THERE is impetus, if not necessarily inspiration in a goading thought, and Max returned to his interrupted task with a zeal almost in excess of his protestations. He worked with vigor—with an exuberant daring that seemed to suggest that the creation of his picture was rather the creation of a mental narcotic than the expression of an idea.
He had given rein to sentiment in the moment with Blake, and now he was applying the curb, working incessantly—- never pausing to speak—never casting a glance at the corner where his companion was smoking and dreaming over the fire.
To the casual observer it might have seemed a scene of ideal comradeship; yet in the minds of the comrades there lurked an uneasiness, an uncertainty not lightly to be placed—not easily to be clothed in words. A certain warmth was stirring in Blake's heart, coupled with a certain wonder at his sudden discovery of the depth of the boy's regard; while in the boy's own soul a tumult of feelings ran riot.
Shame burned him that he should have confessed himself; amazement seared him that the confession had been there to make. A bewildering annoyance filled him—a first doubting of the ego he was cherishing with so fine a care.
It is indeed a black moment when an egoist doubts himself; it is as if the god within the temple became self-conscious; more, it is as if the god rent down the veil before the shrine and showed himself a thing of clay to his astonished worshippers.
The mind of Max was a complex study as he worked with his new-found vehemence, expressing or crushing a thought with each bold stroke. He prided himself upon his powers of self-analysis; and, being possessed as well of honesty and of a measure of common sense, the mental picture that confronted him was scarcely pleasant seeing. Doubt of himself—of his own omnipotence—- had assailed him; and, being young, being spoiled of the world, it found expression in bitter resentment.
Having continued his onslaught upon the canvas until midday was close at hand, he suddenly astonished the unoffending Blake by flinging his charcoal from him to the furthest end of the room, where it broke rudely against the spotless wall-paper.
"God bless my soul!" Blake turned, to see an angry figure striding to the window, his hair ruffled, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets.
"What in God's name is the matter with you?"
There was no answer and, being a wise man, he did not press the point.
Presently, as he expected, the boyish figure wheeled round.
"I cannot work. It is all bad! All wrong!"
He rose slowly and began to walk toward the easel, but with a cry the boy ran forward and intercepted him.
"No! No! No! It is bad, I tell you—you must not see. Look! This is what I shall do. This!" He turned and, swift as lightning, snapped up a knife, and before Blake could find a gesture or a word, ripped his canvas from end to end.
"Upon my word! Well, upon my word! There's an extravagant young devil! Why, in the name of God, would you destroy your canvas like that?"
"Why? Because, my friend, I am I! I do not work again upon a thing that I have marred!" His voice shook, trembling between excited laughter and tears.
Blake looked at him. "Bless my soul, if he isn't crying! Come here to me! You're a baby!"
But Max turned on him, so furious that the hot anger in his eyes scorched the tears that hung there.
"A baby? This much a baby, that I love my work so truly that I have set it upon an altar and made it my religion! And when I find, as to-day, that it fails me I am damned—my soul is lost!"
"And why does it fail you—to-day?"
"I do not know!"
"Is that the truth?"
"Yes, it is."
"Are you perfectly sure? Are you perfectly sure that 'tisn't I—my presence here—?"
"You?" Max withered him with a scorn meant for himself as well. "You rate yourself high, my friend, and you imagine my work a very trivial thing!"
"Nonsense! Plenty of artists must have solitude."
"Plenty of fools! An artist is engrossed in his art so perfectly that when he stands before his canvas no world exists but the world of his imagination. Do you suppose me to be affected because you sit somewhere in the background, smoking over the fire? Oh, no! I trust I have more capacity to concentrate!"
He shrugged his shoulders to the ears; he raised his eyebrows in the very elaboration of indifference.
Blake, hot as he in pride or anger, caught sudden fire.
"Upon my soul, you're damned complimentary! I think, if you have no objection, I'll be wishing you good-day!" He picked up his hat, and strode to the door.
"LOOK! THIS IS WHAT I SHALL DO. THIS!"
"LOOK! THIS IS WHAT I SHALL DO. THIS!"
The action was so abrupt, the offence so real, that it sobered Max. With a sudden collapse of pride, he wheeled round.
"Ned! Oh, Ned!"
But the banging of the outer door was his only answer; and he drew back, his face fallen to a sudden blankness of expression, his hand going out as if for support to the tattered canvas.
Minutes passed—how many or how few he made no attempt to reckon—then a tap fell on the door and his blood leaped, leaped and dropped back to a sick pulsation of disappointment, as the door opened and Jacqueline's fair head appeared.
