Max最新章节_Katherine Cecil Thurston著

CHAPTER XVI

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!"