CHAPTER XXIV
It came sharply, as the crash of a breaking vessel might come to theear--this ring of reality in Blake's voice! Abruptly, unpleasantly, Maxcame back to the world and the consequences of his act.
Impressions and instincts spring to the artist mind; in a moment he wasarmored for self-preservation--so straitly armored that every sentiment,even the vague-stirring jealousy of himself that had been given suddenbirth, was overridden and cast into the dark.
With the old hauteur, the old touch of imperiousness, he returnedBlake's glance.
"_Mon ami_," he said, gravely, "what you desire is impossible."
Only a moment had intervened between Blake's declaration and his reply,but it seemed to him that the universe had reeled and steadied again inthat brief interval.
"And why impossible?"
Again it was the atmosphere of their first meeting--the boy hedgedbehind his pride, the man calmly breaking a way through that hedge.
Max shrugged. "The word is final. It explains itself."
With a conciliatory, affectionate movement, Blake's hand slipped fromhis shoulder to his arm. "Don't be absurd, boy," he said, gently."Nothing on God's earth is impossible. 'Impossibility' is a word coinedby weak people behind which to shelter. Why may I not know your sister?"
Max drew away his arm, not ostentatiously, but with definite purpose.
"Can you not understand without explanation--you, who comprehend sowell?"
"Frankly, I cannot."
"My sister is in Paris secretly. She would think it very ill of me todiscuss her affairs--"
Blake looked quickly into the cold face. "I wonder if she would, boy?"he said. "I think I'll go and see!" With perfect seriousness he steppedback into the studio, struck a match, lighted a candle and walkeddeliberately to the easel, while Max, upon the balcony, held his breathin astonishment.
For long he stood before the portrait; then at last he spoke, and hiswords were as unexpected as his action had been.
"She loves you, boy?" he asked.
"Loves me? Oh, of course!" Max was startled into the reply.
"Then 'twill be all right!" With a touch of finality he blew out hiscandle and came back to the balcony. "It will be all right, or I'm nojudge of human nature! That woman could be as proud as Lucifer where shedisliked or despised, but she'd be all toleration, all generosity whereher love was touched. Tell her I'm your friend and, believe me, she'llask no other passport to her favor."
Max, standing in the darkness--eager of glance, quick of thought,acutely attentive to every tone of Blake's voice--suddenly becamecognizant of his demon of jealousy, felt its subtle stirring in hisheart, its swift spring from heart to throat. A wave of blood surged tohis face and receded, leaving him pale and trembling, but with theintense self-possession sometimes born of such moments, he stepped intothe studio and relighted the candle Blake had blown out.
"Why are you so anxious to know my sister?" His voice was measured--itgave no suggestion either of pleasure or of pain.
Blake, unsuspicious, eager for his own affairs, followed him into theroom.
"I can't define the desire," he said; "I feel that I'd find somethingwonderful behind that face; I feel that"--he paused and laughed alittle--"that somehow I should find _you_ transfigured and idealized andgrown up."
"It is the suggestion of me that intrigues you?"
"I suppose it is--in a subtle way!" He glanced up, to accentuate hiswords, but surprise seized him at sight of the boy's white, passionateface. "Why, Max, boy! What's the matter?"
Max made a quick gesture, sweeping the words aside. "I am not sufficientto you?"
Blake stared. "I don't understand."
"Yet I speak your own tongue! I say 'I am not sufficient to you?' I havegiven you my friendship--my heart and my mind, but I am not sufficientto you? Something more is required--something else--somethingdifferent!"
"Something more? Something different?"
"Yes! In this world it is always the outward seeming! I may have as muchpersonality as my sister Maxine; I may be as interesting, but you do notinquire. Why? Why? Because I am a boy--she a woman!"
Blake, uncertain how to answer this cataract of words, took refuge inbanter.
"Don't be fantastical!" he said. "We are not holding a debate on sex. Ifwe are to be normal, we must declare that man and woman don't compare!"
"Now you are gambling with words! I desire facts. It is a fact thatuntil to-day I was enough--friend enough--companion enough--"
"My child!"
But Max rushed on, lashing himself to rage.
