Treading softly, Maxine entered and crept into a seat opposite the trio, realizing, with an indifference that surprised her, that the woman was Lize of the Bal Tabarin and the Cafe des Cerises-jumelles.

The music poured forth, a glittering stream of sound.  The young Italian lighted cigarette after cigarette, smoking furiously and beating soundless time upon the floor with his foot, the old Pole sat lost in an emotional dream, tears gathering slowly in his eyes and trickling unheeded down his cheeks, while Lize, in her moveless isolation, gazed with fixed intensity at the wall above Maxine’s head.

Time passed; time seemed of small account in that atmosphere—­as the outside world was of small account.  Not one of the little audience questioned how the other lived.  It mattered nothing that in other hours the artistic fingers of the young Italian were employed in the manufacture of fraudulent antiques—­that the enthusiast by the piano wrote humorous songs at a starvation wage for an unsuccessful comique—­that Lize, finding humanity foolish, made profit of its folly!  ‘What would you?’ they would have asked with a shrug.  ’One must live!’ For the rest, there were moments such as this—­moments when the artist was paramount in each of them—­when pure enthusiasm made them children again!

M. Cartel played on.  He had forsaken improvization now, and was interpreting magnificently; occasionally the boy by the piano threw up his hands ecstatically, muttering incoherently to himself; occasionally the young Italian broke silence by a sharp, irresistible ‘Brava’; but for the most part respectful silence spoke the intensity of the spell.

Then at last Maxine, sitting in her corner, saw Jacqueline bend over the shoulder of M. Cartel, her hair shining like sun-rays in the candlelight—­saw her whisper in his ear—­saw him look up and nod in abrupt acquiescence, and saw his square-tipped fingers lift for an instant from the keys and descend again to a series of new chords.

A little murmur of interest passed over the listeners.  The Italian threw away his half-smoked cigarette and lighted another, the Pole smiled tolerantly with half-closed eyes, as the old smile at the vagaries of the young, and Maxine in her shadowed seat felt her heart leap tumultuously as the little Jacqueline, her arm naively round the shoulder of M. Cartel, her head thrown back, began to sing the first lines of the duet in Louise: 

    ’Depuis le jour ou je me suis donnee, toute fleurie semble ma
        destinee. 
    Je crois rever sous un ciel de feerie, l’ame encore grisee de
        ton premier baiser!’

And M. Cartel, lifting his head, broke in with the single electric cry of Julian the lover: 

    ‘Louise!’

Then, as if answering to the personal note, Jacqueline melted into Louise’s sweet admission of absolute surrender: 

    ’Quelle belle vie! 
    Ah, je suis heureuse! trop heureuse ... et je tremble delicieusement,
    Au souvenir charmant du premier jour d’amour!’