been
living?"

Visions of hideous upheaval in the Rue des Saladiers floated before her
mind, and she hurried forward as if there was no time to be lost in
getting there. When we arrived she held up horror-stricken hands. The
dust! The dirt! The state of the kitchen! The Master's bedroom! Oh no,
decidedly she would not leave him again! She would only go to the
country after she had seen him well started in the train with a ticket
for a long way beyond Paris. There was a week's work in front of her.

"Anyway, my little Blanquette," said Paragot, "you are glad to be with
me?"

"It is never of my own free will that I would leave you," she replied.

CHAPTER XVIII

"YOU perceive," said Paragot, waving a complacent hand, as soon as
Blanquette had retired to make the necessary purchases for the evening
meal, "you perceive that she is perfectly happy. You were entirely
wrong. All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

When my master adopted the Panglossian view of the universe I used no
arguments that might cloud his serenity. I acquiesced with mental
reservations. We talked for a time, Paragot sitting primly on a
straight-backed chair. He had abandoned his sprawling attitudes, for
fear, I suspect, of spoiling his new clothes. The position, however, not
making for ease of conversation, he presently took up a book and began
to read, while I amused myself idly by making a furtive sketch of him.
Since his metamorphosis he was by no means the entertaining companion of
his unregenerate days. He himself was oppressed, I fancy, by his own
correctitude. The eternal reading which filled so much of his life did
not afford him the same wholehearted enjoyment now, as it did when he
lolled dishevelled, pipe in mouth and glass within reach, on bed or
sofa. This afternoon, I noticed, he yawned and fidgeted in his chair,
and paid to his book the distracted attention of a person reading a back
number of a magazine in a dentist's waiting room. My sketch, which I
happen to have preserved, shows a singularly bored Paragot. At last he
laid the book aside, and gathering together hat, gloves, and umbrella,
the precious appanages of his new estate, he announced his intention of
taking the air before dinner. I remained indoors to gossip with
Blanquette during its preparation. I had considerable doubts as to her
optimistic view of things, and these were confirmed as soon as the outer
door closed behind my master, and the s