t all," said I modestly, but I felt that it was nice of Blanquette
to realise the intellectual gulf between us. "It is the Master who has
taught me all I know." I spoke, God wot, as if my knowledge would have
burst through the covers of an Encyclopaedia--"Three years ago I could
not speak a word of French. Fancy. And now----"

"You still talk like an Englishman," said Blanquette.

Looking back now on those absurd far-off days, I wonder whether after
all I did not learn as much that was vital from Blanquette as from
Paragot. Her downright, direct, unimaginative common-sense amounted to
genius. At the time I preferred genius in the fantastic form which
inflated my bubbles of self-conceit, instead of bursting them; but in
after life one has a high appreciation of the burster.

In the moment's mortification, however, I recriminated.

"You make worse mistakes than I do. You say '_j'allons faire_,' when you
ought to say '_je vais faire_' and I heard you talk about _une chien_."

"That is because I have no education," replied Blanquette, with her
grave humility. "I speak like the peasants; not like instructed
people--not like the Master, for instance."

"No one could speak like the Master," said I.

There was a long silence. Blanquette hugged her knees and Narcisse
snored at her feet, accepting her as vagabond comrade. I lay on my back
and forgot Blanquette; and out of the intricacies of myriad leaf and
branch against the sky wove pictures of Merovingian women. There where
the black branches cut a lozenge of blue was the pale Queen Galeswinthe
lying on her bed. Through yon dark cluster of under-leaves one could
discern the strangler sent by King Hilperic to murder her. And in that
radiant patch silhouetted clear and cold and fierce in loveliness was
Fredegonde waiting for the King. She was a glittering sword of a woman
whose slayings fascinated me. I much preferred her to the gentler
Brunehilde whose form I saw outlined in a soft shadow of green. I tried
to find frames in my aerial gallery for Brunehilde's two daughters,
Ingonde and Chlodoswinde, especially the latter whose name appealed to
my acquired taste for odd nomenclature, and the conscious effort brought
me back to the modern world, and the sound of Blanquette's voice.

"_Tu sais_, Asticot, I can wash the Master's shirts and mend his
clothes. I can also make his coffee in the morning."

Her eyes had a far-away look. She was living in the land of day dreams
eve