The duet wore on, enthralling in its closeness to common human life, with its touches of tears, its touches of laughter, its hints of tenderness and bursts of passion.  Not one face but had softened in comprehension as Louise painted the picture of her home—­of the gentle father, the scolding mother, the little daily frictions that wear patience thin; not one heart but had leaped when passion broke a way through the song, mounting, mounting as upon wings, until Louise in her ecstasy of love and joy and incredulity exclaims: 

    ‘C’est le paradis!  C’est une feerie!’

And Julian answers: 

    ‘Non!  C’est la vie! l’Eternelle, la toute puissante vie!’

It was the supreme, the psychological moment!  The duet continued, but Maxine heard no further words.  They echoed and re-echoed in her brain, they obsessed her, lifting her to a sublimal state.

Across the room she saw the Italian throw away his cigarette and forget to replace it; she saw Lize lean forward breathlessly, and she knew that in fancy she was back in the Quartier Latin when life was young—­when love laughed, and her hair was wreathed with vine leaves.  She saw her at last as a living woman—­felt the grape-juice run down her neck—­felt the kisses of the Jacque Aujet who was ten years dead!

This, then, was the sum of life!  Not the holding of fair things, but the giving of them!

She rose up; her limbs shook, but she paid no heed to physical strength or weakness; she was on a plane where the soul moved free, regardless of mortal needs.  Neither Max nor Maxine had any place in her conceptions.  She saw Lize, broken but justified, because she had given when life asked of her; she saw the little Jacqueline, with the halo of candle-light turning her blonde hair to gold; in a distant dream she saw the frail, steadfast Madame Salas, and in a near, poignant vision she saw Blake, and her soul melted within her.

She conceived the world as one immense censer into which men and women poured their all, and from which a wondrous white smoke, a scent incredibly lovely, rose continually, enveloping the universe.

To give!  To give without hope of recompense, without question, without fear!  That was the message of life.

She looked round the little room; she yearned to put out her arms, to clasp each hand, to touch each forehead with the kiss of living fellowship.  Love consumed her, humility rilled her, she was a child again, with all things to learn.

The music was reaching its climax, it was filling every corner of the room, and as she glanced toward the piano in a last long look, the two voices rose in unison.

Silently—­none knowing the revolution within her soul—­none seeing the heights upon which she walked—­Maxine moved to the door and slipped out into the hall, the picture of the lovers before her eyes, in her ears the symbolic cry: 

    ‘C’est la vie! l’Eternelle, la toute puissante vie!’