For an instant a fierce resentment at this new intrusion fired him, then the absorbing need for human sympathy welled up, drowning all else.
"Mademoiselle," he cried out, "I am the most unhappy person in all the world; I have tried to make a picture and failed, and I have quarrelled with my best friend!"
Jacqueline nodded sagely. "That, M. Max, is my excuse for intruding. Of the picture, of course, I know nothing"—she shrugged expressively—"but of the quarrel I understand all—having passed M. Blake upon the stairs!"
At any other moment Max would have resented in swift and explicit terms this probing of his private concerns; but the soreness at his heart was too acute to permit of pride.
"Then you are sorry for me, mademoiselle?"
"Yes, monsieur!"
"Because of my spoiled picture?" Waywardness flickered up momentarily.
"No, monsieur!"
"Then why?"
Jacqueline glanced up swiftly, then dropped her eyes.
"Because, monsieur—being but a woman—I say to myself 'life is long, and other pictures may be painted; but with love—or friendship—'"
"Mademoiselle, that is sufficient! You are charming—you are sympathetic—- but, like many others, you place too great a value upon those words 'love' and 'friendship.' It is like this! If I quarrel with my friend it is doubtless sad, but it only affects myself; if, on the contrary, I paint a bad picture I am making a blot upon a beautiful world!"
"And what of the heart, monsieur? May there not be sad stains upon the heart—even if no eyes see them?"
"Now, mademoiselle, you are talking sentiment!"
"And you, monsieur, are materialistic?" For a second a flash of mischief showed in the blue eyes.
Max stiffened his shoulders; made brave show to hide the detestable ache in his soul.
"Yes, mademoiselle," he said. "I think, without pride, I may claim to see life wholly, without idealization."
Quite unexpectedly Jacqueline clapped her hands and laughed, stepping close to him with an engaging air of mystery.
"Then all is well! I have a physic for all your ills!"
He looked distrustful.
"A physic?"
"This, monsieur—that you put aside the great sorrow of your picture, and the little sorrow of your friend—and step across and partake ofdéjeunerwith Lucien and me. A very specialdéjeuner, I assure you; no less than apoulet bonne femme, cooked with a care—"
She threw out her hands in an ecstasy of expression, a portrayal of the artless greed that had more than once brought a smile to the boy's lips. But this time no amusement was called up; disgust rose strong within him and, accompanying it, a certainty that were Jacqueline's chicken to be laid before him, he must assuredly choke with the first morsel. One does not eat when one has failed in one's art—or quarrelled with one's best friend!
"Mademoiselle," he said, unsteadily, "you are kind—and I am not without appreciation. But to-day I have no appetite—food does not call to me. Doubtless, there are days when M. Cartel cannot eat." He strove to force a laugh.
Jacqueline looked humorously grave.
"When Lucien cannot work, monsieur, he eats the more! It is only on the days when work flows from him that I am compelled to drag him to the table—those days or, perhaps, the days—" She stopped discreetly.
"What days, mademoiselle?"
For the gratification of a curiosity he condemned, Max put the question.
"Oh, monsieur, when some little affair arises upon which he and I dispute—when some cloud, as it were, darkens the sun." She continued to look down demurely; then quickly she looked up again. "But I waste your time! And, besides, I have not finished what I would say."
"Oh, mademoiselle, I beg—"
"It is not of thepouletthat I would speak, monsieur! I understand that artists are not all alike; and that, whereas bad work gives Lucien an appetite, it gives you a disgust! Still, you are a philosopher, and will allow others to eat, even if you will not eat yourself."
Max looked bewildered.
"Good!" Jacqueline clapped her hands again softly. "I knew I would find success! I said I would find success!"
"But, mademoiselle, I do not understand."
"No, monsieur! Neither did M. Blake, when I met him upon the stairs, and told him of mypoulet. He also, it seems, had lost his appetite. Your picture must have been truly bad!"
She discreetly toyed with her belt during the accepted space of time in which a brain can conceive—a heart leap—to an overmastering joy; then she looked again at Max.
"It is a little idea of my own, monsieur, that you and M. Édouard should make the acquaintance of my Lucien. M. Édouard already consents; I hope that you, monsieur—"
For answer, Max caught her hand. From that moment he loved her—her prettiness, her mischief, her humanity.
"Mademoiselle! I do not understand—and I do understand!"
"But you will come, monsieur?"
