immortal Villon '_Tout aux tavernes et aux
filles_' which was that of my life for so many years is so no longer, I
wonder what the devil the refrain is now? Ha!" he exclaimed clapping his
hand on my shoulder in his old violent way, "I have it! also Villon.
Guess. Didn't I teach you all the ballades by rote as we wandered
through Savoy?"

"Yes, Master," said I; but I could only think of the one that came into
my Byronic little head on the occasion of my first meeting with Joanna,
"_Bien heureux qui rien n'y a_," which in the present circumstances was
clearly not applicable. The romantic lover does not base his conduct on
the formula that blessed is he who has nothing to do with women.

"What is it, Master?" I asked.

"'_En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir._'"

I did not understand. "In which faith do you wish to live and die?" I
asked.

He made a gesture of disappointment. He too was a child in many
respects.

"You must go back to Paris to sharpen your wits, my son. I thought I had
trained you to catch allusion, one of the most delicate and satisfying
arts of life. Did I not preface my remarks by saying that Madame de
Verneuil was infallible? By which I mean that she is the mouthpiece of
all the sweeter kinds of angels. That is the faith, my little Asticot,"
and he repeated to himself the rascal poet's refrain to his most perfect
poem: "_En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir._"

"But that," said I, wishing to prove that I had not forgotten my
scholarship, "is a prayer to Our Lady made by Villon at the request of
his mother."

"You are as hopeless as mine host of the Black Boar," said my master,
and being wound up to talk--it was during the after-dinner interval
before joining the ladies--he launched into a half hour's disquisition
on the philosophic value of allusiveness, addressing me as if I had been
his audience at the Lotus Club or a choice band of disciples at the Cafe
Delphine.

In the drawing-room I played my piquet with Mrs. Rushworth, while
Paragot sat with Joanna in a far corner. I could not help noticing how
little they spoke. Paragot's torrent of words had dried up, and the talk
seemed to flow in unsatisfying driblets. Why did he not entertain her
with his newly adopted romantical motto from Villon? Why did he not
express, in terms of which he was such a master, his fantastic
adoration? Why even did he not continue his disquisition on the
philosophic value of allusiveness? Anything, thought I, a