ttainments."

Then the candle end sputtered out and we were in darkness. Paragot bade
me good night, and left me to a mingled sense of burned candle grease
and desolation.

He departed the next day. Blanquette and I with a dejected Narcisse at
our heels, walked back from the railway station to the hotel, where
losing all sense of manly dignity I broke down crying and Blanquette put
her arm round my neck and comforted me motherwise.

Two months afterwards Paragot wrote to Blanquette to join him in Paris,
and when the flutter of her wet handkerchief from the railway carriage
window became no longer visible, then indeed I felt myself to be a
stranger in a strange land.

* * * * *

Two years! I can remember even now their endless heartache. The Izelins
were kind; Madame Izelin, a refined Hungarian lady, became my staunch
friend as well as my instructress in manners; my life teemed with
interests, and I worked like a little maniac; but all the time I longed
for Paragot. Had it not been for his letters I should have scented my
way back to him like a dog, across Europe. Ah those letters of
Paragot--I have them still--what a treasury they are of grotesque
fantasy and philosophic wisdom! They gave me but little news of his
doings. He had settled down in Paris with Blanquette as his housekeeper.
His floridly anathematised ankle kept him hobbling about the streets
while his heart was chasing butterflies over the fields. He had founded
a coenaculum for the cultivation of the Higher Conversation at the Cafe
Delphine. He had taken up Persian and was saturating himself with Hafiz
and Firdusi. His health was good. Indeed he was a man of iron
constitution.

Blanquette now and then supplemented these meagre details of objective
life. The master had taken a _bel appartement_. There were curtains to
his bed. Food was dear in Paris. They had been to Fontainebleau.
Narcisse had stolen the sausages of the concierge. The Master was always
talking of me and of the great future for which I was destined. But when
I became famous I was not to forget my little Blanquette. I see the
sprawling mis-spelt words now: "_Il ne fot james oublie ta petite
Blanquette_."

As if I could ever forget her!

I arrived in Paris one evening a day or two earlier than I was expected.
It had been ordained by Paragot that I should break my journey at
Berlin, in order to visit that capital, but affection tugged at my
heart-string