Cartel--and, moving in his shadow, the demure
Jacqueline--had proffered a generous hospitality--talking to him of
work, of politics, of Paris, but with a Frenchman's inimitable tact.

For all this unobtrusive attention he had been silently grateful, but
to-night he stood by the door hesitating; for long he hesitated,
honestly fighting with his mood, but at last the desperation of the mood
prevailed. Who could talk of work, when work was as an evil smell in the
nostrils? Who could talk of politics, when the overthrow of nations
would not stimulate the mind? He turned on his heel with a little
exclamation, hopeless as it was cynical, and ran down the stairs with
the gait of one whose destination concerns neither the world nor
himself.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Max swung down the Escalier de Sainte-Marie in as reckless a mood as
ever possessed being of either sex. Nothing of the sweet Maxine was
discernible in face or carriage; the boy predominated, but a boy
possessed of a callousness that was pathetic seen hand-in-hand with
youth.

For the first time he was viewing Paris bereft of the glamour of
romance; for the first time the Masque of Folly passed before him,
licentious and unashamed. Many an hour, in days gone by, he had
discussed with Blake this lighter side of many-sided Paris, and with
Blake's wise and penetrating gaze he had seen it in true perspective;
but to-night there was no sane interpreter to temper vision, to-night he
was bitterly alone, and his mind, from long austerity, long
concentration upon work, had swung with grievous suddenness to the
opposing pole of thought. He had no purpose in his descent from the rue
Mueller, he had no desire of vice as an antidote to pain, but his
loathing of Paris was drawing him to her with that morbid craving to
hurt and rehurt his bruised soul that assails the artist in times of
misery.

The streets were quiet, for it was scarcely nine o'clock, and as yet the
lethargy of the day lay heavy on the air. The heat and the accompanying
laxity breathed an atmosphere of its own; every window of every house
gaped, and behind the casements one caught visions of men and women
negligent of attire and heedless of observation.

Romance was dead! Of that supreme fact Max was very sure. A hard smile
touched his lips, and hugging his cynicism, he went forward--crossing
the Boulevard de Clichy, plunging downward into the darker regions of
the rue des Martyrs and the rue Montmartre,