“Ned!  A candle!”

Blake brought the desired light, and together they discovered the coveted glass.  Max seized upon it eagerly, but as he delivered it up a swift exclamation escaped him: 

“My God!  How dirty I am!  Regard my hands!”

“What does it matter!  You can wash after you’ve eaten.”

“Oh, but no!  I pay more compliment to your feast.”

“Very well, then!  We may hope to sup in an hour or so.  I know you and the making of your toilet!”

“Impertinent!” Max caught him by the arm and pushed him, laughing, toward the door.  “Go back and complete the table.  I will delay but four—­three—­two minutes in the making of myself clean.”

“But the table is complete—­”

“It is incomplete, mon ami; it is without flowers.”

Before Blake’s objections could form into new words, he found himself in the little hallway with the bedroom door closed upon him, and, being a philosopher, he shook his head contentedly and walked back into the salon, where he obediently brought to light the bowl of jonquils that was still perfuming the air from its dark corner, and set it carefully between the wine and the fruit.

Ten minutes and more slipped by, during which, still philosophical, he walked slowly round and round the table, straightening a candle here, altering a dish there, humming all the while in a not unmusical voice the song from Louise.

He was dwelling fondly upon the line

     “Depuis le jour ou je me suis donnee”—­

when the door of the bedroom was flung open as by a gale, and at the door of the salon appeared Max—­his dark hair falling over his forehead, a comb in one hand, a brush in the other.

“Mon cher! a hundred—­a thousand apologies for being so long!  It is all the fault of my hair!”

Blake looked at him across the candles.  “Indeed I wouldn’t bother about my hair, if I were you!  A century of brushing wouldn’t make it respectable.”

“Why not?”

“Look at the length of it!”

“Ah, but that pleases me!”

Blake shook his head in mock seriousness.  “These artists!  These artists!” he murmured to himself.

Max laughed, threw the comb and brush from him into some unseen corner of the hall, and ran across the salon.

“You are very ill-mannered!  I shall box your ears!”

Blake threw himself into an attitude of defence.  “I’d ask nothing better!” he cried.  “Come on!  Just come on!”

Max, laughing and excited, took a step forward, then paused as at some arresting thought.

“Afraid?  Oh, la, la!  Afraid?”

“Afraid!” The boy tossed the word back scornfully, but his face flushed and he made no advance.

“You’ll have to, now, you know!”

Max retreated.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” With a quick, gay laugh, touched with the fire of battle, Blake followed; but ere he could come to close quarters, the boy had dodged and, lithe and swift as a cat, was round the table.