. Ned, please!" He pulled Blake back and, opening the door, passed
into the little hall and on into the bare, bright studio.

To Blake, following closely, the scene bore a striking resemblance to
another scene--to the occasion upon which Max had blocked in, and then
destroyed, his _cabaret_ picture--save that now the light was no longer
the silvery light of spring, but the pale gold radiance of a youthful
summer.

The impression came, but the impression was summarily erased, for as he
crossed the threshold, Max flew to him, his exuberance suddenly dead,
the trepidation of the artist enveloping him again, chasing the blood
from his cheeks.

"Oh, Ned! Dear Ned! If it is bad?" He caught and clung to Blake's arm,
restraining him forcibly. "Do not look! Wait one moment! Just one little
moment!"

Very gently Blake disengaged the clinging hands. "What a child he is,
after all! He shuts himself away and works like a galley-slave and then,
when the moment of justification comes--! Nonsense, boy! I'm not a
critic. Let me see!"

As in a dream, Max saw him walk round the easel and pause full in front
of it; in an agony of apprehension, a quaking eagerness, he lived
through the moment of silence; then at Blake's first words the blood
rushed singing to his ears.

"It's extraordinary! But who is it?"

"Extraordinary? Extraordinary?" In a wild onset of emotion, Max caught
but the one word. "Does that mean good--or does it mean bad? Oh, _mon
cher_, all that I have put into that picture! Speak! Speak! Be cruel! It
is all wrong? It is all bad?"

"Don't be a fool!" said Blake, harshly. "You know it's good. But who is
it? That's what I'm asking you. Who is it?"

Heedless, unstrung--half laughing, half crying--Max ran across the room.
"Oh, _mon ami_, how you terrified me--I thought you had condemned it!"

But Blake's eyes were for the picture; the portrait of a woman seated at
a mirror--a portrait in which the delicate reflected face looked out
from its shadowing hair with a curious questioning intentness, a
fascinating challenge at once elusive and vital.

"Who is it?"

He spoke low and with a deliberate purpose; and at his tone recklessness
seized upon Max.

"A woman, _mon ami_! Just a woman!" He stiffened his shoulders, threw up
his head, like a child who would dare the universe.

"Yes, but what woman?" With amazing suddenness Blake swung round and
fixed a searching glance upon him. "She's the living image of you--but
y