AT ten o'clock, punctual to the moment, Blake walked up the Escalier de Sainte-Marie. All day a curious agitation compounded of elation and impatience had lifted him as upon wings, but now that the hour had arrived, doubt amounting almost to reluctance assailed his spirit. He walked slowly, looking about him as though the way were strange; outside the house in the rue Müller he paused and glanced up at the fifth floor, suddenly daunted, suddenly thrilled by the faint light coming mistily through the open windows of the salon and the studio.
What would she be like—this sister of Max? He strove ineffectually to materialize the portrait, but it eluded him. Only the soul of the woman seemed to have place in his imagination—the soul, seen through the questioning eyes.
Still a victim to the strange, new reticence, he entered the open doorway and began the familiar ascent. Here again the thought of the woman obsessed him. How must this place appear to her? His thoughts touched the varying scenes of Max's story—scenes of the girl's free youth and sumptuous, exotic after-life. None fitted accurately with a rue Müller. Of a certainty she, as well as the boy, must have the adventuring spirit!
His senses stirred, routing his diffidence, and under their spur he ran up the remaining steps, only pausing at the fifth floor as a light voice hailed him out of the dusk, a little flitting figure darted from the shadows, and Jacqueline, brimming with suppressed excitement, caught him by the arm.
"Monsieur Édouard!"
He laughed in recognition and greeting. "Well, Jacqueline! Always the air of the grand secret! Always the air of the little bird that has discovered the topmost bough of the tree! What is it to-night?"
His feelings were running riot; it was agreeable to spend them in badinage. But Jacqueline slapped his hand in reproof.
"No pleasantries, monsieur! The affair is serious."
He smiled; he lowered his voice to the tone of hers. "You have a visitor, then, Jacqueline, to this fifth floor of yours?"
Jacqueline nodded her blonde head, and again her excitement brimmed full measure.