TO the zest of the amateur, Blake added knowledge of a practical kind in the arrangement of household gods, and long ere the February dusk had fallen, the fifth-floorappartementhad assumed a certain homeliness. True, much of the 'old iron,' as he termed the coppers and brasses for which Max had bartered in the rue André de Sarte, still encumbered the floor, and most of the windows cried aloud for covering; but the littlesalonwas habitable, and in the bedroom once occupied by Madame Salas a bed and a dressing-table stood forth, fresh and enticing enough to suggest a lady's chamber, while over the high window white serge curtains shut out the cold.
At seven o'clock, having torn the canvas wrappings from the last chair, the two workers paused in their labors by common consent and looked at each other by the uncertain light of half a dozen candles stuck into bowls and vases in various corners of thesalon.
"Boy," said Blake, breaking what had been a long silence, "I tell you what it is, you're done! Take a warm by the fire for a minute, while I tub under the kitchen tap, then we'll fare forth for a meal and a breath of air!"
Max, who had worked with fierce zeal if little knowledge, made no protest. His face was pale, and he moved with a certain slow weariness.
"Here! Let's test the big chair!" Blake pulled forward the deep leathern arm-chair, that had been purchased second-hand in the rue de la Nature, and set it in front of the blazing logs. Without a word, Max sank into it.
"Comfortable?"
"Very comfortable." The voice was a little thin.
The other looked down upon him. "You're done, you know! Literally done! Why didn't you give in sooner?"
"Because I was not tired—and I am not tired."
"Not tired! And your face is as white as a sheet! I don't believe you're fit to go out for food."
"How absurd! You talk as though I were a child!" Max lifted himself petulantly on one elbow, but his head drooped and the remonstrance died away before it was finished.
"I talk as if you were a child, do I? Then I talk uncommon good sense! Well, I'm off to wash."
"There is some soap in my bedroom." The voice seemed to come from a great distance, the elbow slipped from the arm of the chair, the dark head drooped still more, and as the door shut upon Blake, the eyelids closed mechanically.
Blake's washing was a protracted affair, for the day had been long and the toil strenuous; but at last he returned, face and hands clean, hair smooth, and clothes reduced to order.
"Sorry for being so long," he began, as he walked into the room; but there he stopped, his eyebrows went up, and his face assumed a curious look, half amused, half tender.
"Poor child!" he said below his breath, and tiptoeing across the room, he paused by the arm-chair, in the depths of which Max's slight figure was curled up in the pleasant embrace of sleep.
The fire had died down, the pool of candle-light was not brilliant, and in the soft, shadowed glow the boy made an attractive picture.
THE IMPRESSION OF A MYSTERY FLOWED BACK UPON HIM
THE IMPRESSION OF A MYSTERY FLOWED BACK UPON HIM
One hand lay carelessly on either arm of the chair; the head was thrown back, the black lashes of the closed eyes cast shadows on the smooth cheeks.
Blake looked long and interestedly, and his earliest impression—the impression of a mystery—flowed back upon him strong as on the night of the long journey.
The beauty and strength of the face called forth thought; and Max's own declaration, so often repeated, came back upon him with new meaning, 'I am older than you think!'
For almost the first time the words carried weight. It was not that the features looked older; if anything they appeared younger in their deep repose. But the expression—the slight knitting of the dark brows, the set of the chin, the modelling of the full lips, usually so mobile and prone to laughter—suggested a hidden force, gave warranty of a depth, a strength irreconcilable with a boy's capacities.
He looked—puzzled, attracted; then his glance dropped from the face to the pathetically tired limbs, and the sense of pity stirred anew, banishing question, causing the light of a pleasant inspiration to awaken in his eyes.
Smiling to himself, he replenished the fire with exaggerated stealth; and, creeping out of the room, closed the door behind him.
He was gone for over half an hour, and when he again entered, the fire had sprung into new life, and fresh flames—blue and sulphur and copper-colored—were dancing up the chimney, while the candles in their strange abiding-places had burned an inch or two lower. But his eyes were for Max, and for Max alone, and with the same intense stealth he crept across the room to the bare table and solemnly unburdened himself of a variety of parcels and a cheery-looking bottle done up in red tissue-paper.
Max still slept, and, drawing a sigh of satisfaction, he proceeded with the task he had set himself—the task of providing supper after the manner of the genius in the fairy-tale.
