mensurate to his scant purse. Daylight and candlelight found him at pen and paper.
One afternoon he was returning from a foraging trip to the lower world, with bread and curds and a bottle of thin wine. Halfway up his dark stairway he met—or rather came upon, for she rested on the stair—a young woman of a beauty that should balk even the justice of a poet’s imagination. A loose, dark cloak, flung open, showed a rich gown beneath. Her eyes changed swiftly with every little shade of thought. Within one moment they would be round and artless like a child’s, and long and cozening like a gypsy’s. One hand raised her gown, undraping a little shoe, high-heeled, with its ribbons dangling, untied. So heavenly she was, so unfitted to stoop, so qualified to charm and command! Perhaps she had seen David coming, and had waited for his help there.
Ah, would monsieur pardon that she occupied the stairway, but the shoe!—the naughty shoe! Alas! it would not remain tied. Ah! if monsieur would be so gracious!
The poet’s fingers trembled as he tied the contrary ribbons. Then he would have fled from the danger of her presence, but the eyes grew long and cozening, like a gipsy’s, and held him. He leaned against the balustrade, clutching his bottle of sour wine.
“You have been so good,” she said, smiling. ‘‘Does monsieur, perhaps, live in the house?”
“Yes, madame. I—I think so, madame.”
“Perhaps in the third story, then?”
“No, madame; higher up.”
