It began firm and sweet as the notes of a thrush, exquisitely delicate, with the high ecstasy that only music can express. It swelled into a positive paen of rejoicing, eager, wonderful, almost unearthly in its purity. It ended in a confused jumble like the glittering fragments of a beautiful thing shattered to atoms at a blow. And there fell a silence broken only by the throbbing of the taxi, and the drip, drip, drip, of the rain.
The taxi came to a stand close to the lamp-post against which the flute-player leaned, but he made no move to open the door. The light flared on his ashen face, showing it curiously apathetic. His instrument dangled from one nerveless hand.
A man in evening dress stepped from the taxi. His look fell upon the wretched figure that huddled against the lamppost. For a single instant their eyes met. Then abruptly the new-comer wheeled to pay his fare.
"He's in for a wet night by the looks of him," observed the chauffeur facetiously.
"The gentleman is a friend of mine," curtly responded the man in evening dress.
And the taxi-cab driver, being quite at a loss, shot away into the darkness to hide his discomfiture.
The flute-player straightened himself with a manifest effort and turned away. If he had heard the words, he had not comprehended them. His wits seemed to be wandering that night, but he would not even seem to beg an alms.
But a hand on his shoulder detained him. "Monsieur de Montville!" a quiet voice said.
He jerked round, bringing his heels together with instinctive precision.
Again, in the glare of the lamp-post their eyes met.
"I have not—the pleasure," he muttered stiffly.