“Here!  Let’s test the big chair!” Blake pulled forward the deep leathern arm-chair, that had been purchased second-hand in the rue de la Nature, and set it in front of the blazing logs.  Without a word, Max sank into it.

“Comfortable?”

“Very comfortable.”  The voice was a little thin.

The other looked down upon him.  “You’re done, you know!  Literally done!  Why didn’t you give in sooner?”

“Because I was not tired—­and I am not tired.”

“Not tired!  And your face is as white as a sheet!  I don’t believe you’re fit to go out for food.”

“How absurd!  You talk as though I were a child!” Max lifted himself petulantly on one elbow, but his head drooped and the remonstrance died away before it was finished.

“I talk as if you were a child, do I?  Then I talk uncommon good sense!  Well, I’m off to wash.”

“There is some soap in my bedroom.”  The voice seemed to come from a great distance, the elbow slipped from the arm of the chair, the dark head drooped still more, and as the door shut upon Blake, the eyelids closed mechanically.

Blake’s washing was a protracted affair, for the day had been long and the toil strenuous; but at last he returned, face and hands clean, hair smooth, and clothes reduced to order.

“Sorry for being so long,” he began, as he walked into the room; but there he stopped, his eyebrows went up, and his face assumed a curious look, half amused, half tender.

“Poor child!” he said below his breath, and tiptoeing across the room, he paused by the arm-chair, in the depths of which Max’s slight figure was curled up in the pleasant embrace of sleep.

The fire had died down, the pool of candle-light was not brilliant, and in the soft, shadowed glow the boy made an attractive picture.

[Illustration:  THE IMPRESSION OF A MYSTERY FLOWED BACK UPON HIM]

One hand lay carelessly on either arm of the chair; the head was thrown back, the black lashes of the closed eyes cast shadows on the smooth cheeks.

Blake looked long and interestedly, and his earliest impression—­the impression of a mystery—­flowed back upon him strong as on the night of the long journey.

The beauty and strength of the face called forth thought; and Max’s own declaration, so often repeated, came back upon him with new meaning, ’I am older than you think!’

For almost the first time the words carried weight.  It was not that the features looked older; if anything they appeared younger in their deep repose.  But the expression—­the slight knitting of the dark brows, the set of the chin, the modelling of the full lips, usually so mobile and prone to laughter—­suggested a hidden force, gave warranty of a depth, a strength irreconcilable with a boy’s capacities.

He looked—­puzzled, attracted; then his glance dropped from the face to the pathetically tired limbs, and the sense of pity stirred anew, banishing question, causing the light of a pleasant inspiration to awaken in his eyes.