That is how it came about that Jeanne found herself at a late hour climbing the stairway that led to the garret studio that once had witnessed so much lightness and gaiety.
She had expected to find changes. Times were hard. It had come to her, in indirect ways, that her good friend had met with little success in New York. But she was scarcely prepared for that which met her gaze as the door was thrown open by Angelo himself.
Advancing into the center of the room, she found bare floors where there had been bright, rich, Oriental rugs. The unique stage, with all its settings of blue, green, red and gold, was bare.
“Yes,” Angelo spoke slowly, meditatively, as if answering her mood, “they took my things, one at a time. Fair enough, too. I owed money. I could not pay. The piano went first, my old, old friend. A battered friend it was, but its tones were true.
“And what grand times we had around that piano! Remember?”
“I remember.” Jeanne’s tone was low.
“But don’t be sad about it.” Angelo was actually smiling. “They took the piano, the rugs, the desk where I composed your light opera.
“Ah, yes; but after all, these are but the symbols of life. They are not life itself. They could not carry away the memory of those days, those good brave days when we were sometimes rich and sometimes very, very poor. The memories of those days will be with us forever. And of such memories as these life, the best of life, is made.”
After some brief, commonplace remarks, came a moment of silence.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Swen, Angelo’s friend, said, “I will go out to search for a bit of cheer.”