First plates were brought from the new-filled kitchen shelves; then knives were found, and forks; then the mysterious-looking parcels delivered up their contents—a cold roast chicken, all brown and golden as it had left the oven, cheese, butter, crisp rolls, and crisp red radishes, finally a little basket piled with fruit.
It was a very simple meal, but Blake smiled to himself as he set out the dishes to the best advantage, placed the wine reverentially in the centre to crown the feast, and at last, still tiptoeing, came round to the back of Max's chair and laid his hands over the closed eyes.
"Guess!" he said, as if to a child.
Max gave a little cry, in which surprise and fear struggled for supremacy; then he sprang to his feet, shaking off the imprisoning hands.
"What is it? Who is it?" Then he laughed shamefacedly, and, turning, saw the spread table.
"Oh,mon ami!" His eyes opened wide, and he gazed from the food to Blake. "Mon ami!You have done this for me while I was sleeping!"
His gaze was eloquent even beyond his words, and Blake, finding no fit answer, began to move about the room, collecting the vases that held the candles and carrying them to the table.
"Mon ami!"
"Nonsense, boy! It's little enough I do, goodness knows!"
"This is a great deal."
"Nonsense! What is it? You were fagged and I was fresh! And now I suppose I must knock the head off this bottle, for we haven't a corkscrew. The Lord lend me a steady hand, for 'twould be a pity if I shook the wine!"
He carried the bottle to the fireplace, and with considerable dexterity cracked the head and wiped the raw glass edges. "Now, boy, the glasses! Oh, but have we glasses, though?" His face fell in a manner that set Max laughing.
"We have one glass—in my room."
"Bravo! Fly for it!"
Max laughed again—his sleep, his surprise, his gratitude equally routed; he flew, in literal obedience to the command, across the little hall and, groping his way to the dressing-table, searched about in the darkness for the tumbler.
"Ned! A candle!"
Blake brought the desired light, and together they discovered the coveted glass. Max seized upon it eagerly, but as he delivered it up a swift exclamation escaped him:
"My God! How dirty I am! Regard my hands!"
"What does it matter! You can wash after you've eaten."
"Oh, but no! I pay more compliment to your feast."
"Very well, then! We may hope to sup in an hour or so. I know you and the making of your toilet!"
"Impertinent!" Max caught him by the arm and pushed him, laughing, toward the door. "Go back and complete the table. I will delay but four—three—two minutes in the making of myself clean."
"But the table is complete—"
"It is incomplete,mon ami; it is without flowers."
Before Blake's objections could form into new words, he found himself in the little hallway with the bedroom door closed upon him, and, being a philosopher, he shook his head contentedly and walked back into thesalon, where he obediently brought to light the bowl of jonquils that was still perfuming the air from its dark corner, and set it carefully between the wine and the fruit.
Ten minutes and more slipped by, during which, still philosophical, he walked slowly round and round the table, straightening a candle here, altering a dish there, humming all the while in a not unmusical voice the song fromLouise.
He was dwelling fondly upon the line
"Depuis le jour où je me suis donnée"—
"Depuis le jour où je me suis donnée"—
when the door of the bedroom was flung open as by a gale, and at the door of thesalonappeared Max—his dark hair falling over his forehead, a comb in one hand, a brush in the other.
"Mon cher!a hundred—a thousand apologies for being so long! It is all the fault of my hair!"
Blake looked at him across the candles. "Indeed I wouldn't bother about my hair, if I were you! A century of brushing wouldn't make it respectable."
"Why not?"
"Look at the length of it!"
"Ah, but that pleases me!"
Blake shook his head in mock seriousness. "These artists! These artists!" he murmured to himself.
Max laughed, threw the comb and brush from him into some unseen corner of the hall, and ran across thesalon.
"You are very ill-mannered! I shall box your ears!"
Blake threw himself into an attitude of defence. "I'd ask nothing better!" he cried. "Come on! Just come on!"
Max, laughing and excited, took a step forward, then paused as at some arresting thought.
"Afraid? Oh,la, la! Afraid?"
"Afraid!" The boy tossed the word back scornfully, but his face flushed and he made no advance.
"You'll have to, now, you know!"
Max retreated.
"Oh, no, you don't!" With a quick, gay laugh, touched with the fire of battle, Blake followed; but ere he could come to close quarters, the boy had dodged and, lithe and swift as a cat, was round the table.
"No! No!" he cried, with a little gasp, a little sob of excitement that caught the breath. "No! No! I demand grace. A starving man,mon ami! A starving man! It is not fair."
He knew his adversary. Blake's hands dropped to his sides, he yielded with a laugh.
