CHAPTER XII
From a distinctly precarious perch--one foot on the back of a chair, theother on an oak chest--Blake surveyed the unfurnished _salon_ of thefifth-floor _appartement_. His coat was off, in one dusty hand he held ahammer, in the other a picture, while from between his lips protruded abrass-headed nail.
"If I drive the nail here, boy, will you be satisfied? Upon my word,it's the last place I'll try!" He spoke with what dignity anddistinctness he could command, but the effect was lost upon Max, who,also dusty, also bearing upon his person the evidences of manual labor,was crouching over a wood fire, intent upon the contents of a brasscoffee-pot.
"Max! Do you hear me?"
"No, I do not hear. Take the nail from your mouth."
"Take it for me! I haven't a hand."
Max left the coffee-pot with some reluctance, crossed the room, and withthe seriousness known only to the enthusiastic amateur inhouse-furnishing, removed the nail from Blake's mouth.
"It is a shame! You will spoil your nice teeth."
"What is a tooth or two in such a cause! Have you a handkerchief?"
"Yes."
"Then, for the love of God, wipe my forehead for me!"
Still without a smile, Max produced a handkerchief that had obviouslyplayed the _role_ of duster at an earlier hour and, passing it overBlake's face, removed the dew of heat, leaving in its place a long blackstreak.
"Thanks! I'm cooler now--though probably dirtier!"
"Dirtier! On the contrary, _mon ami_! You have the most artistic scar ofdust that makes you as interesting as a German officer! Oh!" His voicerose to a cry of sharp distress, and he ran back to the fire. "Oh, mycoffee! My beautiful coffee! Oh, Ned, it has over boiled!"
Blake eyed the havoc from his coign of vantage with a philosophy tingedwith triumph.
"Didn't I tell you that coffee-pot was a fraud the very first day oldBluebeard tried to palm it off on us! You will never distinguish betweenbeauty and utility."
"Beauty is utility!" Max, in deep distress, was using the much-taxedhandkerchief to wipe the spilt coffee from the hearth.
"Should be, my boy, but isn't! I say, give me that business to see to!"Regardless of the picture still dangling from his hand, he jumped to theground and strode through a litter of papers, straw, and packing-cases.
"Give me that rag!" He took the sopping handkerchief and flung it into adistant corner. "A wisp of this straw is much more useful--lessbeautiful, I admit!"
Max glanced up with wide eyes, extremely wistful and youthful inexpression. "I do not believe I care about either the use or thebeauty," he said, plaintively. "I only care that I am hungry and that mycoffee is lost."
"Hungry, boy? Why, bless my soul, you must be starving! What time is itat all?" Blake pulled out his watch. "Eleven! And we've been at thishard since eight! Hungry! I should think you are. Look here! You justsit down!" He pushed aside the many objects that encumbered the floor,and began impatiently to strip the packing from a leather arm-chair.
Max laughed a little.
"But, _mon cher_, I prefer the ground--this nice warm little cornerclose to the fire. One day I think I shall have two cushions, like yourBluebeard of the curio shop, and sit all day long with my legs crossed,imagining myself a Turk. Like this!" He drew back against the wall,curling himself up with supple agility, and smiled into his companion'seyes.
Blake looked down, half amused, half concerned.
"Poor little _gamin_! Tired and dirty and hungry. Just you wait!"Nodding decisively, he crossed the room, opened the door softly, anddisappeared.
Left to himself, Max drew farther back into his warm corner and claspedhis hands about his knees. Max was enjoying himself. The fact was patentin the lazy ease of his pose, in the smile that hovered about his lips,in the slow, pleased glance that travelled round and round the bare roomand the furniture still standing ghostly in its packing. It was stillthe joyful beginning of things: the clean white paper upon the wallsspoke of first hours as audibly as the bunch of jonquils peeping from adark corner spoke of spring. It was still the beginning of things--thesalt before the sweet, the ineffable, priceless moment when life seemsmalleable and to be bent to the heart's desire.
One month had passed since his first visit to this fifth floor; onemonth since he had entered Paris, armored in his hopes; one month sinceBlake had crossed his path.
The smile upon his lips deepened, then wavered to seriousness, and hisgaze turned from the white wall to the fire, where the flames from thelogs spurted copper and blue.
One month. A dream--or a lifetime?
Gazing into the fire, questioning his own fancy, he could scarce decidewhich; a dream in the quick moving of events--the swift viewing of newscenes; a lifetime in alteration of outlook and environment--thesevering and knitting of bonds.
