me! Have you faith in me?"

Blake looked into the feverishly bright eyes, and a swift conviction
possessed him.

"I know this, boy, whatever you do, you'll do it finely! More I cannot
say."

Max fell silent, and they proceeded on their way, each preoccupied with
his own thoughts. At the turning to the heights Blake paused.

"I'll say good-bye here! I have letters to write to-night; but I'll be
up to-morrow to spirit you off to lunch. I won't come too early, for I
know what you'll be doing all the morning."

Max laughed, coming back out of his dream. "And what is it I shall be
doing all the morning?"

"Why, carting canvases and paint tubes, and God knows what, up those
steps till your back is broken, and then settling down with your temper
and your ambition at fever heat to begin the great picture at the most
inopportune moment in the world! Think I don't know you?"

Max laughed again, but more softly.

"_Mon ami!_"

"I'm right, eh? That sketch at the _cabaret_ is meant to grow?"

Instantly Max was diffident. "Oh, I am not so sure! It is only an idea.
It may not arrive at anything."

"Let's have a look?"

Max's hand went slowly toward his pocket. "I am not sure that I like it;
it is not my theory of life. It's more of your theory--it is ironical."

"Let's see!"

The sketch-book came reluctantly to light, and as Max opened it, the two
stepped close to a street lamp.

"As I tell you, it is ironical. If it becomes a picture I shall give it
this name--_The Failure_." He handed it to Blake, leaning close and
peering over his shoulder in nervous anxiety.

"Understand, it is but an idea! I have put no work into it."

Blake held the book up to the light, his observant face grave and
interested.

"What a clever little beggar you are!" he said at length.

Max glowed at the words, and instantly his tongue was loosed.

"Ah, _mon cher_, but it is only a sketch! That atmosphere--that dim,
smoky atmosphere--is so difficult with the pencil. The audience is, of
course, but suggested; all that I really attempted was the singer--the
failure with the merry eyes."

"And well you've caught him too, by gad! One would think you had seen
the antithesis--Vagot, the success, long and lean and yellow, the
unhappiest-looking man you ever saw."

"Ah, but you must not say that!" cried Max unexpectedly. "I told you it
was not my theory. To me success is life, failure is death! This is but
a reflected impression of yours---