ot flash round upon her in one of her swift rages, did
not even draw her brows together into their frowning line. She merely
gazed into the mirror, as if weighing the statement judicially.

"All people do not hold that opinion," she said, at last.

Jacqueline shrugged her shoulders in the exercise of an infinite
patience. "No, madame?"

"No. M. Blake talked to-night of 'the highest thing,' and he did not
mean love."

"No, madame?" Jacqueline was very guileless.

But guileless as her tone was--nay, by reason of its guilelessness--it
touched Maxine in some shadowy corner of her woman's consciousness; and
spurred by a subtle, disquieting suggestion, she turned in her chair,
and fixed her serious gray eyes upon her visitor.

"What are your thoughts, Jacqueline?"

Jacqueline, taken unawares, deprecated.

"Oh, madame--"

But Maxine was set to her point. "Answer my question," she insisted. "I
wish to know. I am, above all things, practical."

It was to Jacqueline's credit that she did not smile, that she simply
murmured: "Who doubts it, madame?"

"Yes; I am, above all things, practical. In this affair of the woman, I
know exactly where I stand."

The girl made no comment; but even to Maxine's own ears, her declaration
left a little suggestion of over-vehemence vibrating in the air; and
startled by this suggestion, she did the least wise, the most human
thing possible, she accentuated it.

"If I were different--if M. Blake were different, I grant that,
perhaps--" She stopped abruptly. "Jacqueline, what are your thoughts?"

"Oh, madame, I have none!"

And here Maxine made a change of front, became very grave, touched the
gracious, encouraging note of the being to whom life is an open book.

"You must not say that," she corrected, sweetly. "You always have
ideas--even if they are sometimes a little in the air. Come! Tell me.
What are your thoughts?"

But Jacqueline was wary, as befitted one who made no pretence of
scholarship, but who knew the old human story by heart, and daily
recited it to one ardent listener.

"Oh, madame, it is not fitting--"

"Absurd! Tell me."

Jacqueline, hard pressed, sought refuge in a truth.

"My thoughts might displease madame."

Maxine sat straighter in her chair. Here was another matter!

"Ah, so that is it! Well, now I am determined. Now I will have the
thoughts at any cost."

When Maxine spoke like this, when her lips closed upon her words, when
her eyes rested unfl