CHAPTER XXVII

"What a brother this is of mine!" Maxine smiled again with a little quiver of humor that set her eyes alight. "Is it not like him to invite me to criticise my portrait, and leave me to receive his friend?"

She spoke, not in the English which Max invariably used, but in French; and the sound of her voice entangled Blake's senses. It seemed the boy's voice at its lowest and tenderest, but touched with new inflections tantalizing as they were delightful. Self-consciousness fled before it; he was at one with the sister as he had been at one with the brother on the crisp white morning when comradeship had been sealed to the marching of soldiers' feet and the rattle of fife and drum.

"Princess," he said, "I shall be as frank as Max himself would be! The situation is overwhelming; do with me what you will! If I intrude, dismiss me! I know how fascinating solitude on this balcony can be."

She smiled again, but gravely with a hint of the portrait's mystery.

"Solitude is an excellent thing, monsieur, but to-night I think I need the solace of a fellow-being. Will you not stay and keep me company?"

He looked at the smiling lips, the serious, searching eyes, and he spoke his thoughts impulsively.

"I shall be the most honored man in Paris!"

"That is well! Then we will talk, and watch the stars."

Here the naïve imperiousness of the boy gleamed out, familiar and reassuring, and Maxine walked across the room, turning at the window to look back for Blake.

"He is not without appreciation—this little brother of mine?" She put the question softly, tentatively, as she and Blake leaned over the balcony railing.

"He is an artist, princess."

"You think so?" Her voice warmed and vibrated; through the vague darkness he felt her eyes search his face.

"Undoubtedly."

"Ah, you love him?" The voice dropped to a great gentleness—a gentleness that touched him in a strange degree.

"It would be difficult to tell you what he has been to me," he said. "Our friendship has been a thing of great value. Has he ever told you how we met?"

"He has told me!" Her tone was still low—still curiously attractive. "And he appreciates very highly, monsieur, the affection you have given him."

She paused; and Blake, looking down upon Paris, was conscious of that pause as of something pregnant and miraculous. It filled the moment, combining, with the soft texture of her garments and the faint scent from her hair, to weave a spell subtle as it was intangible.

"There is nothing to appreciate," he made answer. "I am merely a commonplace mortal who found in him something uncommon. The appreciation is mine entirely—the appreciation of the youth, the vitality he expresses."

"Ah, but you do yourself an injustice!" She spoke impulsively and, as if alarmed at her own eagerness, broke off and began anew in a soberer voice. "I mean, monsieur, that friendship is not a solitary affair. Whatever you discerned in Max, Max must equally have discerned in you."

"I wonder!" He turned his gaze from the lights of the city to the rustling trees of the plantation. The hour was magical, the situation beyond belief. Standing there upon the balcony, suspended as it were between heaven and earth, companioned by this wonderful, familiar, unfamiliar being, he seemed to see his own soul—to see it from afar off and with a great lucidity. "I wonder!" he said again; and the sadness, the discontent that stalked him in lonely moments touched him briefly, like the shadow of a travelling cloud.

"What do you wonder, monsieur?"

"The meaning of it all, princess! Existence is such a chase. I, perhaps, hunt friendship—and find Max; I, perhaps, dream that I have found my goal, while to him I may be but a wayside inn—a place to linger in and leave! We both follow the chase, but who can say if we mark the same quarry? It's a puzzling world!"

"Monsieur, it is sometimes a glorious world!" So swift was her change of voice, so impulsive the gesture with which she turned to him, that the vividness of a suggested Max startled him. She was infinitely like to Max—Max when life intoxicated him, when he threw out both arms to embrace it.

"When you look like that, princess," he cried, "I could forget everything—I could take your hand, and show you all my heart, for you literally are the boy!"

There was another pause—a pause fraught with poignant things. Standing there, between heaven and earth, they were no longer creatures of conventionality, fettered by individual worlds. They were two souls conscious of an affinity.

Briefly, sweetly, Maxine's fingers touched his hand and then withdrew. "Monsieur, in moments I am Max!"

Nothing of surprise, nothing of question came to him. He only knew that a touch, infinitely desired, had lighted upon him—that a comprehension born of immaterial things was luring him whither he knew not.

"You are Max, princess," he said, swiftly, "but Max suddenly made possessor of a soul! I've always fancied Max a mythical being—a creature of eternal youth, fascinating as he is elusive—a faun-like creature, peeping into the world from some secret grove, ready to dart back at any human touch. Max's lips were made for laughter; his eyes are too bright for tears."

"And I, monsieur? What am I?"

"You are the miracle! You are the elusive creature deserting the green groves—stepping voluntarily into the mortal world."

