But the boy drew away.  “Another time!  Not to-night.”

“Why not?”

“I cannot tell you.”

Blake looked more closely at the nervously set lips, the dark eyebrows drawn into a frown.

“I say, boy, it hasn’t got on your nerves—­this place?  I know what a queer little beggar you are.”

“No; it is not that.”

“Then what?  Another inspiration?”

“No.”

“Very well!  I won’t probe.  I’m old enough to know that the human animal is inexplicable.  Good-night—­and good luck!  I’ll see you to-morrow.”

“To-morrow, yes!”

There was relief in the readiness of the response, relief in the quick thrusting forth of the boy’s hand.

“Good-night!”

“Good-night!  And go to bed when you get home.  You’re very white.”

“Yes.”

His voice seemed to recede further into its distant absorbed note, his fingers were withdrawn from Blake’s close pressure with a haste that was unusual, and turning away, he crossed the boulevard as though the vision of some spectre had lent wings to his feet.

No impression of romance touched him as he hastened up the narrow streets toward his home.  He had no eyes for the secret shadows, the mysterious corners usually so fruitful of suggestion; his whole perceptions were turned inward; his self-consciousness was a thing so living, so acute that he went forward as one bereft of sight or hearing.

Reaching the foot of the Escalier de Sainte-Marie, he quickened his already hurried pace, and began to run up the uneven steps.  The door of his house stood open, and he plunged into the dark well of the hall without waiting to strike a match.  By instinct his hand found the smooth banister, and he began his climb of the stairs.

Up he went, and up, living in himself with that perfect absorption that comes in rare and violent moments—­moments of sorrow, of pleasure or, it may be, of surprise, when a new thought suspends the action of the brain.

In obedience to some unconsidered instinct he softened his steps on reaching the fifth floor, and crept across the bare corridor to the door of his own rooms.

He entered quietly, and still ignoring the need for light, groped a way to his bedroom.

It was the room that had once belonged to Madame Salas; and, like the kitchen, it looked upon the network of roofs and chimneys that spread away at the rear of the house.  Now, as he entered, closed the door, and stood leaning against it, breathing quickly, these roofs and chimneys, seen through the uncurtained window, made a picturesque medley of lines and curves startlingly distinct against the star-powdered sky.

The ethereal light of a Parisian spring night filled the room, touching the white walls—­the white bed—­a bowl of flowers upon the dressing-table and its fairy-like reflection in the mirror—­to a subtly insidious fragility that verged upon the unreal; and the boy, quivering to his tangled sensations, felt this unreality quicken his self-distrust, touch and goad him as a spur.