The happy seriousness was still enfolding him, his eyes were stillintent upon the fire, when Blake entered, triumphant, carrying acoffee-pot, and followed by a demure girl with blonde hair and delicatepale skin.
"Monsieur is served!"
Max, startled out of his reverie, jumped to his feet.
"What is this? Oh, but you should not! You should not!"
"And why not, in the name of God? If you insist upon having antiquebrass coffee-pots, your neighbors must expect to suffer, eh,Jacqueline?"
The little Jacqueline laughed, shaking her fair head. "Ah, well,monsieur, it is an art--the keeping of an establishment--and must belearned like any other!"
"And you think we ought to go to school?"
"I did not say that!" She laid down the loaf of bread, the butter, andthe milk-jug that she was carrying, and took the coffee from Blake'shands with an air of pretty gravity. "And now, monsieur, where are thecups?"
Blake turned to Max. "Cups?" he said in English. "I know we boughtsomething quite unique in the matter of cups, but where the deuce we putthem--For the love of God and the honor of the family, boy, tell mewhere they are!"
Max's eyes were shining. "They are in the chest, _mon cher_. We put themthere for safety as we went out last night."
"Good! Give me the key."
"The key, _mon ami_, I have left at the Hotel Railleux!"
Consternation spread over Blake's face, then he burst out laughing andturned to Jacqueline, relapsing into French.
"Monsieur Max would have you to know, mademoiselle, that he possesses analtogether unusual and superior set of Oriental china, which he boughtfrom a certain villanous Jew at the corner of the rue Andre de Sarte;that for safety he has locked that china into the artistic and mustydower-chest standing against the wall; and that for greater safety hehas forgotten the key in an antique hotel near the Gare du Nord!"
He laughed again; Max laughed; the little Jacqueline laughed, and ran tothe door.
"Oh, _la! la_! What a pair of children!" She flitted out of the room,returning with two cups, which she set beside the coffee and the milk.
"And now, messieurs, it is possible you can arrange for yourselves!" Sheshot a bright, quizzical look from one to the other. "I know you wouldwish me to stay and measure out the milk and sugar, and it would flatterme to do so, but, unhappily, I have a dish of some importance upon myown fire, and it is necessary that one is domestic when one is only awoman--is it not so, Monsieur Max?" She wrinkled her pretty face into agrimace of mischief, and nodded as if some idea infinitely amusing,infinitely profound lurked at the back of her blonde head.
"Good-day, Monsieur Edouard. Good-day, Monsieur Max!"
"Strange little creature!" said Blake, as the door closed upon her."Frail as a butterfly, with one capacity to prevent her taking wing!"
"And that capacity--what is it?" Max had returned to his formerposition, and was pouring out the coffee as he crouched comfortably bythe fire.
"The capacity, boy, for the _grande passion_. Odd that it should existin so light a vessel, but these are the secrets of Nature! There aremoments, you know, when this little Jacqueline isn't laughing atlife--rare, I admit, but still existent-
-and then you see that thecorners of her mouth can droop. She may live to find existence void, butshe'll never live to find it shallow. Thanks, boy!" He took his cup ofcoffee, and, walking to the table, cut a slice of bread, which hecarried back to the fire. "Now, don't say a word! I'm going to make youthe finest bit of toast you ever saw in your life!"
Max, preserving the required silence, watched him make the toast,carefully balancing the bread on the tip of a knife, carefully browning,carefully buttering it.
"Now! Taste that, and tell me if there wasn't a great _chef_ lost inme!"
He carried the toast back to the fire and watched Max eat the firstmorsel.
"Nice?"
"Delicious!"
"Ah! Then it's all fair sailing! I'll cut myself a bit of bread and sitdown on my heels like you. There's something in that Turkish idea, afterall! But, as I was saying"--he buttered his bread and dropped intoposition beside the boy--"as I was saying awhile ago, that child nextdoor, with all her innocent air and her blue eyes, has climbed theslippery stairs and reached the seventh heaven. And not only reached itherself, mind you, but dragged that ungainly Cartel with her by the tipof her tiny finger! Wonderful! Wonderful! Enviable fate!"
Max's eyes laughed. "M. Cartel's?"
"M. Cartel's. Oh, boy, that seventh heaven! Those slippery steps!"
"And the tip of a tiny finger?" Max was jesting; but Blake, lost in hisown musings, did not perceive it.
"For Cartel--yes!" he said. "For me, no! I think I'd like the wholehand."
Here Max picked up a tongs and stirred the logs until they blazed.