"I will eat your chicken, mademoiselle—even to the bones!"
COMRADESHIP in its broader sense is Bohemianism at its best; Bohemianism, not as it is imagined by thedilettante—a thing of picturesque penury and exotic vice—but a spontaneous intermingling of personalities, an understanding, a fraternity as purely a gift of the gods as love or beauty.
It is true that the sense of regained happiness beat strong in the mind of Max when he followed Jacqueline into her unpicturesque living-room with its sparse, cheap furniture, its piano and its gas stove, and that the happiness budded and blossomed like a flower in the sun at the one swift glance exchanged with Blake; but even had these factors not been present, he must still have been sensible of the pretty touch of hospitality patent in the girl's manner the moment she crossed her own threshold, conscious of the friendly smile of M. Lucien Cartel, typical artist, typical Frenchman of the southern provinces—short, swarthy, alive from his coarse black hair to the square tips of his fingers. It was in the air—the sense of good-will—the desire for conviviality; and in the first greeting, the first hand-shake, the relations of the party were established.
But the true note of this Bohemianism is not so much spontaneous friendship as a spontaneous capacity for the interchange of thought—that instant opening of mind to mind, when place becomes of slight, and time of no importance.
Such an atmosphere was created by M. Lucien Cartel in his poor Montmartreappartement, and under its spell Max and Blake fell as surely, as luxuriously as they might have fallen under the spell of a summer day. It was not that M. Cartel was brilliant; his only capacity for brilliance lay in his strong, square hands; but he was a good fellow and possessed of a philosophy that at once challenged and interested. For Church and State he had a wide contempt, a scoffing raillery, a candid blasphemy that outraged orthodoxy: for humanity and for his art he owned an enthusiasm touching on the sublime. Upon every subject—the meanest and the most profound—he held an opinion and aired it with superb frankness and incredible fluency. So it was that, when thepoulet bonne femmehad been picked to the bones and Jacqueline had retired to some sanctum whence the clatter of plates and the sound of running water told of domestic duties, the three pushed their chairs back from the table and fell to talk.
Precisely how they talked, precisely what they talked of in that pleasant period subsequent to the meal is not to be related. They thrashed the paths of morality, science, religion until their contending voices filled the room and the tobacco smoke hung in clouds about them. They talked until the last drop of Jacqueline's coffee had been drained; they talked until Jacqueline herself came silently back into the room and seated herself by Cartel's side, slipping her hand into his with artless spontaneity.
Morality, science, religion, and then, in natural sequence, art—music! The brain of M. Cartel tingled, his fingers twitched as the rival merits of composers—the varying schools of thought—were touched upon, warmed to, or torn by contending opinions. One end only was conceivable to that last discussion. The moment arrived when the brain of M. Cartel cried vehemently for expression, when his hand, imprisoned in the small fingers of Jacqueline, was no longer to be restrained, when he sprang from his chair and rushed to the piano, his coarse black hair an untidy mat, his ugly face alight with God's gift of inspiration.
'What had he said? Was this, then, not magnificent—wonderful?'
And, seating himself, he unloosed into the common room a beauty of sound more adorning than the rarest devices of the decorator's art—a mesh of delicate harmonies that snared the imaginations of his three listeners and sent them winging to the very borders of their varying realms.
M. Lucien Cartel in every-day life and to the casual observer was a good fellow with a fund of enthusiasm and a ready tongue; M. Lucien Cartel to the woman he loved and in the enchanted world of his art was a mortal imbued warmly and surely with a spark of the divinity he derided. There is no niggardliness in Bohemia: it made him as happy to give of his music as it made his listeners to receive, with the consequence that time was dethroned and that four people sat entranced, claiming nothing from the world outside, more than content in the knowledge that the world had no eyes for the doings of a little room on the heights of Montmartre.
From opera to opera M. Cartel wandered, now humming a passage under his breath in accompaniment to his playing, again raising his soft, southern voice in an abandonment of enthusiasm.
It was following close upon some such enthusiastic moment that Max rose, crossed the room, and taking a violin and bow from where they lay upon a wooden bench against the wall, carried them silently to the piano.
As silently M. Cartel received them and, lifting the violin, tucked it under his chin and raised the bow.
There is no need to detail the magic that followed upon that simple action. The world—even his own Paris—has never heard of M. Lucien Cartel, and cares not to know of the pieces that he played, the degree of his technique, the truth of his interpretation; but when at last the hand that held the violin dropped to his side and, lifting his right arm, he wiped his damp forehead with the sleeve of his coat, the faces of his audience were pale as the faces of those who have looked upon hidden places, and in the eyes of the little Jacqueline there were tears.
