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.
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.
"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.
"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 wider 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!"