"Very well! Very well! Another time I'll see what you're made of. And now 'we'll exterminate the bread-stuffs,' as McCutcheon would say!"
And laughing, jesting—content in the moment for the moment's sake—they sat down to their first serious meal in the littlesalon.
THE meal was over; the candles had burned low; in the quiet, warm room the sense of repose was dominant.
Blake took out his cigarette-case and passed it across the table, watching Max with lazy interest as he chose a cigarette and lighted it at a candle-flame.
"Happy?"
"Absolutely!"
He had wanted in a vague, subconscious way to see the flash of the white teeth, the quick, familiar lifting of the boy's glance, and now he smiled as a man secretly satisfied.
"I know just exactly what you're feeling," he said, as Max threw himself back in his chair and inhaled a first deep breath of smoke. "You feel that that little white curl from the end of your cigarette is the last puff of smoke from the boats you have burned; and that, with your own four walls around you, you can snap your fingers at the world. I know! God, don't I know!"
Max smiled slowly, watching the tip of his cigarette. "Yes, you know! That is the beautiful thing about you."
The appreciation warmed Blake's soul as the good red wine had warmed his blood.
"I believe I do—with you. I believe I could tell you precisely your thoughts at this present moment." With a pleasant, meditative action, he drew a cigar from his case.
"Tell me!"
"Well, first of all, there's the great contentment—the sense of a definite step. You're strong enough to like finality."
"I hope I am. I think I am."
"You are! Not a doubt of it! But what I mean is that you've left an old world for a new one; and no matter how exciting the voyaging through space may have been, you like to feel your feet on terra firma."
Max leaned forward eagerly. "That is quite true! And I like it because now I can open my eyes, and say to myself, 'not to-morrow, but to-day I live.' I have put—how do you say in English?—my hand upon the plough."
"Exactly! The plough—or the palette—it's all the same! You're set to it now."
The boy's eyes flashed in the candle-light, and for an instant something of the fierce emotion that can lash the Russian calm, as a gale lashes the sea, troubled his young face.
"You comprehend—absolutely! I have made my choice; I have come to it out of many situations. I would die now rather than I would fail."
In his voice was a suppressed fervor akin to some harsh or cruel emotion; and to Blake, watching and listening, there floated the hot echo of stories in which Russians had acted strange parts with a resolve, a callousness incomprehensible to other races.
"When you talk like that, boy, I could almost go back to that first night, and adopt McCutcheon's theory. You might feasibly be a revolutionary with those blazing eyes."
Max laughed, coming back to the moment.
"Only revolutionary in my own cause! I fight myself for myself. You take my meaning?"
"Not in the very least! But I accept your statement; I like its brave ring. You are your own romance."
"I am my own romance."
"Let's drink to it, then! Your romance—whatever it may be!" He raised the half-empty tumbler, drank a little, and handed it across the table.
Max laughed and drank as well. "My romance—whatever it may be!"
"Whatever it may be! And now for that breath of air we promised ourselves! It's close on ten o'clock."
So the meal ended; coats were found, candles blown out, and a last proprietary inspection of theappartementmade by the aid of matches.
They ran down the long, smooth staircase, and, stepping into the quiet, starlit rue Müller, linked arms and began their descent upon Paris with as much ease, as nice a familiarity as though life for both of them had been passed in the shadow of the Sacré-Coeur.
On the Boulevard de Clichy the usual confusion of lights and humanity greeted them like welcoming arms, and with the same agreeable nonchalance they yielded to the embrace.
Conscious of no definite purpose, they turned to the right and began to breast the human tide with eyes carelessly critical of the thronging faces, ears heedlessly open to the many tangled sounds of street life. Outside the theatres, flaunting posters made pools of color; in the roadway, the network of traffic surged and intermingled; from amid the flat house fronts, at every few hundred yards, somecabaretbroke upon the sight in crude confusion of scenic painting and electric light; while dominating all—a monument to the power of tradition—the sails of the time-honored mill sprang red and glaring from a background of quiet sky.
But the two, walking arm-in-arm, had no glance for revolving mill-sails or vivid advertisement, and presently Blake halted before a house that, but for a certain prosperity of stained-glass window and dark-green paint, would have seemed a common wine shop.
"Max," he said, "do you remember the famous night when we went to the Bal Tabarin, and saw much wine spilled? It was here I was first going to bring you then."
"Here?"
