He smiled, nodded, and ran down the first flight of stairs; but by the window at the half-landing he stopped and looked back.
"Madame, tell me something! What is the rent of the appartement?"
"The rent? Two hundred and sixty francs the year."
"Two hundred and sixty francs the year!" His voice was perfectly expressionless. Then, apparently without reason, he laughed aloud and ran down-stairs.
The woman looked after him, half inquisitively, half in bewilderment; then to herself, in the solitude of the landing, she shook her head.
"An artist, for a certainty!" she said, aloud, and, turning, she retraced her steps and knocked with her knuckles on the door of M. Lucien Cartel.
Meanwhile, Max finished his descent of the stairs, his feet gliding with pleasant ease down the polished oak steps, his hand slipping smoothly down the polished banister. Already the joy of the free life was singing in his veins, already in spirit he was an inmate of this house of many histories. He darted across the hall, picturing in imagination the last night's haste of M. Cartel of the violin. What would he be like, this M. Cartel, when he came to know him in the flesh? Fat and short and negligent of his figure? or lean and pathetic, as though dinner was not a certainty on every day of the seven? He laughed a little to himself light-heartedly, and gained the street door with unnecessary, heedless speed—gained it on the moment that another pedestrian, moving swiftly as himself, entered, bringing him to a sharp consciousness of the moment.
Incomer and outgoer each drew back a step, each laughed, each tendered an apology.
"Pardon, monsieur!"
"Pardon, mademoiselle!"