"LOOK! THIS IS WHAT I SHALL DO. THIS!"
The action was so abrupt, the offence so real, that it sobered Max. With a sudden collapse of pride, he wheeled round.
"Ned! Oh, Ned!"
But the banging of the outer door was his only answer; and he drew back, his face fallen to a sudden blankness of expression, his hand going out as if for support to the tattered canvas.
Minutes passed—how many or how few he made no attempt to reckon—then a tap fell on the door and his blood leaped, leaped and dropped back to a sick pulsation of disappointment, as the door opened and Jacqueline's fair head appeared.
For an instant a fierce resentment at this new intrusion fired him, then the absorbing need for human sympathy welled up, drowning all else.
"Mademoiselle," he cried out, "I am the most unhappy person in all the world; I have tried to make a picture and failed, and I have quarrelled with my best friend!"
Jacqueline nodded sagely. "That, M. Max, is my excuse for intruding. Of the picture, of course, I know nothing"—she shrugged expressively—"but of the quarrel I understand all—having passed M. Blake upon the stairs!"
At any other moment Max would have resented in swift and explicit terms this probing of his private concerns; but the soreness at his heart was too acute to permit of pride.
"Then you are sorry for me, mademoiselle?"