"This very place! 'Tis one of the old artisticcabaretsof Paris—grown a bit too big for its shoes now, like the rest of Montmartre, but still retaining a flavor. What do you say to turning in?"
"I say 'yes.'"
"Come along, then! I hope 'twon't disappoint you! There's a good deal of rubbish here, but a scattering of grain among the chaff. Ah, messieurs! Good-evening!"
This last was addressed with cordiality to a knot of men gathered inside the doorway of thecabaret, all of whom rose politely from their chairs at Blake's entry.
Max, peering curiously through the tobacco smoke that veiled the place, received an impression of a room—rather, of a shop—possessed of tables, chairs, a small circular counter where glasses and bottles winked and gleamed, and of walls hung with a truly Parisian collection of impressionist studies and clever caricatures.
"Monsieur is interested?"
He turned, to meet the eyes of the host, a stout and affable Frenchman, who by right divine held first place among the little group of loungers; but before he could frame a reply, Blake answered for him.
"He is an artist, M. Fruvier, and finds all life interesting."
M. Fruvier bowed with much subtle comprehension.
"Then possibly it will intrigue him to step inside, and hear our little concert. We are about to commence."
Blake nodded in silent acquiescence; the knot of men bowed quickly and stiffly; and Max found himself being led across the bare, sawdust-strewn floor into an inner and larger room—a holy of holies—where the light was dimmer and the air more cool.
Here, a scattered audience was assembled—a score or so of individuals, sober of dress, unenthusiastic of demeanor, sitting in twos and threes, sipping beer or liqueurs and waiting for the concert to begin.
Max's eyes wandered over this collection of people while Blake sought for seats, but his glance and his interest passed on almost immediately to the walls, where, as in the outer room, pictures ranged from floor to ceiling.
The seats were chosen; a white-aproned waiter claimed an order, and Blake gave one as if from habit.
"And now, boy, a cigarette?"
"If you please—a cigarette!" Max's voice had the quick note, his eyes the swift light that spoke excitement. "Mon ami, I like this place! I like it! And I wonder who painted that?" He indicated a picture that hung upon the wall beside them.
"I don't know! Some chap who used to frequent the place in his unknown days. We can ask Fruvier."
"It is clever."
"It is."
"It has imagination."
They both looked at the picture—a study in black and white, showing an attic room, with apierretteseated disconsolate upon a bed, apierrotgazing through a window.
"Pierrotseeking the moon, eh?"
Max nodded.
"Yes. It has imagination—and also technique!"
But their criticism was interrupted; a piano was opened at the farther end of the room by an individual affecting the unkempt hair and velveteen coat of past Bohemianism, who seated himself and ran his fingers over the keys as though he alone occupied the room.
At this very informal signal, the curtain rose upon a ridiculously small stage, and an insignificant, nervous-looking man stepped toward the footlights at the same moment that M. Fruvier and his followers entered and seated themselves in a row, their backs to the wall.
This appearance of the proprietor was the sole meed of interest offered to the singer, the audience continuing to smoke, to sip, even to peruse the evening papers with stoic indifference.
The song began—a long and unamusing ditty, topical in its points. Here and there a smile showed that it did not pass unheard, and as the singer disappeared a faintrouladeof applause came from the back of the room.
Max turned to his companion.
"But I believed the Parisians to be all excitement! What an audience! Like the dead!"
"They are excitable when something excites them."
"Then they dislike this song?"
"Oh no! 'Not bad!' they'd say if you asked them; but they're not here to be excited—they're not here to waste enthusiasm. Like ourselves, they have worked and have eaten, and are enjoying an hour's repose. The song is part of the hour—as inevitable as thebockand the cigar, and you can't expect a smoker to wax eloquent over a familiar weed."
"How strange! How interesting!" The boy looked round the scattered groups that formed to his young eyes another side-show in the vast theatre of life.
No one heeded his interest. The women, young and elderly alike, conversed with their escorts and sipped their liqueurs with absorbed quiet; the men smoked and drank, talked or read aloud little paragraphs from their papers with whispering relish.
Then again the piano tinkled, and the same singer appeared, to sing another song almost identical with the first; but now his nervousness was less, he won a laugh or two for his political innuendoes, and when he finished Max clapped his hands, and Blake laughingly followed suit.
"He's a new man," he said; "this is probably his first night."
"His first? Oh, poor creature! What adébut! Clap your hands again!"
"Poor creature indeed! He's delighted with himself. Many a better man has been driven from the stage after his first verse. Your Paris can be cruel."
