disclosed the most delicately shaped, tiny
foot that has ever been attached to woman, and then I felt sure.

"Those little feet so adored." The haunting phrase leaped to my brain
and I stood staring at the departing carriage athrill with excitement.

It was Joanna--lovelier than I had pictured her in my Lotus Club dreams,
more gracious than Ingonde or Chlodoswinde or any of the _belles dames
du temps jadis_ whose ballade by Maitre Francois Villon my master had
but lately made me learn by heart and whose names were so many "sweet
symphonies." It was Joanna, "pure and ravishing as an April dawn";
Joanna beloved of Paragot in those elusive days when I could not picture
him, before he smashed his furniture with a crusader's mace and started
on his wanderings under the guidance of Henri Quatre. It was Joanna whom
he had an agonized desire to see in Madrid and whose silvery English
voice he had longed to hear. And I, Asticot, had seen her and had heard
her silvery voice. Among boys assuredly I was the most blessed.

But Paragot seemed that day of all men the most miserable, and I more
dog-like than Narcisse in my sympathy with his moods, almost lifted up
my nose and whined for woe. All my thrill died away. I felt guilty,
oddly ashamed of myself. I took a pessimistic view of life. What,
thought I, are Joannas sent into the world for, save to play havoc with
men's happiness? Maitre Francois Villon was quite right. Samson,
Sardanapalus, David, Maitre Francois himself, all came to grief over
Joannas. "_Bien heureux qui rien n'y a._" Happy is he who has nothing to
do with 'em.

As soon as we were free Paragot left us, and went off by himself;
whereupon I, mimetic as an ape, rejected the humble Blanquette's
invitation to take a walk with her, and strolled moodily into the town
with Narcisse at my heels. A dog fight or two and a Byronic talk with a
little towheaded flower-seller who gave me a dusty bunch of cyclamen--as
a _porte-bonheur_ she said prettily--whiled away the time until the
people began to drift out of the Wonder Houses to dress for dinner. I
lingered at the gates, going from one to the other, in the unavowed
hope, little idiot that I was, of seeing Joanna. At last, at the main
entrance to the Villa des Fleurs I caught sight of Paragot. He had
changed from the velveteens into his vagabond clothes, and was evidently
on the same errand as myself. I did not venture near, respecting his
desire for solitude, but lounged a