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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 the appartement made 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, some cabaret broke 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 artistic cabarets of 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 the cabaret , 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 a pierrette seated disconsolate upon a bed, a pierrot gazing through a window.
" Pierrot seeking 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 faint roulade of 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 the bock and 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 a début ! 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 famous comique whose star had risen in the firmament of the cabaret —"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 the cabaret is 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.