thout a disturbing breath. Joanna, though she had lost the gay
spontaneity of her Paris holiday, smiled none the less adorably on
Paragot and myself. She wore a little air of defiant pride when she
introduced him to her acquaintance as "my cousin, Monsieur de Nerac,"
which was very pretty to behold. Convention forbade the announcement of
their engagement at so early a stage of her widowhood, but anyone of
rudimentary intelligence could see that she was presenting her future
husband. Few women can hide that triumphant sense of proprietorship in a
man, especially if they have at the same time to hold themselves on the
defensive against the possible fulminations of Lady Molyneux. Joanna
proclaimed herself a champion. Even when Paragot forgot his social
reformation and banged his fist down on the dinner table till the
glasses rang again, with a great _nom de Dieu!_ her glance swept the
company as if to defy them to find anything uncommon in the demeanour of
her guest. It was only towards the end of my stay that she began to
wince. And Paragot, save on occasion of outburst, went through the
love-making and the social routine with the grave but contented face of
a man who had found his real avocation.

Looking back on these idyllic days I realise the greatness of Paragot's
self-control. In his domestic habits he was less a human being than a
mechanical toy. At half past eight every morning he entered the
breakfast-room. At half past nine he went into the town to get shaved.
Had he an appointment with Joanna, he was there to the minute. He
clothed himself in what he considered were orthodox garments. He even
folded up his trousers of nights. He limited his smoking to a definite
number of cigarettes consumed at fixed hours. Apparently he had never
heard of the reprehensible habit of drinking between meals. If he only
went to church to worship the British God Respectability, he did so with
impeccable unction. No undertaker listened to the funeral service with
more portentous solemnity than Paragot exhibited during the Vicar's
sermon. Indeed, sitting bolt upright in the pew, his lined, brown face
set in a blank expression, his ill-fitting frock coat buttoned tight
across his chest, his hair--despite the barber's pains--struggling in
vain to obey the rules of the unaccustomed parting, he bore considerable
resemblance to an undertaker in moderate circumstances. Of the
delectable vagabond in pearl-buttoned velveteens fiddling wildly