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 Hôtel 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 passed the Madeleine and arrived at the Café de la Paix. It was a broiling afternoon. The cool terrace of the café 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 cafés. 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 crapulous 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 entitled." I was destined that day to go from astonishment to astonishment. "You a _Prix de Rome_, Master?"