At ten o'clock, punctual to the moment, Blake walked up the Escalier de
Sainte-Marie. All day a curious agitation compounded of elation and
impatience had lifted him as upon wings, but now that the hour had
arrived, doubt amounting almost to reluctance assailed his spirit. He
walked slowly, looking about him as though the way were strange; outside
the house in the rue Müller he paused and glanced up at the fifth floor,
suddenly daunted, suddenly thrilled by the faint light coming mistily
through the open windows of the _salon_ and the studio.
What would she be like--this sister of Max? He strove ineffectually to
materialize the portrait, but it eluded him. Only the soul of the woman
seemed to have place in his imagination--the soul, seen through the
questioning eyes.
Still a victim to the strange, new reticence, he entered the open
doorway and began the familiar ascent. Here again the thought of the
woman obsessed him. How must this place appear to her? His thoughts
touched the varying scenes of Max's story--scenes of the girl's free
youth and sumptuous, exotic after-life. None fitted accurately with a
rue Müller. Of a certainty she, as well as the boy, must have the
adventuring spirit!
His senses stirred, routing his diffidence, and under their spur he ran
up the remaining steps, only pausing at the fifth floor as a light voice
hailed him out of the dusk, a little flitting figure darted from the
shadows, and Jacqueline, brimming with suppressed excitement, caught him
by the arm.
"Monsieur Édouard!"
He laughed in recognition and greeting. "Well, Jacqueline! Always the
air of the grand secret! Always the air of the little bird that has
discovered the topmost bough of the tree! What is it to-night?"
His feelings were running riot; it was agreeable to spend them in
badinage. But Jacqueline slapped his hand in reproof.
"No pleasantries, monsieur! The affair is serious."
He smiled; he lowered his voice to the tone of hers. "You have a
visitor, then, Jacqueline, to this fifth floor of yours?"
Jacqueline nodded her blonde head, and again her excitement brimmed full
measure.
"Monsieur, she is here--the sister of M. Max! The princess!" She
whispered the last word--a whisper delicious, tremulous with the weight
of actual romance.
Blake heard it, and his own heart stirred to a joyous youthful
sensation. It was so naïve, so charming, so absolutely French.
"The princess!" he whispered back in just the expected tone.
"Jacqueline, is she beautiful?"
Jacqueline threw up her hands, invoked heaven with her eyes, earth with
her shrugging shoulders.
"Monsieur, she is ravishing!"
Blake's expressive answer was to put her gently aside and step toward
Max's door.
But she was after him with a little cry. "Monsieur, not yet! I must
deliver my message! The message of M. Max!"
"Of M. Max?"
"But yes, monsieur!" Her hands, her whole body expressed apology and
eager explanation. "M. Max has been called away--upon a business of much
importance. M. Max desires his profoundest, his most affectionate
excuses--and will monsieur place him under a debt never possible of
repayment by entering the _appartement_--by entertaining the princess
during his absence?"
Blake stared "In the name of Heaven--"
But Jacqueline's white hands again made free with his arm.
"Monsieur, Heaven will arrange! Heaven is bountiful in these affairs!"
"But I don't understand. He has gone upon business, you say? He never
had any business."
Jacqueline laughed and clapped her hands. "Do not be too sure, monsieur!
He is growing up, is M. Max!" She gave another little twittering laugh
of sheer delight.
"Come, monsieur! The princess is alone. It is not gallant to keep a lady
waiting!"
"But you don't understand, Jacqueline. It is impossible--impossible that
I should intrude--"
"It is no intrusion, monsieur! I have explained everything to
madame--and she expects you!" She flitted past him to the door, threw it
open and dropped him a pretty, impertinent curtsy.
"Now, monsieur!" she commanded; and Blake, half amused, half resentful,
saw nothing for it but to obey.
He stepped across the threshold; he heard Jacqueline laugh again softly
and close the door; then he stood, a prey to profound trepidation.
He stood for a moment, hesitating between flight and advance, then shame
at his weakness forced him to go forward and open the _salon_ door.
As he opened it, another change took place within him; his diffidence
forsook him, his excitement was allayed as, by a restraining hand, he
was dominated by a peculiar clarity of vision.
This accentuated keenness of observation came into action even in a
material sense; as he passed into the familiar room, each object
appealed to him in its appointed place--in its just and proper value.
The quaint odd articles of furniture that he and Max had chosen in
company! The pictures that he had hung upon the white walls at Max's
bidding! The Russian _samovar_, the books, the open cigarette-box, each
of which spoke and breathed of Max!
Every object came to him clearly in the quiet light of the lamp upon the
bureau; it seemed like the setting of a play, where the atmosphere had
been carefully created, the details definitely woven into a perfect
chain.
He stood, looking upon the silent room, wondering what would
happen--convinced that something must happen; and at last, with the same
quietness--the same intense naturalness, perfect as extreme art--a
slight sound came from the balcony and a woman stepped into the subdued
light.
She stepped into the quiet lamplight and paused; and Blake's first
subconscious feeling was that, miraculously, the empty room had taken on
life and meaning--that this sudden, gracious presence filled and
possessed it absolutely and by right divine.
She seemed very tall as she stood looking down into the room, her rich
hair crowning her head, her young figure clothed in white and wrapped in
a cloak of soft mysterious gray that fell from her shoulders simply, yet
with the dignity of a royal mantle.
She stood for a full minute, looking at him, almost it seemed sharing
his own uncertainty; then, with a little gesture that irresistibly
conjured Max, she stepped into the room--and into his life.
"Monsieur," she said, very softly, "I am the sister of Max; you are his
friend. It is surely meant that we know each other!"