cobble-stone I stood on, I saw her once and for ever. We
song-chandlers babble a deal of love, but for the most part we know
little or nothing about it, and when it comes it knocks us silly. I
was knocked so silly that--well, what do you think was the silly
thing I did?"

Villon turned his alert face to each member of his audience, and his
derisive mouth belied the sadness of his eyes.

"Emptied a can for oblivion," Montigny suggested. Blanche was no
less practical.

"Kissed a wench for the same purpose," she cried. "The times that
I've been wooed out of my name!"

"Picked the woman's pocket," Casin Cholet hinted, wagging his shock
head wisely, while Jehan le Loup, with a hideous leer, sniggered:
"Got near her in the crowd and pinched her," and suited the action
to the word with finger and thumb on Blanche's plump shoulder.

Master François dissipated all this roguish philosophy with a
contemptuous gesture.

"La, la, la," he chirruped. "Sillier than all these. I followed her
into the church."

The silence of astonishment fell upon the audience. Only Colin de
Cayeulx had sufficient presence of mind to formulate his amazement
in a prolonged whistle. Louis crossed himself repeatedly under his
gown. "You are not a church-goer, sir?" he questioned sourly. Villon