Their example had been tepidly followed, and the singer, beaming under the relaxed tension of his nerves, was smiling and bowing before entering upon the perils of a third song.
"And what do they pay him?"
"Oh, a couple of francs a song! The fees will grow with his success."
Max gasped. "A couple of francs! Oh, my God!"
"What do you expect? We're not in Eldorado."
"But a couple of francs!"
"Ssh! Don't talk anarchy. Here come the powers that be!"
M. Fruvier was coming toward them, making his way between the seats with many bows, many apologetic smiles.
"Well, messieurs, and what of our new one? Not a Vagot, perhaps"—mentioning a famouscomiquewhose star had risen in the firmament of thecabaret—"not a Vagot, perhaps, but not bad! Not bad?"
"Not bad!" acquiesced Blake.
"Very good!" added Max, pondering hotly upon the wage of the singer, and regarding M. Fruvier with doubtful glance.
"No! No! Not bad!" reiterated that gentleman, as if viewing the performance from a wholly impersonal standpoint. "Not bad!" And, still bowing, still smiling, he wandered on to exchange opinions with his other patrons, while a new singer appeared, a man whose vast proportions and round red face looked truly absurd upon the tiny stage, but whose merry eye and instant friendly nod gained him a murmur of welcome.
With the appearance of the new-comer a little stir of life was felt, and in obedience to some impulse of his own, Max took a sketch-book and a pencil from his pocket, and sat forward in his seat, with glance roving round and round the room, pencil poised above the paper.
"I heard this fellow here twelve years ago," said Blake. "He and Vagot were young men then. Shows the odd lie of things in this world! There's Vagot making his thousands of francs a week next door at the Moulin Rouge, and this poor fat clown still where he was!"
Max did not reply. His head was bent, his face flushed; he was sketching with a furious haste.
"What are you doing?"
Still no reply. The song rolled on; and Blake, leaning back in his seat, smoking with leisurely enjoyment, felt for perhaps the first time in his life the sense of complete companionship—that subtle condition of mind so continuously craved, so rarely found, so instantly recognized.
"Boy," he said at last, "let me come up sometimes when you're messing with your paints? I won't bother you."
Max looked up and nodded—a mere flash of a look, but one that conveyed sufficient; and the two relapsed again into silence.
At the end of an hour the boy raised his head, tossed a lock of hair out of his eyes, and closed his sketch-book.
Blake met his eyes comprehendingly. "Will we go?"
"Yes. But one more glance at this black-and-white!"
He jumped up, unembarrassed, unconscious of self, and looked at the picture closely; then stepped back and looked at it from a little distance, eyes half closed, head critically upon one side.
"Satisfied?" Blake rose more slowly.
"Perfectly. It is clever—this! It has imagination!" He slipped his arm confidingly through Blake's, and together they made a way to the door.
A new song began as they stepped into the outer room—the tinkle of the piano came thinly across the smoke-laden air. Blake paused and looked back.
"Well, and what do you think of it? A trifle dull, perhaps, but still—"
"Dull? But no! Never! I could work here. Others have worked here. It is in the atmosphere—- the desire to create."
They passed into the street, Blake raising his hat to a stout lady, presumably Madame Fruvier, who sat wedged behind the counter, Max glancing greedily at the bold rough sketches, the brilliantly Parisian caricatures adorning the walls.
"It is in the atmosphere! One breathes it!" he said again, as they walked down the cool, lighted boulevard. "I feel it to-night as I have not felt it before—the artist's Paris.Mon ami"—he raised a glowing face—"mon ami, tell me something! Do you think I shall succeed? Do you think I possess a spark of the great fire—a spark ever so tiny?"
His earnestness was almost comical. He stopped and arraigned his companion, regardless of interested glances and passing smiles.
"Ned, tell me! Tell me! Have you faith in me?"
Blake looked into the feverishly bright eyes, and a swift conviction possessed him.
"I know this, boy, whatever you do, you'll do it finely! More I cannot say."
Max fell silent, and they proceeded on their way, each preoccupied with his own thoughts. At the turning to the heights Blake paused.
"I'll say good-bye here! I have letters to write to-night; but I'll be up to-morrow to spirit you off to lunch. I won't come too early, for I know what you'll be doing all the morning."
Max laughed, coming back out of his dream. "And what is it I shall be doing all the morning?"
"Why, carting canvases and paint tubes, and God knows what, up those steps till your back is broken, and then settling down with your temper and your ambition at fever heat to begin the great picture at the most inopportune moment in the world! Think I don't know you?"
