At length he crossed a great bridge and set his foot within the smiling city that has crushed or crowned more poets than all the rest of the world.  His breath came quickly as Paris sang to him in a little undertone her vital chant of greeting—­the hum of voice and foot and wheel.

High up under the eaves of an old house in the Rue Conti, David paid for lodging, and set himself, in a wooden chair, to his poems.  The street, once sheltering citizens of import and consequence, was now given over to those who ever follow in the wake of decline.

The houses were tall and still possessed of a ruined dignity, but many of them were empty save for dust and the spider.  By night there was the clash of steel and the cries of brawlers straying restlessly from inn to inn.  Where once gentility abode was now but a rancid and rude incontinence.  But here David found housing commensurate 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 gypsy’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.”

The lady fluttered her fingers with the least possible gesture of impatience.

“Pardon.  Certainly I am not discreet in asking.  Monsieur will forgive me?  It is surely not becoming that I should inquire where he lodges.”

“Madame, do not say so.  I live in the—­”

“No, no, no; do not tell me.  Now I see that I erred.  But I cannot lose the interest I feel in this house and all that is in it.  Once it was my home.  Often I come here but to dream of those happy days again.  Will you let that be my excuse?”