“Of Marie Marotte?”

He nodded.

“You are not serious,” I said.

“I am as serious,” he replied, “as a dancing dervish.”

And then, for I suppose I looked incredulous, he went on to justify himself.

“She’s very good,” he said, “and very pretty.  Quite a Madonna face, to my thinking.”

“You may see a dozen such Madonna faces among the nurses in the Luxembourg Gardens, every afternoon of your life,” said I.

“Oh, if you come to that, every woman is like every other woman, up to a certain point.”

“Les femmes se suivent et se ressemblent toujours,” said I, parodying a well-known apothegm.

“Precisely, but then they wear their rue, or cause you to wear yours, ‘with a difference.’  This girl, however, escapes the monotony of her sex by one or two peculiarities:—­she has not a bit of art about her, nor a shred of coquetry.  She is as simple and as straightforward as an Arcadian.  She doesn’t even know when she is being made love to, or understand what you mean, when you pay her a compliment.”

“Then she’s a phenomenon—­and what man in his senses would fall in love with a phenomenon?”

“Every man, mon cher enfant, who falls in love at all!  The woman we worship is always a phenomenon, whether of beauty, or grace, or virtue—­till we find her out; and then, probably, she becomes a phenomenon of deceit, or slovenliness, or bad temper!  And now, to return to the point we started from—­will you go with me to Madame Marotte’s tea-party to-morrow evening at eight?  Don’t say ‘No,’ there’s a good fellow.”

“I’ll certainly not say No, if you particularly want me to say Yes,” I replied, “but—­”

“Prythee, no buts!  Let it be Yes, and the thing is settled.  So—­here we are.  Won’t you come in and smoke a pipe with me?  I’ve a bottle of capital Rhenish in the cupboard.”

We had met near the Odeon, and, as our roads lay in the same direction, had gone on walking and talking till we came to Mueller’s own door in the Rue Clovis.  I accepted the invitation, and followed him in.  The portiere, a sour-looking, bent old woman with a very dirty duster tied about her head, hobbled out from her little dark den at the foot of the stairs, and handed him the key of his apartment.

“Tiens!” said she, “wait a moment—­there’s a parcel for you, M’sieur Mueller.”

And so, hobbling back again, she brought out a small flat brown paper-packet sealed at both ends.

“Ah, I see—­from the Emperor!” said Mueller.  “Did he bring it himself, Madame Duphot, or did he send it by the Archbishop of Paris?”

A faint grin flitted over the little old woman’s withered face.

“Get along with you, M’sieur Mueller,” she said.  “You’re always playing the farceur!  The parcel was brought by a man who looked like a stonemason.”

“And nobody has called?”