er world, where other emotions than laughter and comradeship held
place--and his heart trembled unreasonably.

"Oh, _mon cher_!" he cried. "Forgive me! Forgive me! Say I am still your
boy! Say it! Say it!"

Truth lent passion to his voice--false passion Blake esteemed it, and
the cold, imaginary wall became more impregnable.

"That'll do, Max! Heroics are no more attractive to me than hysterics.
Good-night to you!" He freed his arm and turned to the door.

In the darkness, Max threw out both hands in despairing appeal.

"Ned! Oh, Ned!" he called. But only the sound of Blake's retreating
steps responded. And here was no merciful intervention of gods and
mortals, to make good the evil hour; no pretty, tactful Jacqueline, no
M. Cartel with his magic fiddle. Only the dim hall, the lonely stairway,
the open door with its vision of cold, pale stars and whispering trees.

His misery was a tangible thing. Like a lost child, obsessed by its own
fears, he bent under the weight of his sorrow; he sank down upon the
lowest step of the stairs and, resting his head against the banister,
broke into pitiful, silent tears.

CHAPTER XXV

It was the morning after the reunion--the morning after the catastrophe,
and Blake was breakfasting alone in his rooms.

Typically Parisian rooms they were, rooms that stood closed and silent
for more than half the year and woke to offer him a welcome when his
wandering footsteps turned periodically toward Paris; typically
Parisian, with their long windows and stiffly draped curtains, their
marble mantelpieces and gilt-framed mirrors, their furniture arranged
with a suggestion of ancient formality that by its very rigidity soothed
the eye.

At the moment, evidences of Blake's unusually long occupancy broke this
stiffness in many directions; intimate trifles that speak a man's
presence were strewn here and there--objects of utility, objects of
value and interest gathered upon his last long journey. Eminently
pleasant the _salon_ appeared in the sunshine of the May morning--full
of air and light, its gray carpet and gray-panelled walls making an
agreeably neutral setting to the household gods of a gentleman of
leisure. But the gentleman in question, so agreeably situated, seemed to
find his state less gratifying than it might appear; a sense of
dissatisfaction possessed him, as he sat at his solitary meal, a sense
of dulness and loss most tenacious of hold.

More than once he roundly ca