Max

by Katherine Cecil Thurston

  CHAPTER XXIII

  The studio was in darkness; the old leathern arm-chair was drawn closeto the window, and from its capacious depths Blake looked down upon thelights of Paris, while Max, leaning over the balcony, looked upward atthe pale May stars clustering like jewelled flowers in the garden of thesky.

  They had finished dinner--a dinner cooked by Blake in the little kitchenbeyond the hall, and empty coffee-cups testified to a meal enjoyed toits legitimate end. The sense of solitude--of an intimate hour--lay uponthe scene as intangibly and as definitely as did the darkness; but Max,watching the pageant of the stars, resting his light body against theiron railing, was filled with a mental restlessness, the nervousreaction of the day's triumph. More than once he glanced at Blake, alittle gleam of uncertainty flashing in his eyes, and more than once hisglance returned to the sky, as if seeking counsel of its immensity.

  Upon what point was Blake speculating? What were the thoughts at workbehind his silence? The questions tormented him like the flicking of awhip, and he marked with an untoward jealousy the profundity of Blake'scalm--marked it until, goaded by a sudden loneliness, he cried his fearaloud.

  "Ned! You missed me in these weeks?"

  Blake started, giving evidence of a broken dream. "Missed you, boy?" hesaid, quietly. "I didn't know how much I missed you until I saw youagain to-day."

  "And you have made no new friend?"

  "Not a solitary one--man, woman, or child!"

  The reply would have satisfied the most suspicious; and Max gave aquick, deep sigh of relief.

  "Ah! I thank God!"

  In the darkness, Blake smiled, looking indulgently at the youthfulfigure silhouetted against the sky. "Why are you so absurd, boy?" heasked, gently. "Surely, I have proved myself!"

  "Forgive me! I was jealous!" With one of his engaging impulses, the boystraightened himself and came across the balcony. "I am a strangecreature, Ned! I want you altogether for myself--I want to know yousatisfied to be all mine!"

  Blake looked up. "Do you know," he said, irrelevantly and a littledreamily, "do you know that is just the speech I could imagine issuingfrom the lips of your picture! Tell me something of this mysterioussister of yours; I've been patient until now."

  Max drew back into the darkness.

  "Of my sister? There is nothing to tell!"

  "Nonsense! There's always something to tell. It's the sense of a storybehind things that keeps half of us alive. Come! I've spun you many ayarn." With the quiet air of the man who means to have his way, he tookout and lighted a cigar.

  "Come, boy! I'm listening!"

  Max had turned back to the railing, and once more he leaned out into thenight; but now his eyes were for the meshed lights of the city and nolonger for the stars, his restlessness had heightened to excitement, hisheart seemed to beat in his throat. The temptation to make confession,to make confession here, isolated in the midst of the world, with thefriend of his soul for confessor, caught him with the urgency of anembracing gale. To lay himself bare, and yet retain his garments! Hishead swam, as he yielded to the suggestion.

  "There is nothing to tell!" he said again.

  "That's admitted! All the best stories begin that way."

  Max laughed and took a cigarette from his pocket. His nerves weretingling, his blood racing to the thought of the precipice upon which hestood. One false step and the fabric of his existence was imperilled!The adventurer awoke in him alive and alert.

  "She intrigues you, then--Maxine?"

  "Marvellously--as the Sphinx intrigues me! To begin with, why the name?You Max! She Maxine!"

  For an instant Max scanned the dark plantation with knitted brows; thenhe looked over his shoulder with a peculiar smile.

  "We are twins, _mon cher!_" he said, taking secret joy in theelaboration of his lie. "My mother was a Frenchwoman, by name Maxine,and when she died at our birth, my father in his grief bestowed the nameupon us both--the boy and the girl--Max and Maxine!" Very carefully helighted his cigarette. His whole nature was quivering to the dangers ofthis masked confession--this dancing upon the edge of the precipice. "Myfather was a man of ideas!" He carefully threw the match down into therue Mueller.

  "Your father, I take it, was a personage of importance?" Blake wasmomentarily sarcastic.

  "A personage, yes," the boy admitted, "but that is not the point. Thepoint is that he was a man of ideas, who understood the body and thesoul. A man who trained a child in every outdoor sport until it was onewith nature, and then taught it to entrap nature and bend her to theuses of art. He was very great--my father!"

  "He is dead?"

  "Yes; he is dead. He died the year before Maxine married."

  "Ah, she married?" Absurd as it might seem, there was a fleeting shadowof disappointment discernible in Blake's voice.

  "Yes, she married. After my father's death she went to my aunt inPetersburg, and there she forgot both nature and art--and me."

  "And who was the man she married?"

  Max shrugged his shoulders to the ears. "Does it serve any purpose torelate? He was very charming, very accomplished; how was my sister, ateighteen, to know that he was also very callous, very profligate, verycruel? These things happen every day in every country!"

  "Did she love him?" Blake was leaning forward in his chair; he hadforgotten to keep his cigar alight.

  "Love him?" With a vehemence electric as it was unheralded, Max's voicealtered; with the passionate changefulness of the Russian, indifferencewas swept aside, emotion gushed forth. "Love him? Yes, she lovedhim--she, who was as proud as God! She loved him so that all her prideleft her--all the high courage of my father left her--"

  "And he--the man, the husband?"