"Absurd!" he said. "The tip of a finger or the whole of a hand, it isall the same! It is a mistake, this love! That old story of the Gardenand the Serpent is as true as truth. Man and Woman were content to liveand adorn the world until one day they espied the stupid red Apple--andstraightway they must eat! Look even at this Cartel! He is an artist; hemight make the world listen to his music. But, no! He sees a littlebutterfly, as you call her--all blonde and blue--and down falls hisambition, and up go his eyes to the sky, and henceforth he is content tofiddle to himself and to the stars! Oh, my patience leaves me!" Again hestruck the logs, and a golden shower of sparks flew up the chimney.
"I don't know!" said Blake, placidly. "I'm not so sure that he isn'tgetting the best of it, when all's said and done!"
Max reddened. "You make me angry with this 'I do not know!' and 'I amnot so sure!' The matter is like day. You cannot submerge yourpersonality and yet retain it."
"I don't know! I'd submerge mine to-morrow if I could find an _alterego_!"
"Then, _mon cher_, you are a fool!"
Blake drank his coffee meditatively. "Some say the fools are happierthan the wise men! I remember a poor fool of a boy at home in Clare whoused to say that he danced every night with the fairies on the rath, andI often thought he was happier than the people who listened to him outof pity, and shook their heads and laughed behind his back!"
Max looked up, and as he looked the anger died out of his eyes.
"Ned, _mon cher_, you are very patient with me!"
Blake turned. "What do you mean?"
"What I say--that you are patient. Why is it?"
"Oh, I don't know. I'm fond of you, I suppose."
"I am, then, a good comrade?"
"The best."
"What is it you find in me?"
"I don't know! You are you."
"I amuse you?"
"You do--and more."
"More! In what way more?" Max drew nearer.
"Oh, I don't know! You're as amusing and spirited and generous as anyboy I've known, and yet you're different from any boy. You sometimes fitinto my thoughts almost like a woman might!" He hesitated, and laughedat his own conceit.
Max, with an odd little movement of haste, drew away again.
"Do not say that, _mon ami_! Do not think it! I am your good comrade,that is all."
"Of course you are! Sorry if I hurt your pride."
"You did not. It was not that." With an inexplicable change of mood Maxdrew near again, and suddenly slipped his hand through Blake's arm.
They laughed in unison at the return to amity, and then fell silent,looking into the fire, watching the blue spurt of the flames, thefeathery curls of ash on the charred logs.
"Ned! Make me one of your stories! Tell me what you are seeing in thefire!"
Blake settled himself more comfortably.
"Well, boy, I was just seeing a castle," he began in the accepted mannerof the story-teller, and in his pleasant, soothing voice. "A great bigcastle on the summit of a mountain, with a golden flag fluttering in thesunset; and I think it must be the 'Castle of Heart's Desire,' becauseall up the craggy path that leads to it there are knights urging theirhorses--"
"Good!" Max smiled with pleasure and pressed his arm. "Continue!Continue!"
"Well, they're all sorts of knights, you know," Blake went on in thedreamy, singsong voice--"fair knights and red knights and black knights,every one of them in glittering armor, with long lances, and wonderfuldevices on their shields--"
"Yes! Yes!"
"--wonderful devices on their shields, and spurs of gold andsilver, and waving plumes of many colors; and the flanks of theirhorses--cream-colored and chestnut and black--shine in the light."
"Continue, _mon cher_! Continue! I can see them also!" Max, utterlyabsorbed, charming as a child, bent forward, staring into the heart ofthe fire.
"Well, they mount and mount and mount, and sometimes the great horsesrefuse the craggy path and rear, and sometimes a knight is unseated andthe others look back and laugh at his discomfiture and ride on untilthey themselves are proved unfit; and so, on and on, while the way getssteeper and more perilous, and the company smaller and still smaller,until the sun drops down behind the mountain and the gold flag fluttersas gray as a moth, and in all the windows of the castle torches springup to greet the knight who shall succeed."
"And which is he--the knight who shall succeed?"
"Don't you see him?"
"No! Where is he? Where?"
"Why, there--riding first, on the narrowest verge of the craggy path! Avery young knight with dark hair and a proud carriage and gray eyeswith flecks of gold in them."
For an instant Max gazed seriously into the flames, then turned,blushing and laughing.
"Ah! But you are laughing at me! What a shame! For a punishment youshall go straight back to work." He jumped up and handed Blake hisdiscarded hammer.
Blake looked reluctantly at the hammer, then looked back at the enticingflame of the logs.
"Oh, very well! Have it your own way!" he said, getting slowly to hisfeet. "But if I were you, I'd like to have heard what awaited the knightin the tapestried chamber of the castle tower!"
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