h from cold or hunger, or
perhaps he regarded the choice as of small importance. Possibly even, he
had forgotten that there was a choice to be made.

The street he travelled was deserted, but he heard the buzz of a motor at
a cross-road, and mechanically almost he moved towards it. He was not
quite master of himself or his sensations. He may have vaguely remembered
that there is sometimes money to be earned by opening the door of a taxi,
but it was not with this definite end in view that he took his way. For,
as he went, he put his flute once more to his lips, and poured a sudden,
silvery melody--the "_Aubade a la Fiancee_"--that a young French officer
had onced hummed so gaily among the rocks of Valpre--into the rain and
the darkness.

It began firm and sweet as the notes of a thrush, exquisitely delicate,
with the high ecstasy that only music can express. It swelled into a
positive paen of rejoicing, eager, wonderful, almost unearthly in its
purity. It ended in a confused jumble like the glittering fragments of a
beautiful thing shattered to atoms at a blow. And there fell a silence
broken only by the throbbing of the taxi, and the drip, drip, drip, of
the rain.

The taxi came to a stand close to the lamp-post against which the
flute-player leaned, but he made no move to open the door. The light
flared on his ashen face, showing it curiously apathetic. His instrument
dangled from one nerveless hand.

A man in evening dress stepped from the taxi. His look fell upon the
wretched figure that huddled against the lamppost. For a single instant
their eyes met. Then abruptly the new-comer wheeled to pay his fare.

"He's in for a wet night by the looks of him," observed the chauffeur
facetiously.

"The gentleman is a friend of mine," curtly responded the man in evening
dress.

And the taxi-cab driver, being quite at a loss, shot away into the
darkness to hide his discomfiture.

The flute-player straightened himself with a manifest effort and turned
away. If he had heard the words, he had not comprehended them. His wits
seemed to be wandering that night, but he would not even seem to beg an
alms.

But a hand on his shoulder detained him. "Monsieur de Montville!" a quiet
voice said.

He jerked round, bringing his heels together with instinctive precision.
Again, in the glare of the lamp-post their eyes met.

"I have not--the pleasure," he muttered stiffly.

"My name is Mordaunt," the other told him gravely. "You