In Paris, in this quarter, above all, in this Street of the Four Winds,
names are worn and put away as the fashions change with the seasons. I
know the little town of Elven, for there I met Fate face to face and Fate
was unkind. But do you know that in Elven Fate had another name, and that
name was Sylvia?" He replaced the garter and stood up looking down at the cat crouched
before the closed door. "The name of Elven has a charm for me. It tells me of meadows and clear
rivers. The name of Sylvia troubles me like perfume from dead flowers." The cat mewed. "Yes, yes," he said soothingly, "I will take you back. Your Sylvia is not
my Sylvia; the world is wide and Elven is not unknown. Yet in the darkness
and filth of poorer Paris, in the sad shadows of this ancient house, these
names are very pleasant to me." He lifted her in his arms and strode through the silent corridors to the
stairs. Down five flights and into the moonlit court, past the little
sculptor's den, and then again in at the gate of the north wing and up the
worm-eaten stairs he passed, until he came to a closed door. When he had
stood knocking for a long time, something moved behind the door; it opened
and he went in. The room was dark. As he crossed the threshold, the cat
sprang from his arms into the shadows. He listened but heard nothing. The
silence was oppressive and he struck a match. At his elbow stood a table
and on the table a candle in a gilded candlestick. This he lighted, then
looked around. The chamber was vast, the hangings heavy with embroidery. Over the fireplace towered a carved mantel, grey with the ashes of dead
fires. In a recess by the deep-set windows stood a bed, from which the
bedclothes, soft and fine as lace, trailed to the polished floor. He
lifted the candle above his head. A handkerchief lay at his feet. It was
faintly perfumed. He turned toward the windows. In front of them was a
_canapé_ and over it were flung, pell-mell, a gown of silk, a heap of
lace-like garments, white and delicate as spiders' meshes, long, crumpled
gloves, and, on the floor beneath, the stockings, the little pointed
shoes, and one garter of rosy silk, quaintly flowered and fitted with a
silver clasp. Wondering, he stepped forward and drew the heavy curtains
from the bed. For a moment the candle flared in his hand; then his eyes
met two other eyes, wide open, smiling, and the candle-flame flashed over
hair heavy as gold. She was pale, but not as white as he; her eyes were untroubled as a
child's; but he stared, trembling from head to foot, while the candle
flickered in his hand. At last he whispered: "Sylvia, it is I." Again he said, "It is I." Then, knowing that she was dead, he kissed her on the mouth. And through
the long watches of the night the cat purred on his knee, tightening and
relaxing her padded claws, until the sky paled above the Street of the
Four Winds. THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL


  "Be of Good Cheer, the Sullen Month will die,
  And a young Moon requite us by and by:
  Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan
  With age and Fast, is fainting from the sky." The room was already dark. The high roofs opposite cut off what little
remained of the December daylight. The girl drew her chair nearer the
window, and choosing a large needle, threaded it, knotting the thread over
her fingers. Then she smoothed the baby garment across her knees, and
bending, bit off the thread and drew the smaller needle from where it
rested in the hem. When she had brushed away the stray threads and bits of
lace, she laid it again over her knees caressingly. Then she slipped the
threaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a button, but as
the button spun down the thread, her hand faltered, the thread snapped,
and the button rolled across the floor. She raised her head. Her eyes were
fixed on a strip of waning light above the chimneys. From somewhere in the
city came sounds like the distant beating of drums, and beyond, far
beyond, a vague muttering, now growing, swelling, rumbling in the distance
like the pounding of surf upon the rocks, now like the surf again,
receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitter
piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the
slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharp
and metallic--the clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare
sound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold as
with a pall. To breathe was painful, to move an effort. In the desolate sky there was something that wearied, in the brooding
clouds, something that saddened. It penetrated the freezing city cut by
the freezing river, the splendid city with its towers and domes, its quays
and bridges and its thousand spires. It entered the squares, it seized the
avenues and the palaces, stole across bridges and crept among the narrow
streets of the Latin Quarter, grey under the grey of the December sky. Sadness, utter sadness. A fine icy sleet was falling, powdering the
pavement with a tiny crystalline dust. It sifted against the window-panes
and drifted in heaps along the sill. The light at the window had nearly
failed, and the girl bent low over her work. Presently she raised her
head, brushing the curls from her eyes. "Jack?" "Dearest?" "Don't forget to clean your palette." He said, "All right," and picking up the palette, sat down upon the floor
in front of the stove. His head and shoulders were in the shadow, but the
firelight fell across his knees and glimmered red on the blade of the
palette-knife. Full in the firelight beside him stood a colour-box. On the
lid was carved,

  J. TRENT. Ecole des Beaux Arts. 1870. This inscription was ornamented with an American and a French flag. The sleet blew against the window-panes, covering them with stars and
diamonds, then, melting from the warmer air within, ran down and froze
again in fern-like traceries. A dog whined and the patter of small paws sounded on the zinc behind the
stove. "Jack, dear, do you think Hercules is hungry?" The patter of paws was redoubled behind the stove. "He's whining," she continued nervously, "and if it isn't because he's
hungry it is because--"

Her voice faltered. A loud humming filled the air, the windows vibrated. "Oh, Jack," she cried, "another--" but her voice was drowned in the scream
of a shell tearing through the clouds overhead. "That is the nearest yet," she murmured. "Oh, no," he answered cheerfully, "it probably fell way over by
Montmartre," and as she did not answer, he said again with exaggerated
unconcern, "They wouldn't take the trouble to fire at the Latin Quarter;
anyway they haven't a battery that can hurt it." After a while she spoke up brightly: "Jack, dear, when are you going to
take me to see Monsieur West's statues?" "I will bet," he said, throwing down his palette and walking over to the
window beside her, "that Colette has been here to-day." "Why?" she asked, opening her eyes very wide.