A moment of silence; then M. Cartel laid down his violin and laughed. The laugh broke the spell: Jacqueline, with a childish cry of excitement, flew across the room and, throwing her arms about his neck, kissed him with unashamed fervor; Blake and Max pressed round the piano, and in an instant the room was humming again to the sound of voices, and some one made the astounding discovery that it was five o'clock.
This was Blake's opportunity—the opportunity loved beyond all others of the Irishman, when it is permissible to offer hospitality. The idea came to him as an inspiration, and was seized upon as such. Eager as a boy, he laid one hand on Max's shoulder, the other on that of M. Cartel.
'He had a suggestion to make! One that admitted of no refusal! M. Cartel had entertained them regally; he must suffer them to make some poor return. There was a certain littlecaféwhere thechefknew his business and the wine really was wine—' He looked from one face to another for approval, and perhaps it was but natural that his eyes should rest last and longest on the face of Max.
So it was arranged. A dinner is a question readily dealt with in the quarter of Montmartre, and soon the four—laughing, talking, arguing—were hurrying down the many steps of the Escalier de Sainte-Marie, bent upon the enjoyment of the hour.
THEY dined with a full measure of satisfaction; for with his invitation to a feast, your Parisian accepts an obligation to bring forth his best in gayety, in conversation, in good-will; and it might well have happened that Blake, spending ten times as much money upon guests of his own world, might have lacked the glow, the sense of success, that filled him in the giving of this dinner to an unknown musician and a little blonde-hairedMontmartroise.
They dined; and then, because the winds were still wintry and coffee could not yet be sipped outsidecafédoors, they betook themselves to the little theatre of the 'Trianon Lyrique' on the Boulevard Rochechouart, where for an infinitesimal sum thebourgeoisiemay sit in the stalls and hear light opera conscientiously sung.
As it was a gala evening, Blake reserved a box, and the little Jacqueline sat in the place of honor, neat and dainty to the point of perfection, with a small black jacket fitting closely to her figure, and a bunch of violets, costing ten centimes, pinned coquettishly into her lacejabot. They sat through the performance in a happy mood of toleration, applauding whenever applause might be bestowed, generously silent when anything tempted adverse criticism; and between the acts they smoked and drank liqueurs in company with the good Montmartre shopkeepers—the soldiers—the young clerks and the young girls who formed the crowd in the lounge.
But all things end; the curtain fell on the last act ofLes Cloches de Corneville, and not without a pleasant, passing sigh, the four left the theatre.
The boulevard teemed with life as they made their way into the open; a certain intoxication seemed blown along the thoroughfare on the light spring wind; a restless energy tingled in the blood.
On the steps of the little theatre, Blake looked back at his party.
'The night was young! What would they say to supper?'
Jacqueline's eyes sparkled, but she looked at M. Cartel, and regretfully M. Cartel shook his head.
'Alas! He was expecting a friend—a composer, to call upon him before midnight.'
Jacqueline betrayed no disappointment; with a charming air she echoed the regret, the shake of the head, and slipped a confiding hand through M. Cartel's arm.
Then followed the leave-taking—the thanks and disclaimers—the promises of future meetings—and at last the lovers moved out into the crowd—M. Cartel, cheery and brisk, humming the tunes of 'Les Cloches,' the little Jacqueline clinging to his arm, smiling up into his ugly face.
Max watched them for a moment with a deep intentness, then wheeled round swiftly and caught Blake's arm.
"Ned! Take me somewhere! I would forget myself!"
"What troubles you, boy? Not the thought of the picture?"
"No! A something of no consequence. Do not question me. Be kind to me, and take me where I can see life and forget myself."
"Where will I take you?"
"To some place of gayety—where no one thinks."
"Very well! We'll go over and have supper at the Rat Mort. You won't be over-troubled with thought there. We can sit in a corner and observe, and I give you my word there will be no encounters with old friends this time! I'll be blind and deaf and dumb if anything is washed up from the past!"
Guiding the boy across the crowded roadway, he passed through the narrow door and up the steep stair that ends so abruptly into the long, low supper-room of the Rat Mort.
Max felt the abruptness of this entry, as so many climbers of the ladder-like stairs have felt it before him; and a dazed sensation seized upon him as the wildZtiganemusic of the stringed orchestra beat suddenly upon his ears and the intense white light struck upon his sight.
