I bent my head and went away. God knows what he said to Henri Quatre. I suppose each of us has a pet Gethsemane of his own. * * * * * One night, a few weeks later, Blanquette appeared in my little student's attic. Fired by the example of some of my comrades at Janot's who showed glistening five-franc pieces as the rewards of industry, I was working up a drawing which I fondly hoped I could sell to a comic paper. Youth is the period of insensate ambitions. I put down my charcoal as Blanquette entered, bare-headed--wise girl, she scorned hats and bonnets--and as neatly dressed as her figure daily growing dumpier would allow. She was laughing. "Guess what your concierge said." "That it was improper for you to come to see me at this hour of the night." "Improper? Bah!" cried Blanquette, for whom such conventions existed not. "But she told me that it was _un joli petit amant_ that I had upstairs. What an idea!" She laughed again. "You find that funny?" I asked, my dignity somewhat ruffled. "I suppose I am as pretty a little lover as anyone else." "But you and me, Asticot, it is so droll." "If you put it that way," I admitted, "it is. But the concierge doesn't think it possible that you are not my _maîtresse_. Why otherwise should you be running in and out of my room, as if it belonged to you?" "You will be bringing a _maîtresse_ of your own here soon, and then you won't want Blanquette any longer." I dismissed the idea as one too remote for contemplation. At the same time I reflected that I kissed a pretty model at Janot's when we met alone on the stairs. I wondered whether the diabolical perspicacity of women had seen traces of the kiss on my lips. "I disturb you?" she asked drawing up my other wooden chair to the deal table and sitting down. "Why, no. I can work while you talk." She put her elbow on a couple of pickled gherkins that remained casually on the table after a perambulatory meal. "Oh, how dirty men are! You are worse than the Master. Oh la! la! and he puts his boots and his dirty plates together on his bed! It is time that you did have a _maîtresse_ to keep the place in order." "I believe you really do want to come here in that capacity," I said laughingly. She flushed at the jest and drew herself up. "You have no right to say that, Asticot. I would sooner be the Master's servant than the mistress or even the wife of any man living. He is everything to me, my little Asticot, everything, do you hear? although he loves me just as he loves you and Narcisse. _Il ne faut pas te moquer de moi._ You must not laugh at me. It hurts me." It was only then, for the first time, that I realised in Blanquette a grown woman. Hitherto I had regarded her merely as a female waif picked up like the dog and myself under Paragot's vagabond arm and attached to him by ties of gratitude. Now, lo and behold! she was a woman talking of deep things with a treacherous throb in her voice.