g, which she did not love but could not harm for the world.
Paragot, having for some absurd reason forsworn his porcelain pipe,
smoked the cigarette of semi-contentment and fulfilled his happiness by
the contemplation of Joanna and myself. I verily believe he was more at
his ease when I was with them. As for the portrait, he viewed its
progress with enthusiastic interest. Now and then he would forget
himself and discourse expansively on its merits, to the delight of
Joanna. He regarded it as his own production. Had he not bought this
poor little devil and all his works for half-a-crown? Ergo, the work
taking shape on the canvas was his, Paragot's. What could be more
logical? And it was he who had given me my first lessons. No mother
showing off a precocious brat to her gossips could have displayed more
overweening pride. It was pathetic, and I loved him for it, and so did
Joanna.

The time came however--all too soon---when Madame de Verneuil could live
in her Land of Cockaigne no longer. Convention claimed her. Her cousin,
Major Walters, was coming from England to aid her in final arrangements
with the lawyers, and he was to carry her off in a day or two to
Melford. At the end of the last sitting she looked round the dismal
place--it had discoloured, uneven, bulging whitewashed walls, an
unutterably dirty loose plank floor, and a skylight patched with maps of
hideous worlds on Mercator's projection, and was furnished with packing
cases and grime and the sacking which was Cazalet's bed--and sighed
wistfully, as if she had been an unoffending Eve thrust out of Eden.

"I have been so happy here," she said to me. "I wonder whether I shall
ever be so happy again! Do you think I shall?"

I noticed her give a swift, sidelong glance--almost imperceptible--at
Paragot, who had sauntered down the studio to look at one of Cazalet's
pictures.

"The first time you saw me," she added, as I found nothing to say, "you
announced that you were learning philosophy. Haven't you learned enough
yet to answer me?"

"Madame," I replied, driven into a corner, "happiness is such an awfully
funny thing. You find it when you least expect it, and when you expect
it you often don't find it."

"Is that supposed to be comforting or depressing, Mr. Asticot?"

"I think we had better ask my master, Madame," I said. "He can tell you
better than I."

But she shook her head and did not ask Paragot.

* * * * *

"My