He felt it as others have felt it—the excitement, the consciousness of an emotional atmosphere—as he followed Blake down the dazzingly bright room. It was in the air, as it had been at the Bal Tabarin.
As they seated themselves, the barbaric music ceased; the orchestra broke forth afresh with a light Parisian waltz, and down between the lines of tables came a negro and a negress—properties of the place, as were the glasses and the table linen—waltzing with the pliant suppleness, the conscious sensuality of their race, and close behind them followed a second couple—a Spaniard, restless and lithe, small of stature and pallid of face, and a young Spanish girl of splendid physique.
Max sat silent, attentive to this dance, while Blake ordered supper; but when the wine was brought, he lifted his glass and drank, as if some strong sensation had dried his throat.
Blake turned and looked at him.
"Well? Is it amusing?"
"It is—and it is not. Those black creatures are extraordinary. They are repulsive—like figures in a nightmare."
"Oh! Repulsive, are they? And what about a certain picture we once looked at—when I was swept off the face of the earth for using that same word? I believe, you know, that points of view are changing! I believe I'm coming to part two of my little book! These niggers aren't a bit more disgusting than the monkey sucking the fruit."
Max glanced at him, laughed a trifle self-consciously and drank some more wine. "Let us forget monkeys and little books and all such stupidities. There is a pretty woman over there! Make me a story concerning her." He nodded toward a table in the middle of the room.
Blake, looking, saw a slim woman in white, whose large hat threw a becoming shadow on auburn hair and red-brown eyes.
"Ah, now," he said, thoughtfully, "you've given me too much to do! At a first glance I'd say she's just the ordinary better-classcocotte; but at a second glance it seems to me I'd pause. There's something about the eyes—there's something about the mouth that puzzles me. You'll have to wait, my boy, and let fate tell you your fairy tale!"
Trained in the consciousness of regard, the woman they discussed looked across at them as Blake ceased, and the flicker of a smile touched her lips—a smile of interest in which there lurked no hint of invitation.
"Ah, wasn't I right! She discriminates—our auburn lady! We'll see something interesting before the night is out, mark my words!"
They half forgot her and her possible story in the hour that followed, though Max noted that the woman who wanders from party to party at the Rat Mort, distributing roses, paused twice by her table and spoke to her, each time departing without unburdening herself of her wares; also, he noted that the pallid little Spaniard, who had been scattering his attentions among the ladies unprovided with companions, came and bowed before her, and that, contrary to her impression of aloofness, she rose and danced a waltz with him.
At this episode of the dance, Blake's eyes as well as the boy's were attracted; and, as she glided up and down between the tables, cool, unmoved, seemingly indifferent to the world about her, his interest reawakened, and he cast a sidelong glance at Max.
"Wait!" he said. "When you see that guarded look in a woman's eyes, you may always know she's expecting something."
Even as he spoke, she returned to her solitary table, dismissing the Spaniard with an inclination of the head and, as she seated herself, both observers saw a change pass over her face—saw her gaze narrow and turn toward the door—saw a faint flush touch her cheeks and recede, leaving them paler than before.
It was a controlled emotion, almost imperceptible—differing in essence from either the latent violence of the woman Lize or the artless impulsiveness of the little Jacqueline; but with certain intuition it sent Max's glance winging to the door of the supper-room, assured that some issue in the subtle war of sex was about to be fought out.
A new party was entering the room—a small darkParisienne, bringing in her wake two Englishmen—one brown—the other fair, with the accepted Saxon fairness.
Down the long room the little lady came, ushered by obsequious waiters, the recipient of many glances, admiring or envious; close behind her followed the brown-haired Englishman and, a little in the rear, her second cavalier—reserved of demeanor, distinguished of carriage, obviously upholding the tradition ofsang-froidthat clings to his countrymen.
Max's instinct was fully awake now; and when, in passing her table, the fair man inclined his head to the auburn-haired lady, the matter merely fitted with his expectations.
What brief emotional past lay in the mists of the unknown, linking this woman to this man? Nothing was to be read from her face—no expression of pleasure, none of chagrin; but in her half-veiled eyes a certain brilliance was observable and her long, white fingers began softly to drum upon the table in time to the music.
No explanation was demanded; in a clear, disconcerting flash, the situation was laid bare. Here was woman desiring the love of man; woman determined to reap her spoil. It was one issue in the deathless, relentless struggle—the struggle wherein the little Jacqueline clung to her M. Cartel, tenacious as the frail fern to the ungainly rock—wherein Madame Salas had fought sickness and neglect to protect a fading life. It was a truth—arresting as truth must ever be; and stricken with a tingling fear, the boy drove it from him, and turned his eyes from the fateful, shadowed face and the light, drumming fingers.
