CHAPTER XXX
MAXINE was in high exaltation—the exaltation that makes no count of cost. Yesterday mattered not at all; to-morrow might never dawn! As the outer door closed upon Blake, she turned back into the lighted salon—the little salon of Max's books, of Max's boyish tastes—the little salon loved beyond all rooms in Paris!
In a smiling dream she passed through it, on into the studio where no light was, save the light from a shred of crescent moon that had lately climbed into the sky. It had a curious effect—this bare, white room with its gaunt easel, upon which the portrait still stood, and to superstitious eyes, it might well have suggested a ghost-chamber, peopled by dead thoughts, dead impressions: but Maxine was in no morbid mood, happiness ran too high—too red and warm—to permit of shadows disputing its high place.
Smiling, smiling, she passed from the studio to the bedroom. The room that had witnessed her first weakness; the room that had brought her strength. How infinitely wise had been the conduct of that night! How irrevocably fate had created doubt and dispersed it by inspiration. If she had not twisted her hair about her head—if the little Jacqueline had not entered at the critical moment—if, for that matter, M. Cartel and his friend had not talked late and partaken of bouillon—
She laughed; she wandered round the room, touching, appraising the little familiar trifles associated with that past hour; at last she sat down before her mirror, and there Jacqueline found her ten minutes later, when curiosity could no longer be withheld and she came creeping across the landing for news of the night's doings.
Maxine heard her enter; heard her search the salon and then the studio; finally called to her.
"Jacqueline!"
"Madame!"
The door opened, and Maxine looked round, the smile still upon her lips.
"No soup for me to-night, Jacqueline? Not even tea?"
Jacqueline caught the happy lightness of the tone, and silently nodded her blonde head as she tiptoed into the room.
"Ah, madame has had a banquet of the mind! Madame has no need of my poor food."
Maxine picked up a comb and arranged the tendrils of hair that curled about her temples.
"Jacqueline," she said, after a silence, "what do you consider the highest thing?"
The question might have been astonishing, but her visitor did not betray surprise by even the quiver of an eyelash.
"Love, madame," she said.
And Maxine did not flash round upon her in one of her swift rages, did not even draw her brows together into their frowning line. She merely gazed into the mirror, as if weighing the statement judicially.
"All people do not hold that opinion," she said, at last.
Jacqueline shrugged her shoulders in the exercise of an infinite patience. "No, madame?"
"No. M. Blake talked to-night of 'the highest thing,' and he did not mean love."
"No, madame?" Jacqueline was very guileless.
But guileless as her tone was—nay, by reason of its guilelessness—it touched Maxine in some shadowy corner of her woman's consciousness; and spurred by a subtle, disquieting suggestion, she turned in her chair, and fixed her serious gray eyes upon her visitor.
"What are your thoughts, Jacqueline?"
Jacqueline, taken unawares, deprecated.
"Oh, madame—"
But Maxine was set to her point. "Answer my question," she insisted. "I wish to know. I am, above all things, practical."
It was to Jacqueline's credit that she did not smile, that she simply murmured: "Who doubts it, madame?"
"Yes; I am, above all things, practical. In this affair of the woman, I know exactly where I stand."
The girl made no comment; but even to Maxine's own ears, her declaration left a little suggestion of over-vehemence vibrating in the air; and startled by this suggestion, she did the least wise, the most human thing possible, she accentuated it.
"If I were different—if M. Blake were different, I grant that, perhaps—" She stopped abruptly. "Jacqueline, what are your thoughts?"
"Oh, madame, I have none!"
And here Maxine made a change of front, became very grave, touched the gracious, encouraging note of the being to whom life is an open book.
"You must not say that," she corrected, sweetly. "You always have ideas—even if they are sometimes a little in the air. Come! Tell me. What are your thoughts?"
But Jacqueline was wary, as befitted one who made no pretence of scholarship, but who knew the old human story by heart, and daily recited it to one ardent listener.
"Oh, madame, it is not fitting—"
"Absurd! Tell me."
Jacqueline, hard pressed, sought refuge in a truth.
"My thoughts might displease madame."
Maxine sat straighter in her chair. Here was another matter!
"Ah, so that is it! Well, now I am determined. Now I will have the thoughts at any cost."
When Maxine spoke like this, when her lips closed upon her words, when her eyes rested unflinchingly upon her listener, she was wont to have her questions answered. Jacqueline recognized the moment, saw Maxine in all her proud foolishness, loved her with that swift intermingling of pity and worship that such beings as she inevitably call forth, finally tossed her little head in her most tantalizing manner and laughed.
"With madame's permission," she said, "I will wish her good-night!"
"The permission is not granted."
"Nevertheless, madame!" Her hand was on the door.
"Wait!" cried Maxine, peremptorily. "I have asked you a question and you must answer it."
Jacqueline stopped half-way through the doorway, and looked back, her flower-like face alight with mischief.
"Pardon, madame! 'Must' is the word for the ruler. Lucien says 'must' to me; M. Blake says 'must' to"—she paused, with maddening precision; she dropped a little impertinent curtsy—"to M. Max!"
She tossed the word upon the air, as a child might blow thistle-down; she laughed and was gone, leaving Maxine conscious of a strange new sensation that whipped her to anger and yet, most curiously, left her bereft of words.