"I was enough; but now you desire more. And why? Why? Not because youdiscern more in the new personality, but because it appeals to you asthe personality of a woman. There is nothing deeper--nothing more in theaffair--no other reason, as you yourself would say, upon God's earth!"He ended abruptly; his arms fell to his sides; his voice held in it asound perilously like a sob.
Blake looked at him in surprise.
"My good boy," he said, "you're forgetting the terms of our friendship;to my knowledge they never included hysterics."
The tonic effect of the words was supreme; the sob was strangled inMax's throat; a swift, pained certainty came to him that Blake would nothave spoken these words in the plantation that morning, would not havespoken them as they raced together up the Escalier de Sainte-Marie.
"I understand, _mon ami_!" he said, tensely. "I understand so perfectlythat, were you dying, and were this request your last, I would refuseit! I hope I have explained myself!"
The tone was bitter and contemptuous, it succeeded in stinging Blake. Upto that moment he had played with the affair; now the play becameearnest, his own temper was stirred.
"Thanks, boy!" he said; "but when I'm dying I'll hope for an archangelto attend to my wants--not a little cherub. Good-night to you!" Withoutlook or gesture of farewell, he picked up his hat and walked out of theroom.
Once before this thing had happened; once before Max had heard theclosing of the door, and known the blank isolation following upon it.But then weeks of close companionship, weeks of growing affection hadpreceded the moment, giving strength for its endurance; now it came hotupon a long abstinence from friendship, an abstinence made doublypoignant by one day's complete reunion.
For a moment he stood--pride upon his right hand, love upon his left;for a moment he stood, waging his secret war, then with amazingsuddenness, the issue was decided, he capitulated shamelessly. Pridemelted into the night and love caught him in a quick embrace.
Lithe and silent as some creature of the forest, he was across thestudio and down the stairs, his mind tense, his desires fixed upon onepoint.
Blake was crossing the dim hallway as the light feet skimmed the lastslippery steps; he paused in answer to a swift, eager call.
"Ned! Ned! Wait! Ned, I want you!"
Blake paused; in the dim light it was not possible to read his face, butsomething in the outline of his figure, in the rigidity and definitenessof his stopping, chilled the boy with a sense of antagonism.
"Ned! Ned!" He ran to him, caught and clung to his arm, put forth allhis wiles.
"Ned, you are angry! Why are you angry?"
"I am not angry; I am disappointed." Some strange wall of coldness, atonce intangible and impenetrable, had risen about Blake. In fear the boybeat vain hands against it.
"You are disappointed, Ned--in me?"
"I am."
"And why? Why?"
"Because you have behaved like a little fool."
In themselves, the words were nothing, but Blake's tone was serious.
"And--because of that--you are disappointed?"
Max's voice undeniably shook; and the fates, peering into the darkhallway, smiled as they pushed the little human comedy nearer the tragicverge.
"I am," answered Blake, with cruel deliberateness. "I thought untilto-night that you were a reasonable being--a bit elusive, perhaps--a bitwayward and tantalizing--but still a reasonable being. Now--"<
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"Now?" Suddenly Max had a sensation of being very small, veryinsignificant; suddenly he had an impression of Blake as a denizen of awider world, where other emotions than laughter and comradeship heldplace--and his heart trembled unreasonably.
"Oh, _mon cher_!" he cried. "Forgive me! Forgive me! Say I am still yourboy! Say it! Say it!"
Truth lent passion to his voice--false passion Blake esteemed it, andthe cold, imaginary wall became more impregnable.
"That'll do, Max! Heroics are no more attractive to me than hysterics.Good-night to you!" He freed his arm and turned to the door.
In the darkness, Max threw out both hands in despairing appeal.
"Ned! Oh, Ned!" he called. But only the sound of Blake's retreatingsteps responded. And here was no merciful intervention of gods andmortals, to make good the evil hour; no pretty, tactful Jacqueline, noM. Cartel with his magic fiddle. Only the dim hall, the lonely stairway,the open door with its vision of cold, pale stars and whispering trees.
His misery was a tangible thing. Like a lost child, obsessed by its ownfears, he bent under the weight of his sorrow; he sank down upon thelowest step of the stairs and, resting his head against the banister,broke into pitiful, silent tears.
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