A new dance had begun: the grinning negro had seized upon the Spanish girl and was whirling her down the room to the laughter of the company, while her countryman looked round the tables in indifferent search for a partner.
His glance skimmed the white figure at the lonely table, the eyes of the woman were lifted for an instant, revealing a flash of their new light, and in a moment the two were dancing again, moving up and down the room, in and out between the tables with their original easy grace; but this time the woman's lips were parted and her eyelids drooped in a clever simulation of enjoyment.
Up and down they glided, passing and repassing the table where the little dark lady supped with her two cavaliers, but never once did the woman raise her eyes to the Englishman's or seem aware of the cold, close glance that followed her movements; but once, as the music faded to silence, and her white skirt swept past his table for the last time, she murmured something softly in Spanish to her partner, and allowed one level, effective glance to fall on his pallid face.
That was all; the waltz stopped, she disengaged herself gently, and walked back alone to her table.
This waltz was followed by another and yet another, and again she fell to her old attitude of lowered eyes and drumming fingers.
The Englishman at his table made pretence to eat his supper, poured himself out a fresh glass of champagne, drank it, and with a suddenly achieved decision, gave a cool laugh of excuse, rose and walked straight toward the solitary figure.
Max, momentarilyclairvoyant, felt the violent heartbeat, the caught breath, that told the woman of his presence—felt to a nicety the control of her expression, the rigidity of her body, as she slowly raised her head and met his eyes; then he saw the man bow, making some suggestion, and he leaned back in his seat with a little sigh of satisfaction as the woman smiled and rose and the two began to dance.
Both tall above the ordinary, they were a well-suited couple, and a certain pleasure filled the beholder's mind as they moved decorously up and down the long aisle formed by the double row of tables—the man entirely indifferent to his surroundings, dancing in this Parisian supper-place precisely as he would have danced in a London ball-room; the woman following his every movement with a passivity—a oneness—that gave no hint of the definite purpose at work within her brain.
The dance over, he led her back to her table, drew her chair forward with elaborate politeness, bowed and, with a murmured word, strolled back to his own table.
So sure had been her triumph, so abrupt its collapse, that Max—smoking his cigarette, sipping his coffee—turned, with a little exclamation, to Blake.
"Have you observed,mon ami? Oh, why was that?"
Blake was carefully lighting a cigar.
"'Twould be hard to say," he answered, meditatively. "In a matter of emotion, an Englishman has a way of getting frightened of himself. This particular specimen has come over to Paris to play—and he doesn't fancy fire for a toy!"
"And what will happen? What will be the end?" Max had laid his cigarette aside; his fingers were interlaced, sure sign that his emotions were running high; and his eyes, when he fixed them on Blake's, held a touch of their rare sombre fire.
"How will it end, you say? Guess, my child!"
Max shook his head.
"Well, boy, Eve will be Eve to the end of time—and Adam will be Adam!"
"You mean—? Oh, but look!"
This last was called forth by the rising from table of the trio—the quiet passing from the room of the fair man in the train of his friend and the little dark lady.
It seemed so final, so sharp an answer to his question, that Max could feel—as things personal and close—the sick sinking of the heart, the accompanying whiteness of cheek that must fall upon the woman sitting immovable and alone.
"I am sorry!" he cried. "Oh, but I am sorry!"
Blake looked thoughtfully at the tip of his cigar.
"Wait!"
Even as he said it, the fair man reappeared alone. "What did I say? Eve will be Eve—Adam will be Adam!"
But Max was not listening. Excited, lifted beyond himself, he was watching the Englishman thread a way between the tables—watching the woman thrill to his approach without lifting an eyelid, moving a muscle. Rigid as a statue she sat, until he was quite close; then, curiously, as if nature demanded some symbol of the fires within, her lips opened and she began to hum the tune the orchestra was playing.
It was a strange form of self-expression, and as she yielded to it her cheeks burned suddenly and her eyes shone between their narrowed lids.
She did not speak when the man seated himself at her table, she did not even look up; she went on humming in a strange ecstatic reverie, but she smiled—a very slow, a very subtle smile.
