It was Maxine who opened the flood-gates of emotion; Maxine who, with wild gesture and broken voice, dressed the situation in words.

“Now it is over!  Now it is finished—­the whole foolish play!  Now you have your sight—­and your liberty to hate me!  Hate me!  Hate me!  I am waiting.”

“God!” whispered Blake again, not hearing her, piecing his thoughts together as a waking man tries to piece a dream.  ‘God!’

The reiteration tortured her.  She suddenly caught his arm, forcing him into contact with her.  “Do not speak to yourself!” she cried.  “Speak to me!  Say all you think!  Hate me!  Hate me!”

Then at last he broke through the confusion of his mind, startling her as such men will always startle women by their innate singleness of thought.

“Hate you?” he said.  “Why, in God’s name, should I hate you?”

“Because it is right and just.”

“That I should hate you, because I have been a fool?  I do not see that.”

“But, Ned!” she cried; then, suddenly, at its sharpest, her voice broke; she threw herself upon her knees beside the chair and sobbed.

And then it was that Blake showed himself.  Kneeling down beside her, he put both arms about the boyish figure and, holding it close, poured forth—­not questions, not reproaches, not protestations—­but a stream of compassion.

“Poor child!  Poor child!  Poor child!  What a fool I’ve been!  What a brute I’ve been!”

But Maxine sobbed passionately, shrinking away from him, as though his touch were pain.

“My child!  My child!  How foolish I have been!  But how foolish you have been, too—­how sweetly foolish!  You gave with one hand and took away with the other.  But now it is all over.  Now you are going to give with both hands—–­ I am to have my friend and my love as well.  It is very wonderful.  Oh, sweet, don’t fret!  Don’t fret!  See how simple it all is!”

But Maxine’s bitter crying went on, until at last it frightened him.

“Maxine, don’t!  Don’t, for God’s sake!  Why should you cry like this?  What is it, when all’s said and done, but a point of view?  And a point of view is adjusted much more quickly than you think.  At first I thought the earth was reeling round me, but now I know that ’twas only my own brain that reeled; and I know, too, that subconsciously I must always have recognized you in Max—­for I never treated Max as a common boy, did I?  Did I, now?  I always had a queer—­a queer respect for him.  Dear one, see it with me!  Try to see it with me?”

His appeal was pathetic; it was he who was the culprit—­he who extenuated and pleaded.  The position struck Maxine, wounding her like a knife.

“Oh, don’t!” she cried in her own turn.  “Don’t, for the sake of God!”

“But why?  Why?  My sweet!  My love!  My little friend!  Max—­Maxine!”

It was not to be borne.  She wrenched herself free and sprang to her feet, confronting him with a pale face down which the tears streamed.