Laughing like a couple of children, they ran up the Escalier de Sainte-Marie, smiled upon indulgently by the careless passers-by, and entering the house, the race was continued up the polished stairs.
At the door of the appartement Max came level with Blake, his face glowing with excitement, his laughter broken by quick breaths.
"Oh, Ned, no! No! You must not enter! I am to go first. I have arranged it all. Ned, please!" He pulled Blake back and, opening the door, passed into the little hall and on into the bare, bright studio.
To Blake, following closely, the scene bore a striking resemblance to another scene—to the occasion upon which Max had blocked in, and then destroyed, his cabaret picture—save that now the light was no longer the silvery light of spring, but the pale gold radiance of a youthful summer.
The impression came, but the impression was summarily erased, for as he crossed the threshold, Max flew to him, his exuberance suddenly dead, the trepidation of the artist enveloping him again, chasing the blood from his cheeks.
"Oh, Ned! Dear Ned! If it is bad?" He caught and clung to Blake's arm, restraining him forcibly. "Do not look! Wait one moment! Just one little moment!"
Very gently Blake disengaged the clinging hands. "What a child he is, after all! He shuts himself away and works like a galley-slave and then, when the moment of justification comes—! Nonsense, boy! I'm not a critic. Let me see!"
As in a dream, Max saw him walk round the easel and pause full in front of it; in an agony of apprehension, a quaking eagerness, he lived through the moment of silence; then at Blake's first words the blood rushed singing to his ears.
"It's extraordinary! But who is it?"
"Extraordinary? Extraordinary?" In a wild onset of emotion, Max caught but the one word. "Does that mean good—or does it mean bad? Oh, mon cher, all that I have put into that picture! Speak! Speak! Be cruel! It is all wrong? It is all bad?"