What would she be like--this sister of Max? He strove ineffectually to materialize the portrait, but it eluded him. Only the soul of the woman seemed to have place in his imagination--the soul, seen through the questioning eyes.
Still a victim to the strange, new reticence, he entered the open doorway and began the familiar ascent. Here again the thought of the woman obsessed him. How must this place appear to her? His thoughts touched the varying scenes of Max's story--scenes of the girl's free youth and sumptuous, exotic after-life. None fitted accurately with a rue Müller. Of a certainty she, as well as the boy, must have the adventuring spirit!
His senses stirred, routing his diffidence, and under their spur he ran up the remaining steps, only pausing at the fifth floor as a light voice hailed him out of the dusk, a little flitting figure darted from the shadows, and Jacqueline, brimming with suppressed excitement, caught him by the arm.
He laughed in recognition and greeting. "Well, Jacqueline! Always the air of the grand secret! Always the air of the little bird that has discovered the topmost bough of the tree! What is it to-night?"
His feelings were running riot; it was agreeable to spend them in badinage. But Jacqueline slapped his hand in reproof.
"No pleasantries, monsieur! The affair is serious."
He smiled; he lowered his voice to the tone of hers. "You have a visitor, then, Jacqueline, to this fifth floor of yours?"
Jacqueline nodded her blonde head, and again her excitement brimmed full measure.
"Monsieur, she is here--the sister of M. Max! The princess!" She whispered the last word--a whisper delicious, tremulous with the weight of actual romance.
Blake heard it, and his own heart stirred to a joyous youthful sensation. It was so naïve, so charming, so absolutely French.
"The princess!" he whispered back in just the expected tone. "Jacqueline, is she beautiful?"
Jacqueline threw up her hands, invoked heaven with her eyes, earth with her shrugging shoulders.
Blake's expressive answer was to put her gently aside and step toward Max's door.
But she was after him with a little cry. "Monsieur, not yet! I must deliver my message! The message of M. Max!"
"But yes, monsieur!" Her hands, her whole body expressed apology and eager explanation. "M. Max has been called away--upon a business of much importance. M. Max desires his profoundest, his most affectionate excuses--and will monsieur place him under a debt never possible of repayment by entering the _appartement_--by entertaining the princess during his absence?"