Gaz: l'eau,'_ and without hesitation crossed the rue Mueller and passed through the open door.
The difference was vast between his nervous entry thirty-six hours ago into the Hotel Railleux and the boldness of his step now.

The difference between secret night and candid morning lay in the two proceedings--the difference between self-distrust and self-confidence.

Then he had been a creature newly created, looking upon himself and all the world with a sensitive distrust; now he was an individual accepted of others, assured of himself, already beginning to move and have his being in happy self-forgetfulness.
He stepped into the hallway of the strange house and paused to look about him, his only emotion a keen interest that kept every nerve alert.
The hallway round which he looked displayed no original features: it was a lofty, rather narrow space, the walls of which--painted to resemble marble--were defaced by time, by the passing of many skirts and the rubbing of many shoulders.

In the rear was a second door, composed of glass, and beyond it the suggestion of a staircase of polished oak that sprang upward from the dingy floor in a surprising beauty of panelled dado and fine old banister.
Max's eyes rested upon this staircase: in renewed excitement he hurried down the hall and, regardless of the consequence, beat a quick tattoo with his knuckles upon the glass door.
Silence greeted his imperative summons, and as he waited, listening intently, he became aware of the monotonous hum of a sewing-machine coming through a closed door upon his left.
The knowledge of a human presence emboldened him; again he knocked, this time more sharply, more persistently.

Again inattention; then, as he lifted his hand for the third time, the hum of the machine ceased abruptly, the door opened, and he turned to confront a small woman with wispy hair and untidy clothes, whose bodice was adorned with innumerable pins, and at whose side hung a pair of scissors large as shears.
"Monsieur ?" Her manner was curt--the manner of one who has been disturbed at some engrossing occupation.
Max felt rebuffed; he raised his hat and bowed with as close an imitation as he could summon of Blake's ingratiating friendliness.
"Madame, you have an _appartement_ to let ?" "True, monsieur! An _appartement_ on the fifth floor--gas and water." There was pride in the last words, if a grudging pride.
"Precisely! And it is a good _appartement_ ?" "No better in Montmartre." "A sufficiency of light ?" 'Light ?' The woman smiled in scorn.