Max laughed again, but more softly.
"Mon ami!"
"I'm right, eh? That sketch at thecabaretis meant to grow?"
Instantly Max was diffident. "Oh, I am not so sure! It is only an idea. It may not arrive at anything."
"Let's have a look?"
Max's hand went slowly toward his pocket. "I am not sure that I like it; it is not my theory of life. It's more of your theory—it is ironical."
"Let's see!"
The sketch-book came reluctantly to light, and as Max opened it, the two stepped close to a street lamp.
"As I tell you, it is ironical. If it becomes a picture I shall give it this name—The Failure." He handed it to Blake, leaning close and peering over his shoulder in nervous anxiety.
"Understand, it is but an idea! I have put no work into it."
Blake held the book up to the light, his observant face grave and interested.
"What a clever little beggar you are!" he said at length.
Max glowed at the words, and instantly his tongue was loosed.
"Ah,mon cher, but it is only a sketch! That atmosphere—that dim, smoky atmosphere—is so difficult with the pencil. The audience is, of course, but suggested; all that I really attempted was the singer—the failure with the merry eyes."
"And well you've caught him too, by gad! One would think you had seen the antithesis—Vagot, the success, long and lean and yellow, the unhappiest-looking man you ever saw."
"Ah, but you must not say that!" cried Max unexpectedly. "I told you it was not my theory. To me success is life, failure is death! This is but a reflected impression of yours—- an impression of irony!" He took the sketch-book from Blake's hands and closed it sharply; then, to ask pardon for his little outburst, he smiled.
"Mon cher! Forgive me! Come to-morrow, and we will see if day has thrown new light."
They shook hands.
"All right—to-morrow! Good-night, boy—and good luck!"
"Good-night!"
Max stood to watch the tall figure disappear into the tangle of traffic, then with a light step, a light heart, a light sense of propitiated fate, he began the climb to his home.
THAT night the pencil-sketch obsessed the brain of Max. Tossing wakeful upon his bed, he saw the pageant of the future—touched the robe, all saffron and silver, of the goddess Inspiration—and, with the brushes and colors of imagination, gained to the gateway of fame.
It was a wild night that spurred to action, and with the coming of the day, Blake's prophecy was fulfilled. Before the Montmartre shops were open, he was seeking the materials of his art; and long ere the sun was high, he was back in the room that had once been the bedroom of M. Salas, surrounded by the disarray of the inspired moment.
The room was small but lofty, and a fine light made his work possible. The inevitable wood fire crackled on the hearth, but otherwise the atmosphere spoke rigidly of toil.
Zeal, endeavor, ambition in its youngest, divinest form—these were the suggestions dormant in the strewn canvases, the tall easel, the bare walls; and none who were to know, or who had known, Max—none destined to kindle to the flame of his personality, ever viewed him in more characteristic guise than he appeared on that February morning clad in his painting smock, the lock of hair falling over his forehead, his hands trembling with excitement, as he executed the first bold line that meant the birth of his idea.
So remarkable, so characteristic was the pose that chance, ever with an eye to effect, ordained it an observer, for scarcely had he lost himself in the work than the door of his studio opened with a Bohemian lack of ceremony, and his neighbor, Jacqueline—dressed in a blue print dress that matched her eyes—came smiling into the room.
"Good-day, monsieur!"
He glowered with complete unreserve.
"You are displeased, monsieur; I intrude?"
"You do, mademoiselle."
The tone was uncompromising, but Jacqueline came on, softly moving nearer and nearer to the easel, looking from the canvas to Max and back again to the canvas in an amused, secret fashion comprehensible to herself alone.
"You feel like my poor Lucien, when an interruption offers itself to his work; but, as I say,ennuiis the price of admiration! Is it not so, Monsieur Max?"
She leaned her blonde head to one side, and looked at him with the naïve quality of meditation that so became her.
"Do not permit me to disturb you, monsieur! Continue working."
"Thank you, mademoiselle!" A flicker of irony was observable in the tone and, with exaggerated zeal, he returned to his task.
The girl came softly behind him, looking over his shoulder.
"What is the picture to be, monsieur?"
"It is an idea caught last night in acabaret. It would not interest you."
"And why not?"
Max shrugged his shoulders, and went on blocking in his picture.
"Because it is a psychological study—a side-issue of existence. Nothing to do with the crude facts of life."
