Max looked at him with calm, grave eyes.  “I do not consider difficulties, monsieur.  It is here that I shall live.  My mind is made up.”

“But this is not the artists’ quarter.  You may seek your inspiration in Montmartre, but you must have your studio across the river.”

“Why must I?  What compels me?”

The Irishman shrugged his shoulders.  “Nothing compels you, but it is the thing to do.  You can live here, certainly, if you want to—­there is no law to forbid it—­and you can find a studio on the Boulevard de Clichy; but the other is the thing to do.”

The boy smiled his young wise smile.  “Monsieur, there is only one thing to do—­the thing one wants to do, the thing the heart compels.  If I am to know Paris I will know her from here—­study her, love her from here.  This place is one of miracle.  One might know life here, living in the skies.  Listen!  That musician knows it!” He thrust out his hand impulsively and caught Blake’s in a pressure full of nervous tension, full of magnetism.  “What is it he plays?  Tell me!  Tell me!”

His touch, his excitement fired Blake’s Celtic blood, banishing his mood of criticism.

“The man is playing scraps from Louise—­Charpentier’s Louise.”

“I have never heard Louise.”

“What!  And you a student of Paris?  Why, it’s Charpentier’s hymn to Montmartre.  Listen, now!” His voice quickened.  “He’s playing a bit out of the night scene.  He’s playing the declaration of the Noctambule: 

    “Je suis le Plaisir de Paris! 
      Je vais vers les Amantes—­que le Desir tourmente! 
    Je vais, cherchant les coeurs qu’oubli a le bonheur. 
      La-bas glanant le Rire, ici semant l’Envie,
    Prechant partout le droit de tous a la folie;
      Je suis le Procureur de la grande Cite! 
    Ton humble serviteur—­ou ton maitre!”

He murmured the words below his breath, pausing as the music deepened with the passion of the player and the sinister song poured into the night.

Then came a break, a pause, and the music flowed forth again, but curiously altered, curiously softened in character.

Max’s fingers tightened.  “Ah, but listen now, my friend!”

Blake turned to him in quick appreciation.  “Good!  Good!  You are an artist!  That’s Louise singing in the third act, on the day she is to be Muse of Montmartre.  It is up here in the little house her lover has provided for her; it is twilight, and she is in the garden, looking down upon all this”—­he waved his hand comprehensively—­“it is her moment—­the triumph and climax of love.  Try to think what she is saying!” He paused, and they stood breathless and enchained, while the violin trembled under the hand of its master, vibrant and penetrating.

“What is it she says?” Max whispered the words.

Blake’s reply was to murmur the burden of the song in the same hushed way as he had spoken the song of the Noctambule.