azalet sleeps there."

"Who is Cazalet?"

"A yellow-haired Caliban in sandals," said Paragot.

Joanna clapped her hands like a child.

"I should love to go. Perhaps Mr. de Nerac would come with me, and
protect me from Caliban. If you won't," she added seeing that Paragot
was about to raise an objection, "I will go by myself."

"There are no chairs to sit upon," I said warningly.

"I will sit upon Caliban," she declared.

Thus it came to pass that I painted the portrait of Madame de Verneuil
in periods of ecstatic happiness and trepidation. She came every day and
sat with unwearying patience on what we called the model throne, the one
comfortless wooden arm-chair the studio possessed, while Paragot mounted
guard near by on an empty box. Everything delighted her--the approach
through the unsavoury court-yard, the dirty children, the crazy
interior, Cazalet's ghastly and unappreciated masterpieces, even Cazalet
himself, who now and then would slouch awkwardly about the place trying
to hide his toes. She expressed simple-hearted wonder at the mysteries
of my art, and vowed she saw a speaking likeness in the first stages of
chaotic pinks and blues. I have never seen a human being so inordinately
contented with the world.

"I am like a prisoner who has been kept in the dark and is let out free
into the sunshine," she said one day to Paragot, who had remarked on her
gaiety. "I want to run about and dance and smell flowers and clap my
hands."

In these moments of exuberance she seemed to cast off the shadow of the
years and become a girl again. I regarded her as my contemporary; but
Paragot with his lined time-beaten face looked prematurely old. Only now
and then, when he got into fierce argument with Cazalet and swung his
arms about and mingled his asseverations with the quaint oaths of the
Latin Quarter, did he relax his portentous gravity.

"That is just how he used to go on," she laughed confidentially to me,
her pink-shell face close to mine. "He was a whirlwind. He carried
everybody off their feet."

She caught my eye, smiled and flushed. I quite understood that it was
she who had been carried off her feet by my tempestuous master.

"_Mais sacre mille cochons, tu n'y comprends rien du tout!_" cried
Paragot, at that moment. I, knowing that this was not a proper
expression to use before ladies, kept up the confidential glance for a
second.

"I hope he didn't use such dreadful language."

"You couldn't in E