iumphal arches was merely
the setting for a few nurses and their charges. The little iron tables
were so deserted that they remained merely little iron tables.

Of course the boulevards were as always; but after a night or two
before the Cafe de la Paix he had enough. Even with fifty thousand
people passing in review before him, he was not as amused as he should
have been. He sipped his black coffee as drowsily as an old man.

In an effort to rouse himself, he resolved to visit the cafes upon
Montmartre, which he had outgrown many years ago. That night he
climbed the narrow stairs to l'Abbaye. It was exactly as it had
been--a square room bounded by long seats before tables. Some two
dozen young ladies of various nationalities wandered about the center
of the room, trying their best, but with manifest effort, to keep pace
to the frenzied music of an orchestra paid to keep frenzied. A
half-dozen of the ladies pounced upon Monte as he sat alone, and he
gladly turned over to them the wine he purchased as the price of
admission. Yvonne, she with the languid Egyptian eyes, tried to rouse
the big American. Was it that he was bored? Possibly it was that,
Monte admitted. Then another bottle of wine was the proper thing. So
he ordered another bottle, and to the toast Yvonne proposed, raised his
glass. But the wine did him no good, and the music did him no good,
and Yvonne did him no good. The place had gone flat. Whatever he
needed, it was nothing l'Abbaye had to offer.

Covington went out into the night again, and, though the music from a
dozen other cafes called him to come in and forget, he continued down
the hill to the boulevard, deaf to the gay entreaties of the whole
city. It was clear that he was out of tune with Paris.

As he came into the Place de l'Opera he ran into the crowd pouring from
the big gray opera house, an eager, voluble crowd that jostled him
about as if he were an intruder. They had been warmed by fine music
and stirred by the great passions of this mimic world, so that the
women clung more tightly to the arms of their escorts.

Covington, who had fallen back a little to watch them pass, felt
strangely isolated. They hurried on without seeing him, as if he were
merely some spectral bystander. Yet the significant fact was not that
a thousand strangers should pass him without being aware of his
presence, but that he himself should notice their indifference. It was
not like him.

Or