ce of blows, exhaustion, and exposure. When she got well
there was no talk of her leaving. Pair couldn't let her go back to her
tailor; he couldn't turn her into the streets. Besides, during the
months that he had nursed her, he had somehow conceived a great
tenderness for her; it made his heart burn with grief and anger to
think of what she had suffered in the past, and he yearned to sustain
and protect and comfort her for the future. This perhaps was no more
than natural; but, what rather upset the calculations of his friends,
she, towards whom he had established himself in the relation of a
benefactor, bore him, instead of a grudge therefor, a passionate
gratitude and affection. So, Pair said, they were only waiting till
her tailor should drink himself to death, to get married; and
meanwhile, he exacted for her all the respect that would have been due
to his wife; and everybody called her by his name. She was a pretty
little thing, very daintily formed, with tiny hands and feet, and big
gipsyish brown eyes; and very delicate, very fragile--she looked as if
anything might carry her off. Her name, Godeleine, seeming much too
grand and mediaeval for so small and actual a person, Pair had turned
it into Godelinette.

We all said, 'He is splendidly gifted; he will do great things.' He
had studied at Cambridge and at Leipsic before coming to Paris. He was
learned, enlightened, and extremely modern; he was a hard worker. We
said he would do great things; but I thought in those days, and indeed
I still think--and, what is more to the purpose, men who were
themselves musicians and composers, men whose names are known, were
before me in thinking--that he had already done great things, that the
songs he had already published were achievements. They seemed to us
original in conception, accomplished and felicitous in treatment; they
were full of melody and movement, full of harmonic surprises; they had
style and they had 'go.' One would have imagined they must please at
once the cultivated and the general public. I could never understand
why they weren't popular. They would be printed; they would be praised
at length, and under distinguished signatures, in the reviews; they
would enjoy an unusual success of approbation; but--they wouldn't
_sell_, and they wouldn't get themselves sung at concerts. If they had
been too good, if they had been over the heads of people--but they
weren't. Plenty of work quite as good, quite as modern,