the coppers and brasses for
which Max had bartered in the rue Andre de Sarte, still encumbered the
floor, and most of the windows cried aloud for covering; but the little
_salon_ was habitable, and in the bedroom once occupied by Madame Salas
a bed and a dressing-table stood forth, fresh and enticing enough to
suggest a lady's chamber, while over the high window white serge
curtains shut out the cold.

At seven o'clock, having torn the canvas wrappings from the last chair,
the two workers paused in their labors by common consent and looked at
each other by the uncertain light of half a dozen candles stuck into
bowls and vases in various corners of the _salon_.

"Boy," said Blake, breaking what had been a long silence, "I tell you
what it is, you're done! Take a warm by the fire for a minute, while I
tub under the kitchen tap, then we'll fare forth for a meal and a breath
of air!"

Max, who had worked with fierce zeal if little knowledge, made no
protest. His face was pale, and he moved with a certain slow weariness.

"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 s