A waiter came, and wine was brought; she drank, laid down her glass and continued her strange song. The seller of flowers hovered about the table, smiling at the Englishman, and laid a sheaf of pink roses on the white cloth; still the humming continued, though mechanically the woman's long, white fingers gathered up the flowers and held them against her face. At last, unexpectedly, she raised her head, looked at the man whose eyes were now fixed in fascination upon her, looked away beyond him, and, lifting her voice from its murmuring note, began to sing aloud.
It was a scene curious beyond description—the hot, white room, the many painted faces, the many jewelled hands, the grotesque black forms of the negro dancers, and in the midst a woman hypnotized by her own triumph into absolute oblivion.
She sat with the roses in her hands, her eyes looking into space, while her voice, pure and singularly true, gathered strength until gradually the chattering of voices and the clinking of glasses lessened, and the musicians lowered their music to a deliberate accompaniment.
Nowhere but in Paris could such a scene take place; but here, although the faces turned toward the singer's were flushed with wine, they were touched with comprehension. The gathered roses—the high, sweet voice—the rapt face composed a picture, and even when his eyes are glazed, your Parisian is a connoisseur.
The last note quivered into silence; a little ripple of applause followed; and with the same concentrated, hypnotized gaze, the woman's eyes turned from space and rested again upon the man.
It was the glance ancient as tradition—significant as fate. At his distant table, Max rose and laid a trembling hand upon Blake's arm.
"Ned! May we go?"
"Oh, why? The night is young!"
"Please!"
"But why?"
"I desire it."
Blake looked more closely, and his expression changed.
"Why, you're ill, boy!" he said. "You're as white as a sheet!"
Max tried to laugh. "It is the heat—nothing more."
"Of course it is! The place is like a hot-house! You want a breath of air!"
Again Max tried to laugh, but it was a laugh oddly broken.
"That is it!" he said. "I want the air."
MAX passed down the long, low room, blind to the white light, blind to the flowers and faces, deaf to the voices and laughter and swaying sound of stringed instruments.
One glance he permitted himself—one only—at the table where the man and woman still looked into each other's eyes and where the sheaf of pink roses still shed its incense: then he passed down the steep, short stairs, halting at the door of thecafé, hesitating between two atmospheres—outside, the sharp street lights, the cold, wind-swept pavement—within, the hot air, the close sense of humanity, powerful as a narcotic.
"Ned!" he said, looking back for Blake, "I need a favor. Will you grant it?"
"A hundred!" Blake was buttoning up his coat.
"Then wish me good-night here. I would go home alone."
"Alone? What nonsense! You don't think I'd desert you when you're seedy? What you want is air. We'll take a stroll along the boulevards."
Max shook his head. He seemed rapt in his own thoughts; his pale face was full of purpose.
"I am quite well—now."
"Then all the more reason for the stroll! Come along!"
But the boy drew away. "Another time! Not to-night."
"Why not?"
"I cannot tell you."
Blake looked more closely at the nervously set lips, the dark eyebrows drawn into a frown.
"I say, boy, it hasn't got on your nerves—this place? I know what a queer little beggar you are."
"No; it is not that."
"Then what? Another inspiration?"
"No."
"Very well! I won't probe. I'm old enough to know that the human animal is inexplicable. Good-night—and good luck! I'll see you to-morrow."
"To-morrow, yes!"
There was relief in the readiness of the response, relief in the quick thrusting forth of the boy's hand.
"Good-night!"
"Good-night! And go to bed when you get home. You're very white."
"Yes."
His voice seemed to recede further into its distant absorbed note, his fingers were withdrawn from Blake's close pressure with a haste that was unusual, and turning away, he crossed the boulevard as though the vision of some spectre had lent wings to his feet.
No impression of romance touched him as he hastened up the narrow streets toward his home. He had no eyes for the secret shadows, the mysterious corners usually so fruitful of suggestion; his whole perceptions were turned inward; his self-consciousness was a thing so living, so acute that he went forward as one bereft of sight or hearing.
Reaching the foot of the Escalier de Sainte-Marie, he quickened his already hurried pace, and began to run up the uneven steps. The door of his house stood open, and he plunged into the dark well of the hall without waiting to strike a match. By instinct his hand found the smooth banister, and he began his climb of the stairs.
Up he went, and up, living in himself with that perfect absorption that comes in rare and violent moments—moments of sorrow, of pleasure or, it may be, of surprise, when a new thought suspends the action of the brain.
In obedience to some unconsidered instinct he softened his steps on reaching the fifth floor, and crept across the bare corridor to the door of his own rooms.
He entered quietly, and still ignoring the need for light, groped a way to his bedroom.
