come. Then, with his swift impulsiveness, he flung his dream from him. What mattered the future? What mattered the past? He was here in the present--in the moment; and the moment, great or small, demanded living.

"Never mind the spirit, Jean! Let us consider the flesh! Where is the _salle-à-manger_?"

'The _salle-à-manger_ was on the second floor.'

'The second floor? But of course! Had not Jean mentioned that fact last night?' With a nod and a smile, he was away down the intervening steps and at the door of the eating-room before Jean could balance his tray for his renewed ascent.

The room that the boy entered was in keeping with the rest of the house--old-fashioned and in ill-repair. The floor was devoid of covering, the ceiling low, the only furniture a dozen small tables meagrely set out for _déjeuner_. On the moment of his entry eleven of these tables were unoccupied, but at the twelfth an eager young waiter attended upon a stout provincial Frenchwoman who was partaking heartily of a pungently smelling stew.

On the opening of the door the waiter glanced round in strained anticipation, and the lady of the stew looked up and bowed a greeting to the new-comer.

It struck the boy as curious--this welcome from a total stranger, but it woke anew the pleasant warmth, the agreeable sense of friendliness. With the tingling sensation of doing a daring deed, he glanced round the empty room, scanned the two long windows on which the cold, bright sun played laughingly, and through which the rattle and hum of the rue de Dunkerque penetrated like an exhilarating accompaniment, then, he walked straight to the table of the lady, smiled and, in his own turn, bowed.

'Would madame permit him to sit at her table? It was sad to be alone upon so fine a morning.'

A woman of any other nationality might have looked at him askance; but madame was French. She was fifty years of age, she was fat, she was ugly--but she was French. The sense of a pleasant encounter--the appreciation of romance was in her blood. She smiled at the debonair boy with as agreeable a self-consciousness as though she had been a young girl.

'But certainly, if monsieur desired. The pleasure was for her.'

Again an interchange of bows and smiles, sympathetically repeated by the interested young waiter. Then the boy, laying his hat and 

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