where the lights of the
boulevards are left behind, and the sight-seer is apt to look askance at
the crude facts that the street lamps divulge to his curious eyes. To
the boy, these corners had no terrors, for in his untarnished friendship
with Blake all sides of life had been viewed in turn, as all topics had
been discussed as component parts of a fascinatingly interesting world.
To-night he went forward, mingling with the inhabitants of the district,
revelling with morbid realism in the forbidding dinginess of their
appearance. He was not of that quarter--that was patent to every rough
who lounged outside a _cafe_ door, as it was patent to every slovenly
woman who gave him a glance in passing. He was not of the quarter, but
he was an artist--and a shabby one at that--so the men accorded him an
indifferent shrug and the women a second glance.

Forward he went, possessed by his morbidity--forward into the growing
murkiness of environment until, association of ideas suddenly curbing
impulse, he stopped before the door of a shabby _cafe_ bearing the
fanciful appellation of the Cafe des Cerises-jumelles. Once, when bound
upon a night exploration in this same region, he and Blake had stopped
to smile at this odd name and wonder at its origin, and finally they had
passed through the portal to find that the twin cherries smiled upon
doubtful patrons. The vivid memory of that night smote him now as, drawn
by some unquestioned influence, he again entered the _cafe_, passing
through a species of bar to a long, low-ceiled eating-room set with
small tables. How Blake had talked that night! How thoughtfully, how
humanely and tolerantly he had judged their fellow-guests, as they sat
at one of these tables, rubbing shoulders with the worst--or, as he had
laughingly insisted, the best--of an odd fraternity!

The recollection was keen as a knife when Max entered the eating-room,
sat down and ordered a drink with the supreme indifference of
disillusion. Six months ago he would have trembled to find himself alone
in such a place; to-night he was beyond such a commonplace as fear.

He smiled again cynically, emptied his glass and looked about him. His
first experience of the place had been in the hours succeeding midnight,
when the quarter hummed with its unsavory life; but now it was early,
the lights were not yet at their fullest, the waiters had not as yet
taken on their nocturnal air of briskness. In one corner three men were
engros