"Oh!" Jacqueline drew in her breath softly. "I am only interested, then, in the crude facts? How do you arrive at that conclusion, monsieur?"
"By observation, mademoiselle."
"And what have you observed?"
"It is difficult to say—in words. In a picture I would put it like this—a blue sky, a meadow of rank green grass, a stream full of forget-me-nots, and a girl bending over it, with eyes the color of the flowers. Conventionality would compel me to call itSpringorYouth!" He spoke fast and he spoke contemptuously.
She watched him, her head still characteristically drooping, the little wise smile hovering about her lips.
"I comprehend!" she murmured to herself. "Monsieur is very worldly-wise. Monsieur has discovered that there is—how shall I say?—less atmosphere in a blue sky than in a gray one?"
Max glanced round at her. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being laughed at, but her clear azure eyes met his innocently, and her mouth was guiltless of smiles.
"I have had a sufficiency of blue sky," he said, and returned to his work.
"One is liable to think that, monsieur, until the rain falls!"
"So you doubt the endurance of my philosophy?"
She shrugged; she extended her pretty hands expressively.
"Monsieur is young!"
The words exasperated Max. Again it had arisen—the old argument. The anger smouldering in his heart since the girl's invasion flamed to speech.
"I could wish that the world was less ready with that opinion, mademoiselle! It knows very little of what it says."
"Possibly, monsieur! but you admit that—that you are scarcely aged." There was a quiver now about the pretty lips, a hint of a laugh in the eyes.
"Mademoiselle,"—he wheeled round with unexpected vehemence,—"I should like you, to tell me exactly how old you think I am."
"You mean it, monsieur?"
"I mean it. Is it seventeen—or is it sixteen?" His voice was edged with irony.
"It is neither, monsieur!" Jacqueline was very demure now, her eyes sought the floor. "Granted your full permission, monsieur, I would say—"
"You would say—?"
"I would say"—she flashed a daring look at him and instantly dropped her eyes again—"I would say that you have twenty-four, if not twenty-five years!"
The confession came in a little rush of speech, and as it left her lips she moved toward the door, contemplating flight.
An immense surprise clouded Max's mind, a surprise that brought the blood mantling to his face and sent his words forth with a stammering indecision.
"Twenty-four—twenty-five! What gave you that idea?"
"Oh, monsieur, it is simple! It came to me by observation!"
Leaving Max still red, still confused, she slipped out of the room noiselessly as she had come, and as the door closed he heard the faint, exasperating sound of a light little laugh.
AFTER Jacqueline had closed the door and the light laugh had died into silence, Max stood before his easel, hands inert, the flush still scorching his face. For the first time since the birth of the new life he had been made sensible of personal criticism—the criticism winged with fine ridicule, that leaves its victim strangely uncertain, curiously uneasy. The immemorial subtlety of woman had lurked in the girl's eyes as she cast her last penetrating glance at him. He felt now, as he stood alone, that his soul had been stripped and was naked to the bare walls and gaping canvas, and his start was one of purely unbalanced nerves when a knock fell upon the door, telling of a new intruder.
He had all but cried out in protest when the door opened, but at sight of the invader the cry merged into an unstrung laugh of welcome.
"Ned! You?"
Blake walked into the room, talking as he came. "Well, upon my word! Wasn't I right? Here he is, easel and canvas and all—even the temper isn't wanting!"
Max ran forward, caught and clung to his arm.
"Mon ami!Mon cher! I have wanted you—wanted you."
"Anything wrong?"
"No! No! Nothing. It was only—"
"What?"
Again Max laughed nervously, but his fingers tightened.
"Only this—I have wanted to hear you say that I am your friend—your boy, Max—as I was yesterday and the day before and the day before. Say it! Say it!" His eyes besought Blake's.
"What! Tell you you are yourself?"
He nodded quickly and seriously.
The other looked into his face, and for some unaccountable reason his amusement died away.
"What a child it is!" he said kindly; and, putting his hands upon the boy's shoulders, he shook him gently. "Who has been putting notions into your head? Whoever it is, just refer him to me; I'll deal with him."
It was Max's turn to laugh. "Ah, but I am better now! I am quite all right now! It was only for the moment!" He made a little sound, half shy, half relieved. "It was, I suppose, as you expected; I tired myself with carrying up these things, and then I still more tired myself with trying to block in my picture, and then—"
"Yes, then?"
"No more—nothing."
"I'm sceptical of that."
Max glanced up. "Well, to you I always say the truth. The girl Jacqueline came in and chattered to me, and—"
"Oh, ho!"
