th zither case and fiddle and
little grey valise and the pearl-buttoned suit which was slung over one
arm.

"Monsieur," she said, putting down her impedimenta, "the _patronne_ has
told me that you have paid for my lodging and my nourishment. I am very
grateful, Monsieur. And if you will accept this costume it will be a way
of repaying your kindness."

Paragot rose, took the suit and laid it on his chair.

"I accept it loyally," said he, with a bow, as if Blanquette had been a
duchess.

"_Adieu, Monsieur, et merci_," she said holding out her hand.

Paragot stuck both his hands in his trousers pockets.

"My good child," said he, "you are bound straight for the most cheerless
hell that was ever inhabited by unamusing devils."

Blanquette shrugged her shoulders and spoke in her dull fatalistic way.

"_Que voulez-vous?_ I know it is not gay. But it is in the _metier_.
When Pere Paragot was alive it was different. He had his good qualities,
Pere Paragot. He was like a watch-dog. If any man came near me he was
fierce. I did not amuse myself, it is true, but I remained an honest
girl. Now it is changed. I am alone. I go into a brasserie to play and
dance. I can get an engagement at the Cafe Brasserie Tissot," and then
after a pause, turning her head away, she added the fatalistic words
she had used before: "_If faut passer par la, comme les autres_."

"I forbid you!" cried my master, striding up and down in front of her
and ejaculating horrible oaths. He invoked the sacred name of pigs and
of all kinds of other things. My attention had long since been diverted
from the learned Monsieur Thierry, and I wondered what she had to pass
through like the others. It must be something dreadful, or my master
would not be raving so profanely. I learned in after years. Of all
mutilated lives there are few more ghastly than those of the _fille de
brasserie_ in a small French provincial town. And here was Blanquette
about to abandon herself to it with stolid, hopeless resignation. There
was no question of vicious instinct. What semblance of glamour the life
presented did not attract her in the least. A sweated alien faces
rabbit-pulling in the East End with more pleasurable anticipation.

"I am not going to allow you to take an engagement in a brasserie!"
shouted my master. "Do you hear? I forbid you!"

"But Monsieur----" began Blanquette piteously.

Then Paragot had one of his sudden inspirations. He crashed his fist on
the lit