“I wish I spoke French as well,” said Newman, good-naturedly.  “Your daughter is very clever.”

“Oh, sir!” and M. Nioche looked over his spectacles with tearful eyes and nodded several times with a world of sadness.  “She has had an education—­tres-superieure!  Nothing was spared.  Lessons in pastel at ten francs the lesson, lessons in oil at twelve francs.  I didn’t look at the francs then.  She’s an artiste, ah!”

“Do I understand you to say that you have had reverses?” asked Newman.

“Reverses?  Oh, sir, misfortunes—­terrible.”

“Unsuccessful in business, eh?”

“Very unsuccessful, sir.”

“Oh, never fear, you’ll get on your legs again,” said Newman cheerily.

The old man drooped his head on one side and looked at him with an expression of pain, as if this were an unfeeling jest.

“What does he say?” demanded Mademoiselle Noemie.

M. Nioche took a pinch of snuff.  “He says I will make my fortune again.”

“Perhaps he will help you.  And what else?”

“He says thou art very clever.”

“It is very possible.  You believe it yourself, my father?”

“Believe it, my daughter?  With this evidence!” And the old man turned afresh, with a staring, wondering homage, to the audacious daub on the easel.

“Ask him, then, if he would not like to learn French.”

“To learn French?”

“To take lessons.”

“To take lessons, my daughter?  From thee?”

“From you!”

“From me, my child?  How should I give lessons?”

“Pas de raisons!  Ask him immediately!” said Mademoiselle Noemie, with soft brevity.

M. Nioche stood aghast, but under his daughter’s eye he collected his wits, and, doing his best to assume an agreeable smile, he executed her commands.  “Would it please you to receive instruction in our beautiful language?” he inquired, with an appealing quaver.

“To study French?” asked Newman, staring.

M. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and slowly raised his shoulders.  “A little conversation!”

“Conversation—­that’s it!” murmured Mademoiselle Noemie, who had caught the word.  “The conversation of the best society.”

“Our French conversation is famous, you know,” M. Nioche ventured to continue.  “It’s a great talent.”

“But isn’t it awfully difficult?” asked Newman, very simply.

“Not to a man of esprit, like monsieur, an admirer of beauty in every form!” and M. Nioche cast a significant glance at his daughter’s Madonna.

“I can’t fancy myself chattering French!” said Newman with a laugh.  “And yet, I suppose that the more a man knows the better.”

“Monsieur expresses that very happily.  Helas, oui!”

“I suppose it would help me a great deal, knocking about Paris, to know the language.”

“Ah, there are so many things monsieur must want to say:  difficult things!”