ent of the shrubs in the plantation. Higher and higher they
climbed, sensible with each step of a greater isolation, of a rarer,
clearer air. Above them, in one of the higher houses in the rue Mueller,
some one was playing a fiddle, and the piercing sweet sounds came
through the night like a human voice, adding the poignancy, the passion
and pathos of human things to the aloofness and unreality of the scene.

The boy was the first to catch this lonely music, and as though it
called to him in some curious way, he suddenly freed his arm from
Blake's and ran forward up the steps.

When Blake overtook him he had passed up the rue Mueller, and was leaning
over the wooden paling that fronts the Sacre-Coeur, his elbows resting
upon it, his face between his hands, his eyes held by the glitter of
Paris lying below him.

Blake came quietly up behind him. "I thought you had given me the slip."

He turned. Again the light of inspiration, the curious illumination was
apparent in his face.

"This is most wonderful!" he said. "Most wonderful! It is here that I
shall live. Here--here--with Paris at my feet."

Blake laughed--laughed good-humoredly at the finality, the artless
arrogance of the tone.

"It may not be so easy to find a dwelling in the shadow of the
Sacre-Coeur."

Max looked at him with calm, grave eyes. "I do not consider
difficulties, monsieur. It is here that I shall live. My mind is made
up."

"But this is not the artists' quarter. You may seek your inspiration in
Montmartre, but you must have your studio across the river."

"Why must I? What compels me?"

The Irishman shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing compels you, but it is the
thing to do. You can live here, certainly, if you want to--there is no
law to forbid it--and you can find a studio on the Boulevard de Clichy;
but the other is the thing to do."

The boy smiled his young wise smile. "Monsieur, there is only one thing
to do--the thing one wants to do, the thing the heart compels. If I am
to know Paris I will know her from here--study her, love her from here.
This place is one of miracle. One might know life here, living in the
skies. Listen! That musician knows it!" He thrust out his hand
impulsively and caught Blake's in a pressure full of nervous tension,
full of magnetism. "What is it he plays? Tell me! Tell me!"

His touch, his excitement fired Blake's Celtic blood, banishing his mood
of criticism.

"The man is playing scraps from _Louise_--Ch