Nine o'clock found Max waiting in the rue de Dunkerque.

Paris, consummate actress that she is, was already arraying herself for the nightly appeal to her audience of pleasure-seekers.

Like a dancer in her dressing-room, she but awaited the signal to step forth into the glamour of the footlights; the rouge was on her lips, the stars shone in her hair, the jewelled slippers caressed her light feet.

Even here, in the colorless region of the Gare du Nord, the perfumed breath of the courtesan city crept like the fumes of wine; the insidious sense of nocturnal energy swept the brain, as the traffic jingled by and the crowds upon the footpaths thronged into the _cafes_ and overflowed into the roadway.
To the boy, walking slowly up and down, with eager eyes that sought the one face among the many, the scene came as a joyous revelation that called inevitably to his youth and his vitality.

He made no pretence of analyzing his sensations: he was stirred, intoxicated by the movement, the lights, the naturalness and artificiality that walked hand-in-hand in so strange a fellowship.