"All for two hundred and sixty francs the year! Figure it to yourself! Two hundred and sixty francs the year! What one would pay in a couple of days for a suite of hotel rooms! I am mad since I have seen the place—quite mad!" He laughed again so excitedly that the people at the neighboring table stared.
"I can subscribe to that!" said Blake, satirically.
"Listen! Listen! You have not heard; you have not understood. I have found an appartement in the rue Müller, at Montmartre—the appartement I had set my heart upon, the place where I can live and paint and make my success!"
Blake stared at him in silence.
"Yes! Yes!" Max insisted. "And it is all quite settled. And you are coming back with me to-day at one o'clock to interview the concierge!"
Blake threw himself back in his chair. "I'm hanged if I am!"
Yesterday the boy would have drawn back upon the instant, armored in his pride, but to-day his reply was to look direct into Blake's face with fascinating audacity.
"Then you will leave me to contend alone against who can say what villain—what apache?"
"It strikes me you are qualified to deal with any apache."
"You are angry!"