is own temper was stirred.

"Thanks, boy!" he said; "but when I'm dying I'll hope for an archangel
to attend to my wants--not a little cherub. Good-night to you!" Without
look or gesture of farewell, he picked up his hat and walked out of the
room.

Once before this thing had happened; once before Max had heard the
closing of the door, and known the blank isolation following upon it.
But then weeks of close companionship, weeks of growing affection had
preceded the moment, giving strength for its endurance; now it came hot
upon a long abstinence from friendship, an abstinence made doubly
poignant by one day's complete reunion.

For a moment he stood--pride upon his right hand, love upon his left;
for a moment he stood, waging his secret war, then with amazing
suddenness, the issue was decided, he capitulated shamelessly. Pride
melted into the night and love caught him in a quick embrace.

Lithe and silent as some creature of the forest, he was across the
studio and down the stairs, his mind tense, his desires fixed upon one
point.

Blake was crossing the dim hallway as the light feet skimmed the last
slippery steps; he paused in answer to a swift, eager call.

"Ned! Ned! Wait! Ned, I want you!"

Blake paused; in the dim light it was not possible to read his face, but
something in the outline of his figure, in the rigidity and definiteness
of his stopping, chilled the boy with a sense of antagonism.

"Ned! Ned!" He ran to him, caught and clung to his arm, put forth all
his wiles.

"Ned, you are angry! Why are you angry?"

"I am not angry; I am disappointed." Some strange wall of coldness, at
once intangible and impenetrable, had risen about Blake. In fear the boy
beat vain hands against it.

"You are disappointed, Ned--in me?"

"I am."

"And why? Why?"

"Because you have behaved like a little fool."

In themselves, the words were nothing, but Blake's tone was serious.

"And--because of that--you are disappointed?"

Max's voice undeniably shook; and the fates, peering into the dark
hallway, smiled as they pushed the little human comedy nearer the tragic
verge.

"I am," answered Blake, with cruel deliberateness. "I thought until
to-night that you were a reasonable being--a bit elusive, perhaps--a bit
wayward and tantalizing--but still a reasonable being. Now--"

"Now?" Suddenly Max had a sensation of being very small, very
insignificant; suddenly he had an impression of Blake as a denizen of a
wid