He rose slowly and began to walk toward the easel, but with a cry the boy ran forward and intercepted him.
"No! No! No! It is bad, I tell you—you must not see. Look! This is what I shall do. This!" He turned and, swift as lightning, snapped up a knife, and before Blake could find a gesture or a word, ripped his canvas from end to end.
"Upon my word! Well, upon my word! There's an extravagant young devil! Why, in the name of God, would you destroy your canvas like that?"
"Why? Because, my friend, I am I! I do not work again upon a thing that I have marred!" His voice shook, trembling between excited laughter and tears.
Blake looked at him. "Bless my soul, if he isn't crying! Come here to me! You're a baby!"
But Max turned on him, so furious that the hot anger in his eyes scorched the tears that hung there.
"A baby? This much a baby, that I love my work so truly that I have set it upon an altar and made it my religion! And when I find, as to-day, that it fails me I am damned—my soul is lost!"
"And why does it fail you—to-day?"
"I do not know!"
"Is that the truth?"