“Ned!  Ned!” He ran to him, caught and clung to his arm, put forth all his wiles.

“Ned, you are angry!  Why are you angry?”

“I am not angry; I am disappointed.”  Some strange wall of coldness, at once intangible and impenetrable, had risen about Blake.  In fear the boy beat vain hands against it.

“You are disappointed, Ned—­in me?”

“I am.”

“And why?  Why?”

“Because you have behaved like a little fool.”

In themselves, the words were nothing, but Blake’s tone was serious.

“And—­because of that—­you are disappointed?”

Max’s voice undeniably shook; and the fates, peering into the dark hallway, smiled as they pushed the little human comedy nearer the tragic verge.

“I am,” answered Blake, with cruel deliberateness.  “I thought until to-night that you were a reasonable being—­a bit elusive, perhaps—­a bit wayward and tantalizing—­but still a reasonable being.  Now—­”

“Now?” Suddenly Max had a sensation of being very small, very insignificant; suddenly he had an impression of Blake as a denizen of a wider world, where other emotions than laughter and comradeship held place—­and his heart trembled unreasonably.

“Oh, mon cher!” he cried.  “Forgive me!  Forgive me!  Say I am still your boy!  Say it!  Say it!”

Truth lent passion to his voice—­false passion Blake esteemed it, and the cold, imaginary wall became more impregnable.

“That’ll do, Max!  Heroics are no more attractive to me than hysterics.  Good-night to you!” He freed his arm and turned to the door.

In the darkness, Max threw out both hands in despairing appeal.

“Ned!  Oh, Ned!” he called.  But only the sound of Blake’s retreating steps responded.  And here was no merciful intervention of gods and mortals, to make good the evil hour; no pretty, tactful Jacqueline, no M. Cartel with his magic fiddle.  Only the dim hall, the lonely stairway, the open door with its vision of cold, pale stars and whispering trees.

His misery was a tangible thing.  Like a lost child, obsessed by its own fears, he bent under the weight of his sorrow; he sank down upon the lowest step of the stairs and, resting his head against the banister, broke into pitiful, silent tears.

CHAPTER XXV

It was the morning after the reunion—­the morning after the catastrophe, and Blake was breakfasting alone in his rooms.

Typically Parisian rooms they were, rooms that stood closed and silent for more than half the year and woke to offer him a welcome when his wandering footsteps turned periodically toward Paris; typically Parisian, with their long windows and stiffly draped curtains, their marble mantelpieces and gilt-framed mirrors, their furniture arranged with a suggestion of ancient formality that by its very rigidity soothed the eye.