nt, but Johann was free and flying up the alley.
Maurice gave chase, but uselessly. Johann had disappeared. The alley was
a cul de sac, but was lined with doors; and these Maurice hammered to
ease his conscience. No one answered. Deeply disgusted with his lack of
caution, Maurice regained the street, where he brushed the dust from his
knees.

"I'll take it out of his hide the next time we meet. He wasn't worth the
trouble, anyway."

A sybil might have whispered in his ear that a very large fish had
escaped his net, but Maurice continued, conscious of nothing save
chagrin and a bruised knee. He resumed the piecing together of events,
or rather he attempted to; very few pieces could be brought together. If
Beauvais had the certificates, what was his object in lying to Madame?
What benefit would accrue to him? After all, it was a labyrinth of paths
which always brought him up to the beginning. He drooped his shoulders
dejectedly. There was nothing left for him to do but return to the Red
Chateau and inform them of the fruitlessness of his errand. He would
start on the morrow. Tonight he wanted once more to hear the band,
to wander about the park, to row around the rear of the archbishop's
garden.

"A fine thing to be born in purple--sometimes," he mused. "I never knew
till now the inconveniences of the common mold."

He tramped on, building chateaux en Espagne. That they tumbled down did
not matter; he could rebuild in the space of a second, and each castle
an improvement on its predecessor.

His attention was suddenly drawn away from this idle but pleasant
pursuit. In a side street he saw twenty or thirty students surging back
and forth, laughing and shouting and jostling. In the center of this
swaying mass canes rose and fell. It was a fight, and as he loved a
fight, Maurice pressed his hat firmly on his head and veered into
the side street. He looked around guiltily, and was thankful that no
feminine eyes were near to offer him their reproaches. He jostled among
the outer circle, but could see nothing. He stooped. Something white
flashed this way and that, accompanied by the sound of low growls. A dog
fight was his first impression, and he was on the point of leaving, for,
while he secretly enjoyed the sight of two physically perfect men waging
battle, he had not the heart to see two brutes pitted against each
other, goaded on by brutes of a lower caste. But even as he turned the
crowd opened and closed, and the b