and clean and beautiful? Ah! she was happy not to be playing the zither in brasseries. All her dreams were realised. She had a ménage. And she had the Master to serve. Now would she fetch him from the Café Delphine.
Half an hour afterwards he strode into the room, followed by Blanquette and Narcisse. He spoke in French and embraced me French fashion. Then he cried out in English and wrung me by the hand. He was almost as excited as Narcisse who leaped and barked frantically.
"It is good to have him back, eh Blanquette?"
"Oui, Maître. He does not know how sad it has been without him."
Blanquette smiled, wept and removed the remains of my supper. Then she set on the table glasses and a bottle of tisane they had bought on the way home. We drank the sour sweet champagne as if it were liquid gold and clinked glasses, and with Narcisse all talked and barked together. It was a glad home-coming.
Paragot had changed very little. The hair on his temple was beginning to turn grey and his sallow cheeks were thinner. But he was the same hairy unkempt creature of prodigious finger nails and disreputable garments, still full of strange oaths and picturesque fancy, and still smoking his pipe with the porcelain bowl.
Presently Blanquette retired to bed and Paragot and I talked far into the night. Before we separated, with a comprehensive wave of the hand he indicated the primly set furniture and polished floor.