Forward he went, possessed by his morbidity—­forward into the growing murkiness of environment until, association of ideas suddenly curbing impulse, he stopped before the door of a shabby cafe bearing the fanciful appellation of the Cafe des Cerises-jumelles.  Once, when bound upon a night exploration in this same region, he and Blake had stopped to smile at this odd name and wonder at its origin, and finally they had passed through the portal to find that the twin cherries smiled upon doubtful patrons.  The vivid memory of that night smote him now as, drawn by some unquestioned influence, he again entered the cafe, passing through a species of bar to a long, low-ceiled eating-room set with small tables.  How Blake had talked that night!  How thoughtfully, how humanely and tolerantly he had judged their fellow-guests, as they sat at one of these tables, rubbing shoulders with the worst—­or, as he had laughingly insisted, the best—­of an odd fraternity!

The recollection was keen as a knife when Max entered the eating-room, sat down and ordered a drink with the supreme indifference of disillusion.  Six months ago he would have trembled to find himself alone in such a place; to-night he was beyond such a commonplace as fear.

He smiled again cynically, emptied his glass and looked about him.  His first experience of the place had been in the hours succeeding midnight, when the quarter hummed with its unsavory life; but now it was early, the lights were not yet at their fullest, the waiters had not as yet taken on their nocturnal air of briskness.  In one corner three men were engrossed in a game of cards, in another a thin girl of fifteen sat with her arm round the neck of a boy scarce older than herself, whispering jests into his ear, at which they both laughed in coarse low murmurs, while in the middle of the room, with her back turned to him, a woman in a tight black dress and feathered hat was eating a meal of poached eggs.

In a vague way, absorbed in his own thoughts, Max fell to studying this solitary woman, until something in her impassivity, something in the sphinx-like calm with which she went through the business of her meal, blent with his imaginings, and he suddenly found her placed beside Blake in the possession of his thoughts—­an integral part of their joint lives.  In a flash of memory the large black hat, the opulent figure took place within his consciousness and, answering to a new instinct, he rose and took an involuntary step in the woman’s direction.

She changed her position at sound of his approach, her large hat described new angles, and she looked back over her shoulder.

“What!” she said aloud.  “The little friend of Blake!  But how droll!”

She showed no surprise, she merely waved her hand to a chair facing her own.

Max sat down; a hot and dirty waiter came forward languidly, and wine was ordered.

Lize pushed aside the glass of green-tinted liquid that she had been consuming through a straw, and waited for what was to come.  Max, looking at her in the crude light of a gas-jet, saw that her face was whiter, her eyes more hollow than when her wrath had fallen on him at the Bal Tabarin; also, he noted that a little dew of heat showed through the mask of powder on her face.