o a Baptist Chapel in
Ireland.

Paragot was going to marry Joanna.

How he proposed to start in practice at his age, with no connection, I
did not at the moment enquire. Neither did Paragot. It was Paragot's
easy way to leap to ends and let the means take care of themselves. He
drained his glass meditatively and then with a wry face spat on the
ground.

"If I don't have a cognac, my little Asticot," said he, "I shall be
sick. To-morrow I may be able to swallow syrup without either salivation
or the adventitious aid of alcohol."

He summoned the languid waiter and ordered _fine champagne_. Everything
seemed languid this torrid afternoon, except the British or American
tourists who passed by with Baedekers under their arms. The cab-horses
in the file opposite us dropped their heads and the glazed-hatted cabmen
regarded the baking Place de l'Opera with more than their usual apathy.
It looked more like the market place of a sleepy provincial town than
the heart of Paris. When the waiter had brought the little glass in a
saucer and the _verseur_ had poured out the brandy, Paragot gulped it
down and cleared his throat noisily. I drowsed in my chair, feeling
comfortably tired after my all night journey. Suddenly I awakened to the
fact that Paragot was telling me the story of Joanna and the Comte de
Verneuil.

She was exquisite. She was fragrant. She was an English rosebud wet with
morning-dew. She had all manner of attributes with which I was perfectly
well acquainted. They loved with the ardour of two young and noble
souls. (Your ordinary Englishman would not thus proclaim the nobility of
his soul; but Paragot, remember, was half French--and Gascon to
boot--and the other half Irish.) It was more than love--it was a
consuming passion; which was odd in the case of an English rosebud wet
with morning-dew. However, I suppose Paragot meant that he swept the
beloved maiden off her feet with his own vehemence; and indeed she must
have loved him truly. He was fresh from the Villa Medici, the Paradise
where all the winners of the _Prix de Rome_ in the various arts complete
their training; he had won an important competition; fortune smiled on
him; he had only to rule lines on drawing paper to become one of the
great ones of the earth. He became engaged to Joanna.

Now, Joanna's father, Simon Rushworth, was a London solicitor in very
fashionable practice; a man of false geniality, said Paragot, who smiled
at you with lips but s