CHAPTER XXXIII
The door of her _appartement_ closed behind Maxine, and she turned,swift as a coursed hare, to the door of M. Cartel.
No hesitation touched her; she needed sanctuary; sanctuary she musthave. She opened her neighbor's door, careless of what might lie behind,bringing with her into the quiet rooms a breath of fierce disorder.
The living-room, with its piano and its homely chairs and table, waslighted by a common lamp; and the little Jacqueline, the only occupant,sat in the radius of the light, peacefully sewing at a blue muslin gownthat was to adorn a Sunday excursion into the country.
At the sound of the stormy entry she merely raised her head; but atsight of her visitor, she was on her feet in an instant, the heap ofmuslin 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 blanchedand her limbs tremble as did those of Maxine, the Jacquelines of thisworld neither question nor hesitate. She went across the room without aword, 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 fingerstwisting and intertwisting in an excess of emotion; and at sight of thefamiliar little figure, words broke from her with the fierceness of afreed torrent.
"Jacqueline! You see before you a mad woman! A mad woman--and one filledwith the fear of her madness! They say the insane are mercifullyoblivious. 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, youknow at last, then, that he loves you?"
Maxine stopped and her burning eyes fixed themselves upon the girl. Thisspeech of Jacqueline's was a breach of all their former relations, buther brain had no room for pride. She was grappling with vital facts.
"I know at last that he loves me?" she repeated, confusedly.
"That he loves you, madame; that, unknowingly, he has always loved you.How else could he have treated Monsieur Max so sacredly--almost as hemight have treated his own child?"
But Maxine was not dealing in psychological subtleties.
"Love!" she cried out. "Love! All the world is in a conspiracy over thislove!"
"Because love is the only real thing, madame."
"Perhaps! But not the love of which you speak. The love of the soul, butnot the love of the body!"
"Madame, can one truly give the soul and refuse the body? Is not theinstinct of love to give all?"
The little Jacqueline spoke her truth with a frail confidence verytouching to behold. She was a child of the people, her sole weaponsagainst the world were a certain blonde beauty, a certain engagingyouthfulness; but she looked Maxine steadfastly in the eyes, meetingthe anger, the scorn, the fear compassed in her glance.
"I know the world, madame; it is not a pretty place. When I was sixteenyears old, I left my parents because it called to me--and in thedistance its voice was pleasant. I left my home; I had lovers." Sheshrugged her shoulders with an extreme philosophy. "I triedeverything--except love. Then--I met Lucien!" Her philosophy mergedcuriously to innocence, almost to the soft innocence of a child. "I ranaway again, madame; I fled to Lize." She paused. "Poor Lize! She has agood heart! That was the night at the Bal Tabarin. That night Lucienopened his arms, and I flung myself into them."
She spoke with perfect artlessness, ignorant of a world other than herown, innocent of a moral code other than that which she followed.
Once again, as on the day she had first visited the _appartement_ andmade acquaintance with the old painter and his wife, dread of somemysterious force filled Maxine. What marvellous power was this thatcould smile secure at poverty and oblivion--that could cast a halo oftrue emotion over a Bal Tabarin?
"It is not true!" she cried out, in answer to herself.
"Not true, madame? Why did I choose Lucien, who is nothing to lookupon--who is an artist and penniless?"
She ran across to Maxine; she caught her by the shoulders.
"Oh, madame! How beautiful you are--and how blind! You bandage youreyes, and you tighten the knot. Oh, my God, if I could but open it foryou!"
"And reduce me to kisses and folly and tears?"
"One may drift into heaven on a kiss!" Jacqueline's voice was like someprecious metal, molten and warm.
"Or one may slip into hell! Do you think I have not known what it is tokiss? It was from a kiss I fled to-night."
Her tone was fervent as it was reckless, and Jacqueline stood aghast.The entire denial of love was comprehensible to her, if inexplicable;but her mind refused this problem of realization and rejection.
"Madame--" she began, quickly, but she paused on the word, listening;the sound of Max's door opening and closing came distinctly to the ear,followed by a footstep descending the stairs. "Monsieur Edouard!" shewhispered, finger on lip.
Maxine, also, had heard, and a look of relief broke the tension of herexpression.
"He is gone. That is well!"
Something in her look, in her voice startled Jacqueline anew.
"Why do you speak like that, madame? Why do you look so cold?"
"I am sane again, Jacqueline."
"And Monsieur Edouard? Is he sane, I wonder? Is he cold? Oh, madame, heloves you!"
"I am going to prove his love."
"But, madame! Oh, madame, love isn't a matter of proving; it is anaffair of giving--giving--giving with all the heart."
"Trust me, Jacqueline! I understand. Good-night!"
Jacqueline framed no word, but her eyes spoke many things.
"Say good-night, Jacqueline! Forget that you have entertained a madwoman!"
"Good-night, madame!"
But the little Jacqueline, left alone, shook her head many times,leaving her heap of blue muslin neglected upon the floor.
"Poor child!" she said softly to herself. "Poor child! Poor child!"
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