Max

d by the fine and stinging air, stimulated by the crisp summons of the flutes and the martial rattle of the drums, they bridged the thousand prelimin

past the open space through which the soldiers were still defiling like a dark stream in a snowbound country. Each was drawn instinctively toward the Cours la Reine-the point from whence the stream was pouring, the point wh

! How did you know me again?

ss his gayety as shadows chase each other across a sunlit pool. His li

GETHER, TOUCHED IN

gnized the demand

tell you. There's something about you-" His thoughtfulness deepened, and he

oy re

slip of a boy-" His voice grew meditative and he recurred to his n

speak to me? I'm

s, you

was a flash in the gray eyes t

shman h

a fondness for the curious and the poetical and the mysterious, and somehow you seemed to me last night to be mystery itself, with your silence and your intentness." He dropped his voice to the meditative key, unconsciously enjoying

from a country of dreams. We Irish are born dreamers; sometimes we never wake up at all, and then we're counted failures. But, I tell yo

d there was a tremor of ne

ed. Yet Mac is a millionaire several times over, an

the pleasant scrutiny, to wish that the vaporous fog of

they see?"

"but they marked you for an anarchist. An anarchist, for all the world! As if any a

ar, half in doubt, laughed sudden

chist! H

old them so. I

ha

wn be

our be

for I've told it before. I knew you were no common crea

e?" In his returning confi

him. "Oh no!" he added, soberly. "Keep your mask! I don't want to tear it from you. Later on, perhaps, I

into th

y firs

at do y

g. I see a boy who has thought.

reli

r things; you acknowl

child who has been caugh

was your i

ander-left or right?" He nodded first in the direction of the river, then toward the large building

. "Pictures!" he exclaimed. "I didn'

learn! C

ed by the soldiers' feet, and together they reached the doorway of the lar

y humorous, faintly sceptical glance that h

bait, but I expect 'twill be

ing a cold and rigid staircase, found

hand of the custodian when the boy plucked him by the sleeve

don me! You kn

five months out

ctures, but I-I dislike crowds-fashionable crowds." His voice was agitated; it was as if he had suddenly

: his only reply was to move neare

oodness to inform me how many persons have

many of the world were to be seen at such an hour,' he informed him. 'So

ed his hand towa

orld forgetting, by

is reassurance, and his confidence flowed back as the custodian took the two-franc piece and the

chin in the collar of his coat. The chill of the place was vaultlike; the cold, gray light that penetrated it held n

gan the Irishman, "this

temperament, had suddenly caught sight of a picture that interested h

nt who dozed over some knitting in a corner near the door. Away into the distance stretched the other rooms, bound one to the other like links in a chain. From the third of these came the penetrati

group of five or six studies by a particular artist. The details of the picture scarcely held the mind, for the imagination of the beholder was instantly caught and enchained by the central figure-the figure of a great ape, painted with cruel and extraordina

e hideous human attributes patent in the brute that disgusted the imagination. With a te

ind him was surprised at the expression that had overspread his face, the sombre light that glowed in hi

think of th

oment, then his eyes returned to th

damnable thing I've ever seen. When the Gallic mind r

fil

e pointed to the other pictures, each a study of m

and slowly, then once more his

gain, wh

of the beast in every man

e is something of th

ural

The boy's face was pale,

nce. "It isn't a question of fear;

oy tossed the

ld you su

veil seemed to fall upon his youth, arrest

aised his brow

live when we know life trul

be perver

this is no more a perversion of the truth than"-he glanced round

g conception of a half-clothed woman, a picture in which the fles

soothes your senses, yet you know that all womankind is n

is man al

st not be swayed in one direction or the other; and that is the

ccompanied by a deprecating, pleading glance, and the Irishman was fille

turn to seek the truth now. What ar

less, light-hearted laugh of

said. "A riddle is only inter