I calculated. Joanna was a grown-up woman about to be married when my age was six. I suddenly felt very young indeed.
The waiters set the lunch. Joanna, most perfect of hostesses, presided gaily, cracked little jokes for my entertainment and inspired me with the power of quite elegant conversation. Paragot preserved his correct demeanour and, to my puzzledom, spoke very little. I wondered whether the repressive influence lay in the spats or the purple cravat with the yellow spots. As a painter I didn"t like the cravat. He drank a great deal of water with his wine. I noticed him once pause in the act of conveying to his mouth a bit of bread held in his fingers with which he had mopped up the sauce in his plate, and furtively conceal it between his cutlet bones--a manoeuvre which, at the time, I could not understand. In the _Quartier Latin_ we cleaned our plates to a bright polish with bits of bread. How else could you consume the sauce?
At the end of the meal Joanna gave us permission to smoke.
"I won"t smoke, thank you," said Paragot politely.
"Rubbis.h.!.+" laughed Joanna, whereupon Paragot produced a cigarette case from the breast pocket of his frock coat. Paragot and a cigarette-case!
Once more it was _abracadabrant_! He also refused cognac with his coffee.
After a time, still feeling that I was very young, and that my seniors might have further confidential things to say to each other, I rose to take my leave. Paragot rose too.
"I would ask you to stay, Gaston, if I hadn"t my wretched lawyer to see this afternoon. But you"ll come in for an hour after dinner, won"t you?
No one knows I"m in Paris. Besides, at this time of year there is no one in Paris to know."
"Willingly," said Paragot, "but _les convenances_----"
Joanna"s pretty lips parted in astonishment.
"You--preaching the proprieties?--My dear Gaston!"
I turned to the window and looked at the Tuileries Gardens which baked in the afternoon sun. The two spoke a little in low voices, but I could not help overhearing.
"Is it true, Gaston, that you have wanted me all these years?"
"I want you as much now as I did then."
"I, too," whispered Joanna.
CHAPTER XVI
AS we emerged from the Hotel Meurice I turned instinctively to the left.
Paragot drew me to the right.
"Henceforward," said he, "I resume the Paris which is my birthright. We will forget for a moment that there are such places as the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue des Saladiers."
We walked along the Rue de Rivoli and taking the Rue Royale pa.s.sed the Madeleine and arrived at the Cafe de la Paix. It was a broiling afternoon. The cool terrace of the cafe invited the hot wayfarer to repose.
"Master," said I, "isn"t it almost time for your absinthe?"
He raised his lemon kids as if he would ban the place.
"My little Asticot, I have abjured absinthe and forsworn cafes. I have broken my new porcelain pipe and have cut my finger-nails. As I enter on the path of happiness, I scatter the dregs and shreds and clippings of the past behind me. I divest myself of all the c.r.a.pulous years."
If he had divested himself of the superfluous trappings of respectability beneath which he was perspiring freely, I thought he would have been happier. The sight of the umbrella alone made one feel moist, to say nothing of the spats.
"We might have some grenadine syrup," I suggested ironically.
"Willingly," said he.
So we sat and drank grenadine syrup and water. He gave me the impression of a cropped lion sucking lollipops.
"It is peculiarly nasty and unsatisfying," he remarked after a sip, "but doubtless I shall get used to it. I shall have to get used to a devil of a lot of things, my son. As soon as the period of her widowhood has elapsed I hope to marry Madame de Verneuil."
"Marry Madame de Verneuil?" I cried, the possibility of such an occurrence never having crossed my mind.
"Why not? When two people of equal rank love and are free to marry, why should they not do so? Have you any objection?"
"No, Master," said I.
"I shall resume my profession," he announced, lighting a cigarette, "and in the course of a year or two regain the position to which an ancient _Prix de Rome_ is ent.i.tled."
I was destined that day to go from astonishment to astonishment.
"You a _Prix de Rome_, Master?"
"Yes, my son, in Architecture."
He was clothed in a new and sudden radiance. To a Paris art student a _Prix de Rome_ is what a Field Marshal is to a private soldier, a Lord Chancellor to the eater of dinners in the Temple. I must confess that though my pa.s.sionate affection for him never wavered, yet my childish reverence had of late waned in intensity. I saw his faults, which is incompatible with true hero-wors.h.i.+p. But now he sprang to cloud summits of veneration. I looked awe-stricken at him and beheld nothing but an ancient _Prix de Rome_. Then I remembered our enthusiasm over the Palace of Dipsomania.
"They said you were an architect that night at the Cafe Delphine," I exclaimed.
"I was a genius," said Paragot modestly. "I used to think in palaces.
Most men"s palaces are little buildings written big. My small buildings were palaces reduced. I could have roofed in the whole of Paris with a dome. My first commission was to put a new roof on a Baptist Chapel in Ireland. It was then that I met Madame de Verneuil after an interval of five years. We are second cousins. Her father and my mother were first cousins. I have known her since she was born. When I was at Rugby, I spent most of my holidays at her house. You must take all this into account, my little Asticot, before you begin to criticise my plans for the future."
By this time the nerve or brain cell whereby one experiences the sensation of amazement was numb. If Paragot had informed me that he had been a boon companion of King Qa and had built the pyramids of Egypt I should not have been surprised. I could only record the various facts.
Paragot was at Rugby.
Paragot was Joanna"s second cousin.
Paragot was a _Prix de Rome_.
Paragot was a genius who had put a new roof to a Baptist Chapel in Ireland.
Paragot was going to marry Joanna.
How he proposed to start in practice at his age, with no connection, I did not at the moment enquire. Neither did Paragot. It was Paragot"s easy way to leap to ends and let the means take care of themselves. He drained his gla.s.s meditatively and then with a wry face spat on the ground.
"If I don"t have a cognac, my little Asticot," said he, "I shall be sick. To-morrow I may be able to swallow syrup without either salivation or the advent.i.tious aid of alcohol."
He summoned the languid waiter and ordered _fine champagne_. Everything seemed languid this torrid afternoon, except the British or American tourists who pa.s.sed by with Baedekers under their arms. The cab-horses in the file opposite us dropped their heads and the glazed-hatted cabmen regarded the baking Place de l"Opera with more than their usual apathy.
It looked more like the market place of a sleepy provincial town than the heart of Paris. When the waiter had brought the little gla.s.s in a saucer and the _verseur_ had poured out the brandy, Paragot gulped it down and cleared his throat noisily. I drowsed in my chair, feeling comfortably tired after my all night journey. Suddenly I awakened to the fact that Paragot was telling me the story of Joanna and the Comte de Verneuil.
She was exquisite. She was fragrant. She was an English rosebud wet with morning-dew. She had all manner of attributes with which I was perfectly well acquainted. They loved with the ardour of two young and n.o.ble souls. (Your ordinary Englishman would not thus proclaim the n.o.bility of his soul; but Paragot, remember, was half French--and Gascon to boot--and the other half Irish.) It was more than love--it was a consuming pa.s.sion; which was odd in the case of an English rosebud wet with morning-dew. However, I suppose Paragot meant that he swept the beloved maiden off her feet with his own vehemence; and indeed she must have loved him truly. He was fresh from the Villa Medici, the Paradise where all the winners of the _Prix de Rome_ in the various arts complete their training; he had won an important compet.i.tion; fortune smiled on him; he had only to rule lines on drawing paper to become one of the great ones of the earth. He became engaged to Joanna.