  "The man?" Max laughed a short, bitter laugh unsuggestive of himself."The man did what every man does, my friend, when a woman lies downbeneath his feet--he spurned her away."

  "But, my God, a creature like that!"

  Again Max laughed. "Yes! That is what you all say of the woman who isnot beneath your own heel! You wonder why I disapprove of love. That isthe reason of my disapproval--the story of my sister Maxine! Maxine whowas as fine and free as a young animal, until love snared her and itsinstrument crushed her."

  "But the man--the husband?" said Blake again.

  "The man? The man followed the common way, dragging her with him--stepby step, step by step--down the sickening road of disillusionment--downthat steep, steep road that is bitter as the Way of the Cross!"

  "Boy!"

  "I shock you? You have not travelled that road! You have not seen themorass at the bottom! You have not seen the creature you loved strippedof every garment that you wove--as has my sister Maxine! You do well tobe shocked. You have not been left with a scar upon your heart; you havenot viewed the last black picture of all--the picture of your beloved asa dead thing--dead over some affair of passion so sordid that evenhorror turns to disgust. You do well to be shocked!"

  "Dead?" repeated Blake, caught by the sound of the word. "He died,then?"

  "He killed himself." Max laughed harshly. "Killed himself when all thewrong was done!"

  "And your sister? Your sister? Where did she go--what did she do?"

  "What does a woman do when she is thrown up like wreckage after thestorm?"

  "She does as her temperament directs. I think your sister would go backto nature--to the great and simple things."

  With a tense swiftness the boy turned from his fixed contemplation ofthe sky, his glance flashing upon Blake.

  "One must be naked and whole to go back to nature! One fears naturewhen one is wreckage from the storm!"

  "Then she turned to art?"

  "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 driedher tears before they had time to fall; she hardened her heart, and wentback to the world that gives nothing and exacts nothing."

  "Poor child!" said Blake. "Poor child!"

  "She went back to the world--an
d the world poured oil on her wounds, andsoothed her fears and taught her its smiling, shallow ways."

  "Poor child!"

  The reiterated word had a curious effect upon the boy; his fiercenessdropped 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 giftsthe 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 toMaxine, and she took it--lightly; then one day her friend the worldbrought for her consideration a suitor more powerful, moredistinguished, 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 isoutside the picture. She took, as I tell you, with both hands, smilingvery wisely to herself, holding her head very high. But when the head isheld too high, the feet sometimes fall into a trap. It camesuddenly--the trapping of my sister Maxine."

  "Yes! Yes! Tell me!"

  "I am telling you, my friend! The date of Maxine's marriage was fixed,and she moved through her world content. One night a great courtfunction was held; she was present, her _fiance_ was present, theatmosphere was all congratulation--like honey and wine. When it wasover, the _fiance_ begged the privilege of escorting her to her home,and they drove together through the cold Russian night. They spokelittle; Maxine's thoughts skimmed lightly over the future, her hands laylightly in her _fiance's_. All was unemotional--all was smooth andundisturbed--until they reached the street where her house stood; then,with the swiftness that belongs to mad moments, the being beside hershowed himself. Quick as a flash of lightning, the dignified,distinguished, unexacting lover was effaced, and in his place was aman--an animal--a passionate egoist! He caught her in his arms, and hisarms were like iron bands; his lips pressed hers, and they were like aflame. In a flash, the fabric of her illusions was scattered. She sawthe truth. The world had cheated her, this second marriage was to be asthe first. Terror seized my sister Maxine--terror of life, terror ofherself. Her false calm broke up, as the ice breaks under the hand ofspring--wells of fear gushed in her heart. She dismissed her lover atthe gateway of her house; he guessed nothing--he knew nothing but thather hands were shaking and that her face was white, but when he was goneshe rushed to her own room, cast off all her jewels, wrapped herself ina fur cloak and commanded her sledge and her swiftest horses."

  "Boy!" cried Blake. "What a situation!"

  "She drove, drove for hours, feeling nothing of the biting cold, seeingnothing of the imprisoning white world about her, goaded by oneidea--the terror of life--the terror of giving herself again--"

  "She fled," cried Blake, with sudden intuition. "She never returned toPetersburg!" He had risen from his chair; he was supremely, profoundlyinterested.

  "She never returned to her own house. Three days after that wild driveshe left Russia--left Russia and came--"

  "To you!" cried Blake. "What a superb situation! She came back toyou--the companion of her youth--to you, adventuring here in your ownodd way! Oh, boy, it's great!"

  "It is strange--yes!" said Max, suddenly curbing himself.

  "Strange? It's stupendous!" Blake caught him by the shoulder, wheelinghim round, looking straight into his face. "Boy! You know what I'm goingto ask? You know what I'm wanting with all my heart and soul?"

  The pressure of his hand was hard; he was the Blake of rare moments--theBlake roused from nonchalant good-nature into urgency of purpose. Maxfelt a doubt, a thin, wavering fear flutter across his mind.

  "_Mon cher_," he stammered, "I do not know. How could I know?"

  "It's this, then! With all my heart and soul I want to know this sisterof yours."