Of all the ills that circumstance forces upon man, separation from a
beloved object is, perhaps, the most salutary. Separation is the
crucible wherein love undergoes the test absolute; in the fire of loss,
grief softens to indifference or hardens to enduring need.
The pale blue sky of May smiled upon Montmartre. The shrubs in the
plantation shimmered forth in green garments, the news-vender by the
gate, the little old Basque peasant woman telling her beads in the shade
of a holly-tree, even the children screaming at play on the gravelled
pathway, were touched with the charm of the hour. Or so it seemed to
Max--Max, _debonair_ of carriage--Max, hastening to a _rendezvous_ with
fast-beating heart and nerves that throbbed alternately to a wild joy of
anticipation and a ridiculous, self-conscious dread.
How he had counted upon the moment! How he had loved and feared it in
ardent, varying imagination! And now, that it had at last arrived, how
hopelessly his prearranged actions eluded him, how humanly his rehearsed
sentences failed to marshal themselves for speech! As he climbed up the
plantation, dazzled by the sun, intoxicated by the budding summer, he
felt the merest unsophisticated youth--the merest novice, dumb and
impotent under his own emotions.
Then, suddenly, all self-distrust--even all self-consciousness--was reft
from him and he stood quite still, the blood burning his face, a
strange sensation contracting his throat.
"At last! After a hundred thousand years!"
The first impression that fled across his mind was the intense
familiarity of Blake's voice--the delightful familiarity of Blake's
phrasing; the second, the brimming joy of regained companionship.
"_Mon ami! Cher ami!"_
His hands went out and were caught in Blake's; and all existence became
a mirror to the blue, smiling sky.
No further word was said; Blake took possession of his arm in the old,
accustomed fashion, and silently--in that silence which makes speech
seem poor--they turned and began to pace up and down the gravelled path.
There was nothing beautiful in the plantation of the Sacré-Coeur; the
shrubs, for all their valor of green, were slight things if one thought
of forest trees, the grass was a mere pretence of grass. But the human
mind is a great magician, weaving glories from within, and neither Blake
nor Max had will for anything but the moment set precisely as it was.
For the gift of the universe, Blake could not have told why the mere
holding of the boy's arm, the mere regulating of his pace to his, filled
him with such satisfaction; nor, for the same magnificent bribe, could
Max have explained the glow--the all-sufficing sense of fulfilment, born
of the physical contact.
For long they paced up and down, wrapped in their cloak of content; then
some look, some movement brought the world back, and Blake paused.
"What a selfish brute I am! What about the work? Tell me, is it done?"
Max looked up, the sun discovering the little flecks of gold in his gray
eyes; Max laughed from sheer happiness.
"_Mon ami!_ But absolutely I had forgotten! Figure it to yourself! I
came out of the house, hot and cold for my poor picture, and immediately
we met--" He laughed again. "_Mon ami_! What a compliment to you!"
"It is done then--the great work?"
"Yes; it is finished."
"Then I must see it this minute--this minute--this very minute!"
The definiteness of the tone was like the clasp of the arm, and Max
glowed anew. By a swift, emotional effort, he conjured up the longings
that had preyed upon him in his self-imposed solitude--conjured them for
the sheer joy of feeling them evaporate before reality.
"It awaits you, _mon ami_!" He made a sweeping gesture, as though he
laid the world at his friend's feet. And Blake, noting this, noted also
with an odd little sense of gratification, that Max's English was a
trifle more halting--a trifle more stilted for the break in their
companionship.
Still arm in arm, they passed down the sloping pathway to the gate,
where the children still played shrilly and the old Basque peasant still
drowsed over her rosary beads. As they passed her, Blake put his hand in
his pocket and slipped a silver coin into her fingers.
"They're so like my own people--these Basque peasants!" he said, by way
of excuse. "They always give me a warm feeling about the heart."
The old woman looked up surprised, and both were attracted by the
picture she made against the dark holly-trees--- the brown withered
face, the astonishingly bright eyes like the eyes of a bird, the spare,
bent figure with its scrupulous cleanliness of dress.
"The blessing of the good God rest upon you, monsieur!" she said,
solemnly. "And may He provide you with your heart's desire!"
"And for me, _bonne mère_?" Max broke in. "What for me?"
The small bright eyes scanned the young face thoughtfully. "The good
God, monsieur, will take you where He means that you should go!" Her
thin lips closed, and she fell again to the telling of her beads, her
inner vision doubtless weaving the scenes of her youth--the grave brown
hills and sounding sea of her native country.
