"Poor child!" she said softly to herself. "Poor child! Poor child!"
It was midway between the hours of nine and ten on the morning following. Max was standing in the studio; the easel, still bearing the portrait, had been pushed into a corner, its face to the wall; everywhere the warm sun fell upon a rigid severity of aspect, as though the room had instinctively been bared for the enacting of some scene.
Max himself, in a subtle manner, struck the same note. The old painting blouse he usually wore had been discarded for the blue serge suit, severely masculine in aspect; his hair had been reduced to an usual order, his whole appearance was rigid, active, braced for the coming moment.
And this moment arrived sooner even than anticipation had suggested. The clocks of Paris had barely clashed the half hour, when his strained ears caught a step upon the landing, a sharp knock upon the door, and before his brain could leap to fear or joy, Blake was in the _appartement_--in the room.
There was no mistaking Blake's attitude as he swung into the boy's presence; it was patent in every movement, every glance, even had his white, strained face not testified to it. Coming into the studio, he affected nothing--neither apology, greeting, nor explanation; without preamble he came straight to the matter that possessed his mind.
"You know of this?" He held out a square white envelope, bearing bold feminine handwriting--writing over which time and thought and labor had been expended in this same room ten hours earlier. "You know this?"
"Yes." Max's tongue clicked dryly against the roof of his mouth, but his eyes bore the fire of Blake's scrutiny.
"'Yes!' And you can stand there like a graven image. Do you realize it, at all? Do you grasp it?"
"You think you understand?" Blake laughed in a manner that was not agreeable. "Understand, forsooth! You, who have never seen anything human or divine that you rate above your own little finger! Understand!" He laughed again, then suddenly his attitude changed. "But I haven't come here to waste words! You know that, your sister has left Paris?"
"She tells me here that she has gone--gone out of my life--that I am to forget her."
"Well, that has only one meaning, when it comes from the one woman. I must know where she is."