"If I were different--if M. Blake were different, I grant that, perhaps--" She stopped abruptly. "Jacqueline, what are your thoughts?"
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.
Jacqueline, hard pressed, sought refuge in a truth.
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 unflinchingly upon her listener, she was wont to have her questions answered. Jacqueline recognized the moment, saw Maxine in all her proud foolishness, loved her with that swift intermingling of pity and worship that such beings as she inevitably call forth, finally tossed her little head in her most tantalizing manner and laughed.
"With madame's permission," she said, "I will wish her good-night!"
"Nevertheless, madame!" Her hand was on the door.
"Wait!" cried Maxine, peremptorily. "I have asked you a question and you must answer it."
Jacqueline stopped half-way through the doorway, and looked back, her flower-like face alight with mischief.
"Pardon, madame! 'Must' is the word for the ruler. Lucien says 'must' to me; M. Blake says 'must' to"--she paused, with maddening precision; she dropped a little impertinent curtsy--"to M. Max!"
She tossed the word upon the air, as a child might blow thistle-down; she laughed and was gone, leaving Maxine conscious of a strange new sensation that whipped her to anger and yet, most curiously, left her bereft of words.
Nothing less than absolute conviction can shake a strong nature. A wave of doubt swept over Maxine as her little neighbor's words died out and the door closed, leaving her to silence and solitude; but for all her folly, she was strong, and strength such as hers is not shaken by the shaft of a Jacqueline, however cunningly sped.