"The cruelest monster the world has ever known, madam," he interrupted, stiffening, "fiddled while Rome was burning. Fiddlers are not always gentle. You may not have heard of one very small and unimportant incident in my own life. It was I who fiddled,--badly, I must confess,--while the Opera House in Poltna was burning. A panic was averted. Not a life was lost. And when it was all over some one remembered the fiddler who remained upon the stage and finished the aria he was playing when the cry of fire went up from the audience. Brave men,--far braver men than he,--rushed back through the smoke and found him lying at the footlights, unconscious. But why waste words? Good morning, madam. I shall not trouble you again about the overcoat. Be good enough to remember that I have kissed your hand only because you are a princess and not because you have lent me five dollars on the wretched thing." The angry light in his brown eyes gave way to the dreamy look once more. He bowed stiffly and edged his way out from behind the counter into the clogged area that lay between him and the distant doorway. Towering above him on all sides were heaps of nondescript objects, classified under the generic name of furniture. The proprietress of this sordid, ill-smelling crib stared after him as he strode away, and into her eyes there stole a look of apprehension. She followed him to the front door, overtaking him as his hand was on the latch. "Hold on," she said, nervously glancing at the shifty-eyed, cringing assistant who toiled not in vain,--no one ever toiled in vain in the establishment of M. Jacobs, Inc.,--behind a clump of chairs;--"hold on a second. I don't want you to say a word to--to them about--about all this. You are right, de Bosky. I--I have not lost all that once was mine. You understand, don't you?" He smiled. "Perfectly. You can never lose it, no matter how low you may sink." "Well," she went on, hesitatingly, "suppose we forget it." He eyed her for a moment in silence, shaking his head reflectively. "It is most astonishing," he said at last. "What's astonishing?" she demanded sharply. "I was merely thinking of your perfect, your exquisite French, madam!" "French? Are you nutty? I've been talkin' to you in English all the time." He nodded his head slowly. "Perhaps that is why your French is so astonishing," he said, and let it go at that.