Madame looked slowly round at the waiter and ordered coffee, then her glance returned to the boy.

’How good, how refreshing it was to see him eat!  How easy to comprehend that he was young!’ She sighed again, this time more softly.  ’Youth was a marvellous thing—­and Paris was the city of the young!  Was monsieur making a long stay at the Hotel Railleux?’

The waiter again appeared and placed the coffee upon the table.  Monsieur, suddenly and unaccountably uneasy, finished his eggs hastily and pushed his plate aside.

‘Did monsieur desire coffee?’ Madame leaned forward.  ’If so, it would be but the matter of a moment to procure a second cup; and, as her coffee-pot was quite full—­’ She raised the lid coquettishly, and again her eyes lingered upon the short dark hair and the straight brows above the gray eyes.

The waiter with ready tact departed in search of the second cup; madame replaced the lid of the coffee-pot.

’Now that they were alone, would it be an unpardonable liberty to ask how old monsieur really was?’

Monsieur blushed.

‘How old would madame suppose?’

Madame laughed.  ’Oh, it was difficult to say!  One might imagine from those bright eyes that monsieur had nineteen years; but, again, it was impossible to suppose that a razor had ever touched that soft cheek.’  There was another little laugh, lower this time and more subtle in tone; and madame, with a movement wonderfully swift considering her years and her proportions, leaned across the table and touched the boy’s face.

The effect was instant.  A tide of color rushed into his cheeks, he rose with an alacrity that was comic.

‘He—­he was much older than madame supposed!’

Madame laughed delightedly.  ’How charming!  How ingenuous!  He positively must sit down again.  It was assured that they would become friends!  Where was that waiter?  Where was that second coffee-cup?’

But monsieur remained standing.

Madame’s eyes, now alive with interest, literally danced to her thoughts.

‘Come!  Come!  They must not allow the coffee to become cold!’

But monsieur picked up his hat and coat.

’What!  He was not going?  Oh, it was impossible!  He could not be so unkind!’ Her face expressed dismay.

But her only answer was a stiff little bow, and a second later the door had closed and the boy was running down the stairs of the hotel as though some enemy were in hot pursuit.

CHAPTER IV

The mind of the boy was very full as he passed out of the hotel, so full that he scarcely noticed the whip of cold air that stung his face or the white mantle that lay upon the streets, wrapping in a silver sheath all that was sordid, all that was dirty and unpicturesque in that corner of Paris.  The human note had been touched in that moment in the salle-a-manger, and his ears still tingled to its sound.  Alarm, disgust, and a strange exultant satisfaction warred within him in a manner to be comprehended by his own soul alone.