"Yet if you know of me at all, you must know that I have left the mortal world and am seeking the secret groves."

"I have been told that."

"And you disbelieve?"

"I am afraid, princess, I do." He turned and looked at her—at the slim body wrapped in its long, smooth cloak of velvet—at the shadowed, questioning eyes. "I know I am greatly daring, but there are moments when we are outside ourselves—when we know and speak things of which we can give no logical account. You have put life behind you; yet what is life but a will-o'-the-wisp? Who can say where the light may not break forth again?"

"But have we not power over our senses, monsieur? Can we not shut our eyes, even if the light does break forth?"

"No, princess, we cannot! Because nature will inevitably say, 'I have given you eyes with which to see. Open those eyes'!"

"Ah, there we differ, monsieur!"

Blake laughed. "There, princess, you are the boy! He, too, thinks he can cheat nature; but I preach my gospel to him, I tell him Nature will have her own. If we will not bend to her, she will take and break us. Ah, but listen to that!"

His discourse broke off; they both involuntarily raised their heads and looked toward the windows of the neighboring appartement .

"Princess!" he said, delightedly. "I wouldn't have had you miss this for ten thousand pounds! Has Max described his neighbor, M. Cartel? I tell you you will have a little of heaven when M. Cartel plays Louise !"

Very delicately, with a curious human clarity of sound, the violin of M. Cartel executed the first notes of Louise's declaration in the duet with Julian—' Depuis le jour où je me suis donnée!' One caught the whole intention of the composer in the few crystal notes—one figured the whole scene—the little house of love, the lovers in their Garden of Eden, and below Paris—symbolic Paris!

"You know Louise , princess?"

"Yes, monsieur, I know Louise ."

All was clear, all was understood in that brief reply. A wide contentment, vitalized by excitement, lifted the soul of Blake. Leaning over the balcony railing, drinking in the music of M. Cartel, more than a little of heaven opened to him; a unique emotion thrilled him—a consciousness of sublimity, a sense of being part of some unfathomable yet perfect scheme. The music wove its story; the lovers became one with his own existence, as he himself was one with the stars above him and the lights below. He followed every note, and in his own brain was spun the subtle thread that bound Julian and Louise; his own fancy ran the gamut of their emotions from mere human reminiscence to overwhelming passion.

As he listened, his first hearing of M. Cartel's fiddle crept back upon the feet of memory, and with it the recollection of the boy's rapture, the boy's wayward breaking of the spell and denial of the truth of love. Cautiously he moved his head and stole a glance at his companion, summing up the contrast between the present and the past.

Maxine was leaning forward, in thrall to the music: her gray cloak had fallen slightly back, displaying her white dress—her white neck; her hands were clasped, her eyes—the woman's eyes, the eyes of mystery—gazed into profound space.

He held himself rigid; he dared not stir, lest he should brush her cloak; he scarce dared breathe, lest he should break her dream. A feeling akin to adoration awakened in him, and as if in expression of the emotion, the violin of M. Cartel cried out the supreme confession of the lovers, Louise's enraptured ' C'est le Paradis! C'est une féerie !', and Julian's answer, intoxicating as wine, ' Non! C'est la vie! l'Eternelle, la toute-puissante vie !'

And there, with the whimsicality of the artist, the bow of M. Cartel was lifted, and sharp, pregnant silence fell upon the night.

Blake turned to Maxine; and Maxine, with lips parted, eyes dark with thought, met his regard.

For one second her impulse seemed to sway to words, her body to yield to some gracious, drooping enchantment; then, swiftly as M. Cartel had called up silence, she recalled herself—straightened her body and lifted her head.

"Monsieur," she said, with dignity, "I thank you for your kindness and for your companionship—and I bid you good-night!"

The swiftness of his dismissal scarcely touched Blake. Already she was his sovereign lady—her look a command, her word paramount.

"As you will, princess!"

She held out her hand; and taking, he bowed over, but did not kiss it.

She smiled, conceiving his desire and his restraint.

"I shall convey to Max how charmingly you have entertained me, monsieur and, perhaps—" Her voice dropped to its softest note.

Blake looked up.

"Perhaps, princess—?"

She smiled again, half diffidently. "Nothing, monsieur! Good-night!"

"Good-night!"

He left her to the gray mystery of the stars, and passed back through the quiet, lamp-lit room and down the slippery stairs that led to the mundane world; and with each step he took, each breath he drew, the words from Louise repeated themselves, justifying all things, glorifying all things: ' C'est la vie! l'Eternelle, la toute-puissante vie !'

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