ntrance.

The bedizened porter whistled fatuously at a passing taxicab, which
though fareless held steadfast to its way, while the driver
acknowledged the signal only with jeers and disgraceful gestures, after
the manner of his kind. So that Lanyard, remembering how frequently
similar experiences had befallen him in pre-War Paris, reflected sadly
that the great conflict had, after all, worked little change in human
hearts--charitably assuming the bosoms of French taxi-bandits to be so
furnished.

Presently, however, the persistent whistle conjured from round a corner
a rakish hansom that--like the creature between its shafts and the
driver on its lofty box, with his face in full bloom and his bleary
eyes, his double-breasted box-coat and high hat of oilcloth--had
doubtless been brisk with young ambition in the golden time of the
Nineteen-Naughties.

But unmistakably of the vintage of the Nineteen-Twenties was the
avarice of the driver. For when he had been given the address of the
Athenais' apartment, he announced with vinous truculence that his whim
inclined to precisely the opposite direction, gathered up the reins,
clucked in peremptory fashion to the nag (which sagely paid no
attention to him whatsoever) and consented only to change his mind when
promised a fabulous fare.

Even then he grumbled profanely while Lanyard helped Athenais to climb
in and took the place by her side.

The rue Pigalle was as dark and still as any street in a deserted
village. From its gloomy walls the halting clatter of hoofs struck
empty echoes that rang in Lanyard's heart like a refrain from some old
song. To that very tune had the gay world gone about its affaires in
younger years, when the Lone Wolf was a living fact and not a fading
memory in the minds of men...

He sighed heavily.

"Monsieur is sentimental," commented Athenais Reneaux lightly. "Beware!
Sentimentalists come always to some sad end."

"One has found that true ... But you are young to know it, Athenais."

"A woman is never young--after a certain age--save when she loves, my
friend."

"That, too, is true. But still you are overyoung to have learned it."

"One learns life's lessons not in any fixed and predetermined order,
Paul, with no sort of sequence whatever, but as and when Life chooses
to teach them."

"Quel dommage!" Lanyard murmured, and subsided into another silence.

The girl grew restive. "But tell me, my dear Don Juan," she protested:
"Do all y