Max
Page 20
CHAPTER XX
Max passed down the long, low room, blind to the white light, blind tothe flowers and faces, deaf to the voices and laughter and swaying soundof stringed instruments.
One glance he permitted himself--one only--at the table where the manand woman still looked into each other's eyes and where the sheaf ofpink roses still shed its incense: then he passed down the steep, shortstairs, halting at the door of the _cafe_, hesitating between twoatmospheres--outside, the sharp street lights, the cold, wind-sweptpavement--within, the hot air, the close sense of humanity, powerful asa narcotic.
"Ned!" he said, looking back for Blake, "I need a favor. Will you grantit?"
"A hundred!" Blake was buttoning up his coat.
"Then wish me good-night here. I would go home alone."
"Alone? What nonsense! You don't think I'd desert you when you're seedy?What you want is air. We'll take a stroll along the boulevards."
Max shook his head. He seemed rapt in his own thoughts; his pale facewas full of purpose.
"I am quite well--now."
"Then all the more reason for the stroll! Come along!"
But the boy drew away. "Another time! Not to-night."
"Why not?"
"I cannot tell you."
Blake looked more closely at the nervously set lips, the dark eyebrowsdrawn into a frown.
"I say, boy, it hasn't got on your nerves--this place? I know what aqueer little beggar you are."
"No; it is not that."
"Then what? Another inspiration?"
"No."
"Very well! I won't probe. I'm old enough to know that the human animalis inexplicable. Good-night--and good luck! I'll see you to-morrow."
"To-morrow, yes!"
There was relief in the readiness of the response, relief in the quickthrusting forth of the boy's hand.
"Good-night!"
"Good-night! And go to bed when you get home. You're very white."
"Yes."
His voice seemed to recede further into its distant absorbed note, hisfingers were withdrawn from Blake's close pressure with a haste that wasunusual, and turning away, he crossed the boulevard as though the visionof some spectre had lent wings to his feet.
No impression of romance touched him as he hastened up the narrowstreets toward his home. He had no eyes for the secret shadows, themysterious corners usually so fruitful of suggestion; his wholeperceptions were turned inward; his self-consciousness was a thing soliving, so acute that he went forward as one bereft of sight or hearing.
Reaching the foot of the Escalier de Sainte-Marie, he quickened hisalready hurried pace, and began to run up the uneven steps. The door ofhis house stood open, and he plunged into the dark well of the hallwithout waiting to strike a match. By instinct his hand found thesmooth banister, and he began his climb of the stairs.
Up he went, and up, living in himself with that perfect absorption thatcomes in rare and violent moments--moments of sorrow, of pleasure or, itmay be, of surprise, when a new thought suspends the action of thebrain.
In obedience to some unconsidered instinct he softened his steps onreaching the fifth floor, and crept across the bare corridor to the doorof his own rooms.
He entered quietly, and still ignoring the need for light, groped a wayto his bedroom.
It was the room that had once belonged to Madame Salas; and, like thekitchen, it looked upon the network of roofs and chimneys that spreadaway at the rear of the house. Now, as he entered, closed the door, andstood leaning against it, breathing quickly, these roofs and chimneys,seen through the uncurtained window, made a picturesque medley of linesand curves startlingly distinct against the star-powdered sky.
The ethereal light of a Parisian spring night filled the room, touchingthe white walls--the white bed--a bowl of flowers upon thedressing-table and its fairy-like reflection in the mirror--to a subtlyinsidious fragility that verged upon the unreal; and the boy, quiveringto his tangled sensations, felt this unreality quicken hisself-distrust, touch and goad him as a spur.
Physical action became imperative; he walked unsteadily across the room,pulled the serge curtains across the window, abruptly shutting out bothstars and roofs, and turning to the dressing-table, groped for matchesand struck a light.
Four candles stood in an old silver candelabra; he touched them with thematch-flame, they flickered, spat, rose to a steady glow. In the newlight the room looked warmer, more in touch with human things and,moving with the inevitableness of a pendulum, his mind swung to adefinite desire.
Impulse seized him; questions, doubts, fears were submerged; tremblingto a loosed emotion, he ran across the room and bent over his narrowbed.
He was alone now; alone in the absolutely primal sense of the word, whenthe individual ceases to act even to himself. The instinct he had deniedwas dominating him, and he was yielding with a sense of intoxication.
With hands that shook in excitement, he raised the mattress and,searching beneath, drew forth an object--a flat packet, bound andsealed--the packet, in fine, that had lain so deep and snug in thepocket of his overcoat on the night of his entry into Paris.
His hand--his whole body--was trembling as he brought it to light andwalked back to the dressing-table.
There, he pulled forward a chair and sat down before the mirror. For afull minute he sat, as if enchained, then at length--in obedience to theforce that was dominating him--his fingers crept under the string, therecame to the ear a faint, sharp crackle, and the seals broke.
The seals broke, a gasp slipped from between his parted lips, and in hishands lay the symbol of all the imaginings, all the pretty mockerywherewith he purported to cheat nature.
It lay in his hands--a simple thing, potent as simple things ever are.No rare jewel, no state paper, merely the long, thick strands of awoman's hair.
The paper fell away, and he lifted it shakingly to the light.Stiff-coiled from its long imprisonment, it unwound slowly, allowing thecandle-light to filch strange hues from its dark length--glints ofbronze, tinges of copper-color that gleamed elusively from the one end,where it had been roughly clipped from the head, to the other, where itstill curled and twisted into little tendrils like a living thing.
A woman's hair! A weapon old as time--as light, as destructible, aspossessed of subtle powers as woman herself. Strand upon strand, he drewit out, following the glints of light with dazed, questioning eyes.
A woman's hair! A woman's hair, woven to blind men's eyes!
Max leaned forward, quivering to a new impulse, and, raising the heavycoils, twisted them swiftly about his head. With the action, the bloodrushed into his cheeks, a flame of excitement sprang into his eyes and,drawing the candles closer, he peered into the mirror.
There are moments when a retrospective impression is overwhelming--whena scent, a sight, a sound can quicken things dead--things buried out ofmind.
Max looked and, looking, lost himself. The boy with his bravery ofignorance, his frankly arrogant egoism was effaced as might be thewriting from a slate, and in his place was a sexless creature, rarelybeautiful, with parted, tremulous lips and wide eyes in which subtle,crowding thoughts struggled for expression.
He looked, he lost himself, and losing, heard nothing of a sound, faintand undefined, that stole from the region of the outer door--nothing ofa light step in the little hall outside his room. Leaning closer to themirror, still gazing absorbed, he began to twist the short waves of hisown hair more closely into the strands that resembled them so nearly intexture and hue.
It was then, quietly--with the appalling quietude that can appertain toa fateful action--that the handle of the bedroom door clicked, the dooritself opened, and the little Jacqueline--more child than ever in thethroes of a swift amazement--stood revealed, a lighted candle in onehand, in the other a china mug.
At sound of the entry, Max had wheeled round, his hands stillautomatically holding up the strands of hair; at the vision thatconfronted him, a look of rage flashed over his face--the viol
ent,unrestrained rage of the creature taken unawares.
At the look the little Jacqueline quailed, her lips opened and drooped,her right hand was lowered, until the candlestick hung at a perilousangle and the wax began to drip upon the floor.
"Oh!" she cried, "and I thought to find the room empty! _Pardon!Pardon!_ Oh, _pardon, mons--madame!_"