"Do not say that! I cannot bear it."
"Nonsense! I'm only teasing you! Though why a little girl with hair like spun silk and skin like ivory—"
"Ah! You admire her, then?"
"I do vastly—in the abstract."
"And what does that mean—in the abstract?"
"Oh, I don't know! I suppose it means that if I were a painter I might use her as a model, or if I were a poet I might string a verse to her; but being an ordinary man, it means—well, it means that I don't feel drawn to kiss her. Do you see?"
"I see." Max grew thoughtful; he disengaged the hands still lying lightly on his shoulders and walked back to his easel.
"You don't a bit! But it doesn't matter! What is it you're doing?"
Max, idle before his canvas, did not reply.
"Mon ami?" he said, irrelevantly.
"What?"
"Tell me the sort of woman you want to kiss."
Blake looked round in surprise.
"Well, to begin with, I used the word symbolically. I'm a queer beggar, you know; the kiss means a good deal to me. To me, it's the key to the idealistic as well as the materialistic—the toll at the gateway. I never kiss the light woman."
"No?" Max's voice was very low, his hands hung by his sides, the look in his half-veiled eyes was strange. "Then what is she like—the woman you would kiss?"
"Oh, she has no bodily form. One does not say 'her hair shall be black' or 'her hair shall be red' any more than one makes an image of God. She dwells in the mysterious. Even when the time comes and she steps into reality, mystery will still cling to her. There must always be the wonder—the miracle." He spoke softly, as he always spoke when sentiment entrapped him. His native turn of thought found vent at these odd times and made him infinitely interesting. The slight satire that was ordinarily wont to twist his smile was smoothed away, and a certain sadness stole into its place; his green eyes lost their keenness of observation and looked into a space obscure to others. In these rare moments he was essentially of his race and of his country.
"No," he added, as if to himself, "a man does not say 'her hair shall be red' or 'her hair shall be black'!"
"It is very curious—very strange—a dream like that!" Max's voice was a mere whisper.
"Without his dreams, man would be an animal."
"And you, then, wait for this woman? In seriousness you wait, and believe that out of nothing she will come to you?"
Blake turned away and walked slowly to the window, the sadness, the aloofness still visible in his face like the glow from a shrouded light.
"That's the hardship of it, boy—the faith that it wants and the patience that it wants! Sometimes it takes the heart out of a man! There're days when I feel like a derelict; when I say to myself, 'Here I am, thirty-eight years old, unanchored, unharbored.' Oh, I know I'm young as the world counts age! I know that plenty of men and women like me, and that I pass the time of day to plenty as I go along! But all the same, if I died to-morrow there isn't one would break a heart over me. Not a solitary one."
"Do not say that!"
"It's true, all the same! Sometimes I say to myself, 'Wha a fool you are, Ned Blake! The Almighty gives reality to some and dreams to some, and who knows but your lot is to go down to your grave hugging empty hopes, like your forefathers before you!' It's terrible, sometimes, the way the heart goes out of a man!"
"Ned! Ned! Do not say that!" Max's voice was strangely troubled, strangely unlike itself, so unlike and troubled that it wakened Blake to self-consciousness.
"I'm talking rank nonsense! I'm a fool!"
"You are not!" The boy ran across to him impulsively; then paused, mute and shy.
"What is it, boy?"
"Only that what you say is not the truth. If you were to die, there is one person who would—"
Blake's face softened. He was surprised and touched.
"What? You'd care?"
Max nodded.
"Thank you, boy! Thank you for that!"
They stood silent for a moment, looking through the uncurtained window at the February breezes ruffling the holly bushes in the plantation, each unusually aware of the other's presence, each unusually self-conscious.
"But if it comes to pass—your miracle—you will forget me? You will no longer have need of me, is that not so?"
Max spoke softly, a disproportionate seriousness darkening his eyes, causing his voice to quiver.
Blake turned to answer in the same vein, but something checked him—some embarrassment, some inexplicable doubt of himself.
"Boy," he said, sharply, "we're running into deep waters. Don't you think we ought to steer for shore? I came to smoke, you know, and watch you at your work."
The words acted as a charm. Max threw up his head and gave a little laugh, a trifle high, a shade hysterical.
"But, of course! But, of course! I believe I, too, was falling into a dream; and the dream comes after, the work first, is it not so? The work first; the work always first. Place another log upon the fire and begin to smoke, and I swear to you that before the day is finished I will make you proud of me. I swear it to you!"