of life! Not the holding of fair things, but the
giving of them!

She rose up; her limbs shook, but she paid no heed to physical strength
or weakness; she was on a plane where the soul moved free, regardless of
mortal needs. Neither Max nor Maxine had any place in her conceptions.
She saw Lize, broken but justified, because she had given when life
asked of her; she saw the little Jacqueline, with the halo of
candle-light turning her blonde hair to gold; in a distant dream she saw
the frail, steadfast Madame Salas, and in a near, poignant vision she
saw Blake, and her soul melted within her.

She conceived the world as one immense censer into which men and women
poured their all, and from which a wondrous white smoke, a scent
incredibly lovely, rose continually, enveloping the universe.

To give! To give without hope of recompense, without question, without
fear! That was the message of life.

She looked round the little room; she yearned to put out her arms, to
clasp each hand, to touch each forehead with the kiss of living
fellowship. Love consumed her, humility rilled her, she was a child
again, with all things to learn.

The music was reaching its climax, it was filling every corner of the
room, and as she glanced toward the piano in a last long look, the two
voices rose in unison.

Silently--none knowing the revolution within her soul--none seeing the
heights upon which she walked--Maxine moved to the door and slipped out
into the hall, the picture of the lovers before her eyes, in her ears
the symbolic cry:

'C'est la vie! l'Eternelle, la toute puissante vie!'

Like a being inspired, she passed back into her own _appartement_, and
there, with a strange high excitement that was yet mystically calm,
entered her little bedroom and lighted candles until not a shadow was
left in all the white circumscribed space; then, standing in the
illumination, like an acolyte who ministers to some secret rite, she
slowly unburdened herself of her boy's garments.

The task was brief; they fell from her lightly, leaving her fair and
virginal and untrammelled in body, as she was virginal and untrammelled
in mind; and with a sweet gravity she clothed herself, garment by
garment, in the dress of the morning.

Ardent and eager--yet restrained, as befitted a woman aware of her high
place--she left the room and passed down the Escalier de Sainte-Marie. A
rush of cool air came to her across the plantation, kissing her hot