"You feel that now. But time--time balances. We will be happy yet. We will relive the old days--"
Blake turned, wrenching away his arm. "The old days? Do you imagine Paris can hold me now she is gone?"
"Do you imagine I can live in this town--climb these steps--stand on that balcony, that breathes of her?"
Max was leaning back against the window-frame. His brain seemed empty of blood, his heart seemed to pulse in a strange, unfamiliar fashion, while somewhere within his consciousness a tiny voice commanded him urgently to preserve his strength--not to betray himself.
"You will go away?" he heard himself say. "Where will you go? To Ireland?"
"To Ireland--or hell!" Blake walked to the door.
Blake made no answer; he did not even look back.
"I will come to her at any moment--from anywhere."
The door closed. He was gone, and Max stood leaning against the window. His blood still circulated oddly, and now the inner voice with its reiterated commands was rising, rising until it became the thunder of a sea that filled his ears, annihilating all other sounds. A swift, sharp terror smote him; he sought desperately to maintain his consciousness, but, breaking across the effort an icy breath crept up from nowhere, fanning his cheek, suspending all struggle, and a palpable darkness, like the darkness of brooding wings, closed in upon him, bringing oblivion.
Who shall depict the soul of woman? As well essay to number the silk hairs on the moth's wing, or paint truly the hues in the blown bubble! The soul of woman dwells apart, subject to no laws, trammelled by no precedent; mysterious in its essence, strong in its very frailty, it passes through many phases to its ultimate end, working as all great agents work, silently and in the dark.
With the passing of Blake, the spiritual Maxine entered upon a new phase--was arbitrarily forced into a new phase of existence. The passing of Blake was sudden, tremendous, devastating in its effect, leaving as consequences a moral blackness, a moral chaos.
It was a new Maxine who wakened to the realization of facts; rather, it was a new Max, for it was the masculine, not the feminine ego that turned a set face to circumstance in the moment of desertion--that sedulously wrapped itself in the garment of pride spun and fashioned in happier hours.