"No, my friend! No! Art, like nature, exacts—and she had already given! She was too frightened—too hurt to meddle with great things. She dried her tears before they had time to fall; she hardened her heart, and went back to the world that gives nothing and exacts nothing."
"Poor child!" said Blake. "Poor child!"
"She went back to the world—and the world poured oil on her wounds, and soothed her fears and taught her its smiling, shallow ways."
"Poor child!"
The reiterated word had a curious effect upon the boy; his fierceness dropped from him; he turned again to the railing and, looking upward, seemed to drench himself in the coolness of the starlight.
"For years she lived her shallow life. She took lightly the light gifts the world offered; among those gifts was love—"
"Stop!" cried Blake, involuntarily. "You are tarnishing the picture!"
"I am only painting in crude colors! Much love was offered lightly to Maxine, and she took it—lightly; then one day her friend the world brought for her consideration a suitor more powerful, more distinguished, even less exigent than the rest—"
"Stop! Stop!" cried Blake, again. "I can't see her as this hard woman. She frightens me!"
"She has sometimes frightened me," said Max, enigmatically, "but that is outside the picture. She took, as I tell you, with both hands, smiling very wisely to herself, holding her head very high. But when the head is held too high, the feet sometimes fall into a trap. It came suddenly—the trapping of my sister Maxine."