CHAPTER XXXII
PERFECT self-deception can be a rare, almost a precious thing, ranking with all absurd, delightful faiths from the child's sweet certainty of fairydom to the enthusiast's belief in the potency of his own star.
Maxine, in her little white bedroom, arraying herself for Blake, was wrapped in a cloud of illusion, translated to a sphere above the common earth by this magic blindness. Never again while life lasted was she to stand as she stood to-night, eyes searching her mirror with perfect steadfast sincerity, lips parted in breathless joy of confidence. Never again! But for the moment the illusion was complete. She saw the triumphing soul of Max glimmer through her own fair body, saw the boy's faith carried like a banner in her woman's hands.
Her dressing was a tremulous affair, tinged with a fine excitement. Again she clothed herself in the soft white dress, the long gray cloak of former meetings; but, banishing the willing Jacqueline, she coiled her hair with her own hands and last, most significant touch, pinned a white rose at her breast.
It was the night of nights! No need to assure herself of the fact; the knowledge sang in her blood, burned in her cheeks. The night of nights! When Maxine would receive the soul of Blake and place it, mystic and sacramental, in the keeping of Max!
The folly of the affair, the naivety of it, made for tears as well as smiles; and Maxine, glowing to the eternal, aspiring flame, looked her last into the little mirror that had so carefully preserved its secrets, and passed across the hall to the salon, where the night stretched beckoning, velvet fingers through the open window.
Young, luxurious summer palpitated through the dusk, fanning the ardor in her heart. She ran forward, drawn by its allurement; then, all at once, she stopped, her hand flying to her heart, her breath suspended in a little cry of surprise. Blake had slipped unheard into the appartement, and was awaiting her on the balcony.
At her cry, he turned—wheeled round toward her—and his eyes scanned her surprised, betraying face.
"You are glad!" he cried, in sudden self-expression. "You are glad to see me!" The words were hot as they were abrupt, they seared her with their swiftness and their conviction, they were as a raiding army before which all ramparts fell. Mentally, morally, she felt herself sway until preconceived ideas drifted to and fro, weeds upon a tide.
"Yes," she answered, scarcely aware of her own voice. "I am glad."
Where now were the subtle ways, the divers interlacing paths wherein Maxine was to pursue her chase, delivering her quarry into the hands of Max? Where were the barbed and potent shafts whereby that capture was to be achieved? All had vanished into the night; she stood before her intended victim unarmed, ungirt, and—miracle of miracles—undismayed!
She and Blake confronted each other. Their lips were dumb, but their looks embraced. Fate—life—was in the air, in the myriad voices of the night, the myriad pulses of their bodies, the myriad thoughts that wheeled and flashed within their brains.
This knowledge rushed in upon her swimming senses, upon eyes suddenly opened, ears suddenly made free of the music of the spheres; and her hand—the hand that had first girded on her boy's attire—went out to Blake like that of any girl.
It was nature's signal, stronger in its frailty than any attained art of woman; and he answered to it as man has ever answered—ever will answer.
"Oh, my love!" he cried. "My love!" And his arms went round her.
It is sacrilege to attempt analysis of birth or love or death. Death and birth, the mysteries! Love, the revelation! Man, as he has existed through all time, had being in Blake's embrace; woman, as she has been from the first, lived in Maxine's leap of the heart, her leap of the spirit as the ecstasy of his touch thrilled her. Here was no coldness; here was no sensuality. Divinity manifested itself, no longer above, but within them. The lights in the sky were divine, but so were the lights of the town. Divinity fired their souls, merging each in each; but as truly it fired their clasping hands, their lips trembling to kiss.
Maxine—removed by fabulous distances from Max, from the studio, from all accepted things—breathed her wonderment in an unconscious appeal.
"Speak to me!"
And Blake, awed and enraptured, whispered his answer.
"There is nothing to say that you do not know. I worship you. I bent my knee and kissed the hem of your garment the first moment it brushed my path. There is nothing to say that you do not know. I have waited all my life for this."
"All your life?"
"All my life. But love is not reckoned by time. One dreams—and one wakes."
"You dreamed—" She closed her eyes, her ears drank in the cadences of his voice.
"Always! As a child, I dreamed over my play; as a boy, I dreamed over my books—and as a man, over my loves. I was never in love with woman—always in love with love."
"And now?"
"I am awake—I have come into my inheritance! My love! My love!" It was an instant of intense sensation. She could feel the beating of his heart; his fingers and hers were interlaced. "Maxine! Open your eyes! Look at me!"
Obediently—any woman to any man—she opened them and met his gaze.
"You know? You understand?"
She stood rigid, her eyes wide, her nostrils dilated—a creature swaying upon the verge of an abyss, contemplating a plunge into space.
"Maxine!" he said again. "Maxine!"
It was the primitive human cry. She heard and acknowledged it in every fibre of her being; she drew a swift, sharp breath, then, with a free gesture, cast her arms about his neck.
"Ned! Ned! Say again that you love me! Say it a thousand, say it a million times and for every time you say it, I will tell you twice that I love you."
Passion, intoxication sped the words, and Blake's mouth, closing upon hers, broke the ecstasy of speech.
"I love you! I worship you! You are my life. You are myself."
Reality vibrated through his speech; and Maxine, hearing, lost herself. With arms still clasped about him, she leaned her body backward, gazing into his face.
"Again! Say it again!"
"You are my life! We are one! Maxine! Maxine!" His glance burned her, his arms were close about her. With a sudden ardent movement, she caught his face between her hands, drew it down, and kissed it full upon the mouth, not once but many times, fiercely, closely; then, with a little cry, inarticulate as the cry of an animal, she freed herself and fled through the salon, through the hall and out upon the landing, the door of the appartement closing behind her.