ug and strong,
laughing at the elements. She traced the familiar outline of these
sturdy bushes, and her perfect triumph seemed like a winding sheet about
her limbs. She was above the world, removed from care, and all she knew
was that she would have given her heart for one moment of the hot human
grief that had seared her not four months ago.

She turned from the trees, turned from the stars and moved back into the
unlighted room. All was quiet and dim; she stumbled against the
arm-chair and recoiled as though a friend had touched her inopportunely;
then she passed blindly onward, finding the little hall, finding the
outer door with groping hands.

Outside was a deeper darkness, for here no starlight penetrated; but M.
Cartel's door was ajar, and through the opening came a streak of
lamplight and the hum of voices.

Pausing, Maxine caught the deep, humorous tones of M. Cartel himself,
broken first by an unknown voice, quick, tense, typically Parisian, then
by the light laugh of Jacqueline.

In her cruel perfection of triumph, she had no need to fear these
voices--these little evidences of sociability. They could not hurt her,
for was she not impervious to pain?

Another laugh, full and contented, came to her ear, then the opening of
the piano and the masterful striking of a chord.

A murmur of pleasure gave evidence of an audience, and instinctively she
moved forward, as a wanderer on a dark night draws near to a lighted
dwelling. Gaining the door, she softly pushed it open, as M. Cartel
executed a _roulade_, which melted into a brilliant piece of
improvization.

A bright lamp shone in the hall; but beyond, the open door of the
living-room displayed a half-lighted interior, with a handful of people
grouped about it. Foremost figure was M. Cartel seated at his music
within a radius of yellow light shed by four candles, while, beside him,
a tall thin boy, and, behind him, Jacqueline seemed enclosed in a
secondary, fainter circle of luminance. The rest of the room was in
shadow, and as Maxine entered, she scarcely noticed the three other
occupants--two men and a woman--who sat in a row close to the door,
their backs to the wall.

No one commented upon her entry. The little Jacqueline glanced round
once, smiling a quick welcome, but returned immediately to her
contemplation of M. Cartel; the younger of the two men by the door--an
Italian--paused in the lighting of a cigarette, but his companion--an
old Polish Je