Any one popping into the little room and seeing him leaning back in that easy-chair, with a far-away, dreamy look in his half-closed eyes, and a rapt expression on his face, would have found it hard to believe that he was capable of the side he had shown shortly before.
To say the least, he must have been a curious combination of the poetic and the matter of fact, of the dreamer and the doer, otherwise that revolver in his pocket, for instance, was decidedly out of place.
Such was the case, and, moreover, the man had had many ups and downs, which his pretty wife had shared.
The latter was an American girl, who had married him some five years before, and who now—because funds were low—had returned to her former calling. In other words, she was back on the stage, in the chorus of a Broadway production.
Elaine Stowe was the name by which she was professionally known.
Max was a most devoted husband, and never allowed his young wife to return from the theater alone. As a rule, he left the flat about half past ten, and was waiting at the stage door when Elaine came out.
To-night, however, he was so absorbed in his mandolin—and in other things—that he forgot all about the flight of time, and he was positively amazed when the door opened and there walked into the room a remarkably attractive and well-formed young woman, cheaply but effectively dressed, with an innocent, babyish face lighted by a pair of big blue eyes.
“Elaine!” he ejaculated, jumping up and laying his instrument aside. “Why are you home so early to-night?”
“Early!” the girl echoed with a laugh, unbuttoning her gloves. “Do you call half past eleven early?”
“Never!” he cried, dragging out his watch. “By George, so it is! What a thoughtless brute I am to let you come home alone. I fully intended to come for you as usual, but I just sat down to play for an hour, and the combination of the music and my plans for the future made me forget everything else.”