"The meaning of it all, princess! Existence is such a chase. I, perhaps, hunt friendship--and find Max; I, perhaps, dream that I have found my goal, while to him I may be but a wayside inn--a place to linger in and leave! We both follow the chase, but who can say if we mark the same quarry? It's a puzzling world!"
"Monsieur, it is sometimes a glorious world!" So swift was her change of voice, so impulsive the gesture with which she turned to him, that the vividness of a suggested Max startled him. She was infinitely like to Max--Max when life intoxicated him, when he threw out both arms to embrace it.
"When you look like that, princess," he cried, "I could forget everything--I could take your hand, and show you all my heart, for you literally _are_ the boy!"
There was another pause--a pause fraught with poignant things. Standing there, between heaven and earth, they were no longer creatures of conventionality, fettered by individual worlds. They were two souls conscious of an affinity.
Briefly, sweetly, Maxine's fingers touched his hand and then withdrew. "Monsieur, in moments I _am_ Max!"
Nothing of surprise, nothing of question came to him. He only knew that a touch, infinitely desired, had lighted upon him--that a comprehension born of immaterial things was luring him whither he knew not.
"You are Max, princess," he said, swiftly, "but Max suddenly made possessor of a soul! I've always fancied Max a mythical being--a creature of eternal youth, fascinating as he is elusive--a faun-like creature, peeping into the world from some secret grove, ready to dart back at any human touch. Max's lips were made for laughter; his eyes are too bright for tears."
"You are the miracle! You are the elusive creature deserting the green groves--stepping voluntarily into the mortal world."
"Yet if you know of me at all, you must know that I have left the mortal world and am seeking the secret groves."
"I am afraid, princess, I do." He turned and looked at her--at the slim body wrapped in its long, smooth cloak of velvet--at the shadowed, questioning eyes. "I know I am greatly daring, but there are moments when we are outside ourselves--when we know and speak things of which we can give no logical account. You have put life behind you; yet what is life but a will-o'-the-wisp? Who can say where the light may not break forth again?"