“What are your thoughts, Jacqueline?”

Jacqueline, taken unawares, deprecated.

“Oh, madame—­”

But Maxine was set to her point.  “Answer my question,” she insisted.  “I wish to know.  I am, above all things, practical.”

It was to Jacqueline’s credit that she did not smile, that she simply murmured:  “Who doubts it, madame?”

“Yes; I am, above all things, practical.  In this affair of the woman, I know exactly where I stand.”

The girl made no comment; but even to Maxine’s own ears, her declaration left a little suggestion of over-vehemence vibrating in the air; and startled by this suggestion, she did the least wise, the most human thing possible, she accentuated it.

“If I were different—­if M. Blake were different, I grant that, perhaps—­” She stopped abruptly.  “Jacqueline, what are your thoughts?”

“Oh, madame, I have none!”

And here Maxine made a change of front, became very grave, touched the gracious, encouraging note of the being to whom life is an open book.

“You must not say that,” she corrected, sweetly.  “You always have ideas—­even if they are sometimes a little in the air.  Come!  Tell me.  What are your thoughts?”

But Jacqueline was wary, as befitted one who made no pretence of scholarship, but who knew the old human story by heart, and daily recited it to one ardent listener.

“Oh, madame, it is not fitting—­”

“Absurd!  Tell me.”

Jacqueline, hard pressed, sought refuge in a truth.

“My thoughts might displease madame.”

Maxine sat straighter in her chair.  Here was another matter!

“Ah, so that is it!  Well, now I am determined.  Now I will have the thoughts at any cost.”

When Maxine spoke like this, when her lips closed upon her words, when her eyes rested unflinchingly upon her listener, she was wont to have her questions answered.  Jacqueline recognized the moment, saw Maxine in all her proud foolishness, loved her with that swift intermingling of pity and worship that such beings as she inevitably call forth, finally tossed her little head in her most tantalizing manner and laughed.

“With madame’s permission,” she said, “I will wish her good-night!”

“The permission is not granted.”

“Nevertheless, madame!” Her hand was on the door.

“Wait!” cried Maxine, peremptorily.  “I have asked you a question and you must answer it.”

Jacqueline stopped half-way through the doorway, and looked back, her flower-like face alight with mischief.

“Pardon, madame!  ‘Must’ is the word for the ruler.  Lucien says ‘must’ to me; M. Blake says ‘must’ to”—­she paused, with maddening precision; she dropped a little impertinent curtsy—­“to M. Max!”

She tossed the word upon the air, as a child might blow thistle-down; she laughed and was gone, leaving Maxine conscious of a strange new sensation that whipped her to anger and yet, most curiously, left her bereft of words.