Upon each landing were two doors—­closed doors that sturdily guarded whatever of secrecy might lie behind, and at each of these silent portals Max glanced with that intent and searching look that one bestows upon objects that promise to become intertwined with one’s daily life.  At last the ascent was made, the goal reached, and he paused on the last step of the stairs to survey the coveted fifth floor.

It was as bare, as scrupulously clean as were the other landings; but his quick glance noted that while the door upon the left was plain and unadorned as the others he had passed, that upon the right bore a small brass plate engraved with the name ‘L.  Salas.’

This, then, was his possible neighbor!  He scanned the name attentively.

“This is the fifth floor, madame?”

“The fifth floor, monsieur!” Without ceremony the little woman went forward and, to his astonishment, rapped sharply upon the door with the brass plate.

Max started.  “Madame!  The appartement is not occupied?”

The only reply that came to him was the opening of the door by an inch or two and the hissing whisper of a conversation of which he caught no word.  Then the lady of the scissors looked round upon him, and the door closed.

“One moment, monsieur, while madame throws on a garment!”

A sudden loss of nerve, a sudden desire for flight seized upon Max.  He had mounted the stairs anticipating the viewing of empty rooms, and now he was confronted with a furnished and inhabited appartement, and commanded to wait ‘while madame threw on a garment’!  A hundred speculations crowded to his mind.  Into what milieu was he about to be hurled?  What sordid morning scene was he about to witness?  In a strange confusion of ideas, the white face of the woman Lize sprang to his imagination, coupled with the memory of the empty champagne bottle and the battered tray of the first night at the Hotel Railleux.  A deadly sensitiveness oppressed him; he turned sharply to his guide.

“Madame!  Madame!  It is an altogether unreasonable hour to intrude—­”

The reopening of the door on the right checked him, and a gentle voice broke across his words: 

“Now, madame, if you will!”

He turned, his heart still beating quickly, and a sudden shame at his own thoughts—­a sudden relief so strong as almost to be painful—­surged through him.

The open door revealed a woman of forty-five, perhaps of fifty, clothed in a meagre black skirt and a plain linen wrapper of exquisite cleanliness.  It was this cleanliness that struck the note of her personality—­that fitted her as a garment, accentuating the quiet austerity of her thin figure, the streaks of gray in her brown hair, the pale face marked with suffering and sympathy and repression.

With an instinctive deference the boy bared his head.

“Madame,” he stammered, “I apologize profoundly for my intrusion at such an hour.”