“Frankly, I cannot.”

“My sister is in Paris secretly.  She would think it very ill of me to discuss her affairs—­”

Blake looked quickly into the cold face.  “I wonder if she would, boy?” he said.  “I think I’ll go and see!” With perfect seriousness he stepped back into the studio, struck a match, lighted a candle and walked deliberately to the easel, while Max, upon the balcony, held his breath in astonishment.

For long he stood before the portrait; then at last he spoke, and his words were as unexpected as his action had been.

“She loves you, boy?” he asked.

“Loves me?  Oh, of course!” Max was startled into the reply.

“Then ’twill be all right!” With a touch of finality he blew out his candle and came back to the balcony.  “It will be all right, or I’m no judge of human nature!  That woman could be as proud as Lucifer where she disliked or despised, but she’d be all toleration, all generosity where her love was touched.  Tell her I’m your friend and, believe me, she’ll ask no other passport to her favor.”

Max, standing in the darkness—­eager of glance, quick of thought, acutely attentive to every tone of Blake’s voice—­suddenly became cognizant of his demon of jealousy, felt its subtle stirring in his heart, its swift spring from heart to throat.  A wave of blood surged to his face and receded, leaving him pale and trembling, but with the intense self-possession sometimes born of such moments, he stepped into the studio and relighted the candle Blake had blown out.

“Why are you so anxious to know my sister?” His voice was measured—­it gave no suggestion either of pleasure or of pain.

Blake, unsuspicious, eager for his own affairs, followed him into the room.

“I can’t define the desire,” he said; “I feel that I’d find something wonderful behind that face; I feel that”—­he paused and laughed a little—­“that somehow I should find you transfigured and idealized and grown up.”

“It is the suggestion of me that intrigues you?”

“I suppose it is—­in a subtle way!” He glanced up, to accentuate his words, but surprise seized him at sight of the boy’s white, passionate face.  “Why, Max, boy!  What’s the matter?”

Max made a quick gesture, sweeping the words aside.  “I am not sufficient to you?”

Blake stared.  “I don’t understand.”

“Yet I speak your own tongue!  I say ‘I am not sufficient to you?’ I have given you my friendship—­my heart and my mind, but I am not sufficient to you?  Something more is required—­something else—­something different!”

“Something more?  Something different?”

“Yes!  In this world it is always the outward seeming!  I may have as much personality as my sister Maxine; I may be as interesting, but you do not inquire.  Why?  Why?  Because I am a boy—­she a woman!”

Blake, uncertain how to answer this cataract of words, took refuge in banter.