him. The wide space filled with its cosmopolitan crowd, the opera-house
itself, so aloof in its dark splendor, spoke to him of another
Paris--the Paris that might be Vienna, Petersburg, London, for all it
has to say of individual life. His mood changed; he paused and looked
back over his shoulder in the direction from whence he had come. But the
hesitation was fleeting; a quick courage followed on the doubt. The
adventurer must take life in every aspect--must face all questions, all
moments! He turned up the collar of his coat, as though preparing to
face a chillier region, and went forward boldly as before.

One or two narrow streets brought him out upon the Place de Rivoli,
where Joan of Arc sat astride her golden horse, and where great heaps of
flowers were stacked at the street corners--mimosa, lilac, violets. He
halted irresistibly to glance at these flowers breathing of the south,
and to glance at the shining statue. Then he crossed the rue de Rivoli
and, passing through the garden of the Tuileries, emerged upon the Place
de la Concorde.

On the Place de la Concorde the cool, clean hand of the morning had
drawn its most striking picture; here, in the great, unsheltered spaces,
the frost had fallen heavily, softening and beautifying to an
inconceivable degree. The suggestion of modernity that ordinarily hangs
over the place was veiled, and the subtle hints of history stole forth,
binding the imagination. It needed but a touch to materialize the dream
as the boy crossed the white roadway, shadowed by the white statuary,
and with an odd appropriateness the touch was given.

One moment his mind was a sea of shifting visions, the next it was
caught and held by an inevitably thrilling sound--the sound of feet
tramping to a martial tune. The touch had been given: the vague visions