man. But Blanquette----" he smote his forehead, and burst
into excited laughter. "Why did it not enter into this idiot head
before?"

The laughter ceased all of a sudden, and at least three years returned
to his face.

"It takes two parties to make a marriage," said he in a chastened tone.
"Blanquette is young. I am not. She may be thinking of a future quite
different. It is all very well to say I will marry Blanquette, but will
Blanquette marry me?"

"Master," said I, feeling a person of elderly experience, "it was
entirely on your account that Blanquette refused the _quincaillier_ at
the corner of the street."

I had learned from her the day before that the superior hardware
merchant had recently made her a ceremonious offer of marriage.

"A sense of duty, perhaps," said Paragot.

I laughed at his seriousness.

"But, Master, she has been eating her heart out for you since the
wedding at Chambery."

"Asticot," said he, planting himself in front of me, "are you jesting or
speaking what you know to be the truth?"

"The absolute truth."

"And you never told me? You knew that a real woman loved me, and you let
me chase a will-o'-the-wisp with gloves and an umbrella? Truly a man's
foes are of his own household."

"But, Master----" I began.

He laughed at the sight of my dejected face.

"No, you were loyal, my son. The man who gives away a woman's
confidence, even when she avows the poisoning of her husband and the
strangulation of her babes, is a transpontine villain."

He took up his porcelain pipe and filled it from the blue packet of
caporal that lay on the table with the oilskin cover. He struck a match
and was about to apply it to the bowl, when one of his sudden ideas
caused him to blow out the match and lay down the pipe. Then with his
old lightning swiftness he strode to the door and flung it open.

"Blanquette! Blanquette!" he cried.

"_Oui, maitre_," came from the kitchen, and in a moment Blanquette
entered the room.

He took her by the hand and led her to the centre, while she regarded
him somewhat mystified. With his heels together, he made her a correct
bow.

"Blanquette," said he, "in the presence of Asticot as witness I ask you
to do me the honour to become my wife."

It was magnificent; it was what Paragot would have called _vieille
ecole_; but it was not tactful. It was half an hour before Blanquette
fully grasped the situation.

CHAPTER XXIII

JOANNA married Major Walt