At the sound of the stormy entry she merely raised her head; but at sight of her visitor, she was on her feet in an instant, the heap of muslin flowing in a blue cascade from her lap to the floor.
"Madame!"
"Hide me!" cried Maxine.
"Madame!"
"Lock the outer door! And if M. Blake should knock—"
Jacqueline made no further comment. When a visitor's face is blanched and her limbs tremble as did those of Maxine, the Jacquelines of this world neither question nor hesitate. She went across the room without a word, and the key clicked in the lock.
Maxine was standing in the middle of the room when Jacqueline returned; her body was still quivering, her nostrils fluttering, her fingers twisting and intertwisting in an excess of emotion; and at sight of the familiar little figure, words broke from her with the fierceness of a freed torrent.
"Jacqueline! You see before you a mad woman! A mad woman—and one filled with the fear of her madness! They say the insane are mercifully oblivious. It is untrue!" She almost cried the last words and, turning, began a swift pacing of the room.
"Madame!" Jacqueline caught her breath at her own daring. "Madame, you know at last, then, that he loves you?"
Maxine stopped and her burning eyes fixed themselves upon the girl. This speech of Jacqueline's was a breach of all their former relations, but her brain had no room for pride. She was grappling with vital facts.