"For the moment it would seem that the good God points a way to the
studio!" said Max, as they turned away. "_Mon ami_, I burn and tremble
at once! Suppose it is of no use--my picture?" He stopped suddenly by
the gate, to gaze with unpremeditated consternation at Blake; and Blake,
touched by the happy familiarity of the action, laughed aloud.
"The same Max!" he cried. "The same, same Max! It's like turning back to
the first page of my little book. Come along! I have spirit for anything
to-day--even to tell you that you've made a failure. Come along, boy!
It's a great world, when all's said and done! Come along! I'll race you
up the steps!"
Laughing like a couple of children, they ran up the Escalier de
Sainte-Marie, smiled upon indulgently by the careless passers-by, and
entering the house, the race was continued up the polished stairs.
At the door of the _appartement_ Max came level with Blake, his face
glowing with excitement, his laughter broken by quick breaths.
"Oh, Ned, no! No! You must not enter! I am to go first. I have arranged
it all. Ned, please!" He pulled Blake back and, opening the door, passed
into the little hall and on into the bare, bright studio.
To Blake, following closely, the scene bore a striking resemblance to
another scene--to the occasion upon which Max had blocked in, and then
destroyed, his _cabaret_ picture--save that now the light was no longer
the silvery light of spring, but the pale gold radiance of a youthful
summer.
The impression came, but the impression was summarily erased, for as he
crossed the threshold, Max flew to him, his exuberance suddenly dead,
the trepidation of the artist enveloping him again, chasing the blood
from his cheeks.
"Oh, Ned! Dear Ned! If it is bad?" He caught and clung to Blake's arm,
restraining him forcibly. "Do not look! Wait one moment! Just one little
moment!"
Very gently Blake disengaged the clinging hands. "What a child he is,
after all! He shuts himself away and works like a galley-slave and then,
when the moment of justification comes--! Nonsense, boy! I'm not a
critic. Let me see!"
As in a dream, Max saw him walk round the easel and pause full in front
of it; in an agony of apprehension, a quaking eagerness, he lived
through the moment of silence; then at Blake's first words the blood
rushed singing to his ears.
"It's extraordinary! But who is it?"
"Extraordinary? Extraordinary?" In a wild onset of emotion, Max caught
but the one word. "Does that mean good--or does it mean bad? Oh, _mon
cher_, all that I have put into that picture! Speak! Speak! Be cruel! It
is all wrong? It is all bad?"
"Don't be a fool!" said Blake, harshly. "You know it's good. But who is
it? That's what I'm asking you. Who is it?"
Heedless, unstrung--half laughing, half crying--Max ran across the room.
"Oh, _mon ami_, how you terrified me--I thought you had condemned it!"
But Blake's eyes were for the picture; the portrait of a woman seated at
a mirror--a portrait in which the delicate reflected face looked out
from its shadowing hair with a curious questioning intentness, a
fascinating challenge at once elusive and vital.
"Who is it?"
He spoke low and with a deliberate purpose; and at his tone recklessness
seized upon Max.
"A woman, _mon ami_! Just a woman!" He stiffened his shoulders, threw up
his head, like a child who would dare the universe.
"Yes, but what woman?" With amazing suddenness Blake swung round and
fixed a searching glance upon him. "She's the living image of you--but
you with such a difference--"
He stopped as swiftly as he had begun, and in the silence Max quailed
under his glance. Out of the unknown, fear assailed him; it seemed that
under this mastering scrutiny his mask must drop from him, his very
garments be rent. In sudden panic his thought skimmed possibilities like
a circling bird and lighted upon the first-found point of safety.
"She is my sister," he said, in a voice that shook a little. "She is my
sister--Maxine."
Blake's eyes still held his.
"But you never said you had a sister."
Max seized upon his bravado, flinging it round him as a garment.
"_Mon ami_," he cried, "we are not all as confiding as you! Besides, it
is not given to us all to possess five aunts, seven uncles, and
twenty-four first cousins! If I have but one sister, may I not guard her
as a secret?"
He spoke fast; his eyes flashed with the old light, half pleading, half
impertinent, his chin was lifted with the old defiant tilt. The effect
was gained. Blake's severity fell from him, and with a quick gesture of
affection he caught him by the shoulder.
"I'm well reproved!" he said. "Well reproved! 'Twas quite the right way
of telling me to mind my own affairs. And if she were _my_ sister--" He
turned again to the picture, but as his eyes met the mirrored eyes with
their profound, inscrutable look, his words broke off unaccountably.
"Yes, _mon ami_? If she were your sister--?" Max, with eager, stealthy
glance, was following his expressions.
But he did not answer; he stood lost in contemplation, speculating, he
knew not why, upon the question in the mirrored face.