"Forgive me! I was jealous!" With one of his engaging impulses, the boy straightened himself and came across the balcony. "I am a strange creature, Ned! I want you altogether for myself—I want to know you satisfied to be all mine!"
Blake looked up. "Do you know," he said, irrelevantly and a little dreamily, "do you know that is just the speech I could imagine issuing from the lips of your picture! Tell me something of this mysterious sister of yours; I've been patient until now."
Max drew back into the darkness.
"Of my sister? There is nothing to tell!"
"Nonsense! There's always something to tell. It's the sense of a story behind things that keeps half of us alive. Come! I've spun you many a yarn." With the quiet air of the man who means to have his way, he took out and lighted a cigar.
"Come, boy! I'm listening!"
Max had turned back to the railing, and once more he leaned out into the night; but now his eyes were for the meshed lights of the city and no longer for the stars, his restlessness had heightened to excitement, his heart seemed to beat in his throat. The temptation to make confession, to make confession here, isolated in the midst of the world, with the friend of his soul for confessor, caught him with the urgency of an embracing gale. To lay himself bare, and yet retain his garments! His head swam, as he yielded to the suggestion.
"There is nothing to tell!" he said again.
"That's admitted! All the best stories begin that way."
Max laughed and took a cigarette from his pocket. His nerves were tingling, his blood racing to the thought of the precipice upon which he stood. One false step and the fabric of his existence was imperilled! The adventurer awoke in him alive and alert.