! Figure it to yourself!
Two hundred and sixty francs the year! What one would pay in a couple of
days for a suite of hotel rooms! I am mad since I have seen the
place--quite mad!" He laughed again so excitedly that the people at the
neighboring table stared.

"I can subscribe to that!" said Blake, satirically.

"Listen! Listen! You have not heard; you have not understood. I have
found an _appartement_ in the rue Mueller, at Montmartre--the
_appartement_ I had set my heart upon, the place where I can live and
paint and make my success!"

Blake stared at him in silence.

"Yes! Yes!" Max insisted. "And it is all quite settled. And you are
coming back with me to-day at one o'clock to interview the _concierge_!"

Blake threw himself back in his chair. "I'm hanged if I am!"

Yesterday the boy would have drawn back upon the instant, armored in his
pride, but to-day his reply was to look direct into Blake's face with
fascinating audacity.

"Then you will leave me to contend alone against who can say what
villain--what _apache_?"

"It strikes me you are qualified to deal with any _apache_."

"You are angry!"

"Angry! I should think not!"

"Oh yes, you are!" Max's eyes shone, his lips curled into smiles.

"And why should I be angry? Because your silly little wings have begun
to sprout? I'm not such a fool, my boy! I knew well enough you'd soon be
flying alone."

Max clapped his hands. "Oh yes, you are! You are angry--angry--angry!
You are angry because I found my way to Montmartre without you, and made
a little discovery all by myself! Is it not like a--" He stopped,
laughed, reddened as though he had made some slip, and then on the
instant altered his whole expression to one of appeal and contrition.

"_Mon ami_!"

Blake's reply was to pick up the _menu_ and turn to the attending
waiter.

"Monsieur Ned!"

Blake glanced at him reluctantly, caught the softened look, and laughed.

"You're a young scamp--and I suppose I'm a cross-grained devil! But if I
was angry, where's the wonder? A man doesn't pick up a quaint little
book on the _quais_, and look to have it turning its own leaves!"

"But now? Now it is all forgiven? You will not cast away your little
book because--because the wind came and fluttered the pages?"

Once again Max spoke softly, with the softness that broke so alluringly
across the reckless independence of look and gesture.

A sudden consciousness of this fascination--a sudden annoyance wi