oked down and nodded. I did not know what to say. A tear fell on
my hand. I knew still less. Then crying out she was very unhappy, she
began to sob.

"He does not want me--even to pass the time. It has never entered his
head. I am too ugly. I do not demand that he should love me. It would be
asking for the moon."

"But he does love you, like a father," I said, in vain consolation. "I
love him like a son and you should love him like a daughter."

She did not even condescend to notice this counsel of perfection. She
was too ugly. She was built like a hayrick. The Master had never cast
his eyes on her, as doubtless he would have done, being a man, had she
any of the qualities of allurement. She suffered, poor Blanquette, from
the _spretae injuria formae_ with reason even more solid than the forsaken
Dido. She was humble, she sobbed; she did not demand a bit of love
bigger than that--and she clicked her finger nail. With that she would
be proud and happy.

"If the master were as gay as he used to be, I should not mind," she
said, lifting a grotesquely stained face. "But when he goes drinking,
drinking so as to drown his love for another woman, _c'est plus fort que
moi_. It is more than I can bear."

"Which other woman?"

"You know very well. That beautiful lady. She has come more than once to
fetch him away. She is a wicked woman, for she does not love him; she
even detests him; one can see that. I should like to kill her," cried
Blanquette.

The idea of anyone wanting to kill Joanna was so novel that I stared at
her speechless. It took some time for my wits to accommodate themselves
to the point of view.

"If I were a man I would not drink myself to death for the sake of a
woman who treated me so," she remarked, recovering her composure.

"Is it as bad as that?" I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. Men must drink. It is their nature. But
there should be limits. One ought to be reasonable, even a man. Did I
not think so? In her matter of fact way she gave me details of Paragot's
habits. The one morning absinthe had grown to two or three. There was
brandy too in his bedroom.

"And it eats such a deal of money, my little Asticot," she remarked.

After which, to relieve her feelings, she washed up my dirty plates, and
discoursed on the economics of catering.

I walked with her through the two or three streets that separated me
from the Rue des Saladiers, and went upstairs with her to see whether
Paragot had r