It was the room that had once belonged to Madame Salas; and, like the kitchen, it looked upon the network of roofs and chimneys that spread away at the rear of the house. Now, as he entered, closed the door, and stood leaning against it, breathing quickly, these roofs and chimneys, seen through the uncurtained window, made a picturesque medley of lines and curves startlingly distinct against the star-powdered sky.
The ethereal light of a Parisian spring night filled the room, touching the white walls—the white bed—a bowl of flowers upon the dressing-table and its fairy-like reflection in the mirror—to a subtly insidious fragility that verged upon the unreal; and the boy, quivering to his tangled sensations, felt this unreality quicken his self-distrust, touch and goad him as a spur.
Physical action became imperative; he walked unsteadily across the room, pulled the serge curtains across the window, abruptly shutting out both stars and roofs, and turning to the dressing-table, groped for matches and struck a light.
Four candles stood in an old silver candelabra; he touched them with the match-flame, they flickered, spat, rose to a steady glow. In the new light the room looked warmer, more in touch with human things and, moving with the inevitableness of a pendulum, his mind swung to a definite desire.
Impulse seized him; questions, doubts, fears were submerged; trembling to a loosed emotion, he ran across the room and bent over his narrow bed.
He was alone now; alone in the absolutely primal sense of the word, when the individual ceases to act even to himself. The instinct he had denied was dominating him, and he was yielding with a sense of intoxication.
With hands that shook in excitement, he raised the mattress and, searching beneath, drew forth an object—a flat packet, bound and sealed—the packet, in fine, that had lain so deep and snug in the pocket of his overcoat on the night of his entry into Paris.
His hand—his whole body—was trembling as he brought it to light and walked back to the dressing-table.
There, he pulled forward a chair and sat down before the mirror. For a full minute he sat, as if enchained, then at length—in obedience to the force that was dominating him—his fingers crept under the string, there came to the ear a faint, sharp crackle, and the seals broke.
The seals broke, a gasp slipped from between his parted lips, and in his hands lay the symbol of all the imaginings, all the pretty mockery wherewith he purported to cheat nature.
It lay in his hands—a simple thing, potent as simple things ever are. No rare jewel, no state paper, merely the long, thick strands of a woman's hair.
The paper fell away, and he lifted it shakingly to the light. Stiff-coiled from its long imprisonment, it unwound slowly, allowing the candle-light to filch strange hues from its dark length—glints of bronze, tinges of copper-color that gleamed elusively from the one end, where it had been roughly clipped from the head, to the other, where it still curled and twisted into little tendrils like a living thing.
A woman's hair! A weapon old as time—as light, as destructible, as possessed of subtle powers as woman herself. Strand upon strand, he drew it out, following the glints of light with dazed, questioning eyes.
A woman's hair! A woman's hair, woven to blind men's eyes!
Max leaned forward, quivering to a new impulse, and, raising the heavy coils, twisted them swiftly about his head. With the action, the blood rushed into his cheeks, a flame of excitement sprang into his eyes and, drawing the candles closer, he peered into the mirror.
There are moments when a retrospective impression is overwhelming—when a scent, a sight, a sound can quicken things dead—things buried out of mind.
Max looked and, looking, lost himself. The boy with his bravery of ignorance, his frankly arrogant egoism was effaced as might be the writing from a slate, and in his place was a sexless creature, rarely beautiful, with parted, tremulous lips and wide eyes in which subtle, crowding thoughts struggled for expression.
He looked, he lost himself, and losing, heard nothing of a sound, faint and undefined, that stole from the region of the outer door—nothing of a light step in the little hall outside his room. Leaning closer to the mirror, still gazing absorbed, he began to twist the short waves of his own hair more closely into the strands that resembled them so nearly in texture and hue.
It was then, quietly—with the appalling quietude that can appertain to a fateful action—that the handle of the bedroom door clicked, the door itself opened, and the little Jacqueline—more child than ever in the throes of a swift amazement—stood revealed, a lighted candle in one hand, in the other a china mug.
At sound of the entry, Max had wheeled round, his hands still automatically holding up the strands of hair; at the vision that confronted him, a look of rage flashed over his face—the violent, unrestrained rage of the creature taken unawares.
At the look the little Jacqueline quailed, her lips opened and drooped, her right hand was lowered, until the candlestick hung at a perilous angle and the wax began to drip upon the floor.
"Oh!" she cried, "and I thought to find the room empty!Pardon! Pardon!Oh,pardon, mons—madame!"