was in luck. When he had finished his meal he mentioned her name to the patronne, who treated her own sex with uniform contempt.
"Oh, Suzy never comes here now. She's living up in Montmartre somewhere. She owes me thirty francs—sale gribiche qu'elle est! They're all alike, ces filles. . . . But your great amoureuse still comes."
"Who is that?"
Madame reminded him of the murderous, mirthful hag who had been prepared to bid for him with rolls of hundred-franc notes.
"She always asks about you."
Paul shuddered. To-night the thought of his admirer was not even funny. He turned up his collar, and rose from the bench.
"Ça ne fait rien, Madame, st je vous paie la prochaine fois?"
"Mais quand vous voudrez, mon petit, quand vous voudrez. Ici vous êtes toujours chez vous. Vous le savez bien!"
He thanked her and shook hands, in accordance with the etiquette of the establishment. The dirty floor and the stale smells of tobacco and beer nauseated him. Madame had just served to an unsuspecting customer a steak of horse-flesh. In the fat surrounding his own potatoes, Paul had been obliged to remove the corpse of a fly. He hurried away.
"Here, you can always consider yourself at home," she had said. Home!
There was only one direction in which Paul could turn for an immediate livelihood. Through the centre of all the shifting emotions of life, music had run as a dull gold thread. He would have preferred not to degrade it to the status of mere breadwinner, but there was
