She watched him, her head still characteristically drooping, the little wise smile hovering about her lips.
"I comprehend!" she murmured to herself. "Monsieur is very worldly-wise. Monsieur has discovered that there is--how shall I say?--less atmosphere in a blue sky than in a gray one?"
Max glanced round at her. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being laughed at, but her clear azure eyes met his innocently, and her mouth was guiltless of smiles.
"I have had a sufficiency of blue sky," he said, and returned to his work.
"One is liable to think that, monsieur, until the rain falls!"
"So you doubt the endurance of my philosophy?"
She shrugged; she extended her pretty hands expressively.
The words exasperated Max. Again it had arisen--the old argument. The anger smouldering in his heart since the girl's invasion flamed to speech.
"I could wish that the world was less ready with that opinion, mademoiselle! It knows very little of what it says."
"Possibly, monsieur! but you admit that--that you are scarcely aged." There was a quiver now about the pretty lips, a hint of a laugh in the eyes.
"Mademoiselle,"--he wheeled round with unexpected vehemence,--"I should like you, to tell me exactly how old you think I am."
"I mean it. Is it seventeen--or is it sixteen?" His voice was edged with irony.
"It is neither, monsieur!" Jacqueline was very demure now, her eyes sought the floor. "Granted your full permission, monsieur, I would say--"
"I would say"--she flashed a daring look at him and instantly dropped her eyes again--"I would say that you have twenty-four, if not twenty-five years!"
The confession came in a little rush of speech, and as it left her lips she moved toward the door, contemplating flight.
An immense surprise clouded Max's mind, a surprise that brought the blood mantling to his face and sent his words forth with a stammering indecision.
"Twenty-four--twenty-five! What gave you that idea?"
"Oh, monsieur, it is simple! It came to me by observation!"
Leaving Max still red, still confused, she slipped out of the room noiselessly as she had come, and as the door closed he heard the faint, exasperating sound of a light little laugh.
After Jacqueline had closed the door and the light laugh had died into silence, Max stood before his easel, hands inert, the flush still scorching his face. For the first time since the birth of the new life he had been made sensible of personal criticism--the criticism winged with fine ridicule, that leaves its victim strangely uncertain, curiously uneasy. The immemorial subtlety of woman had lurked in the girl's eyes as she cast her last penetrating glance at him. He felt now, as he stood alone, that his soul had been stripped and was naked to the bare walls and gaping canvas, and his start was one of purely unbalanced nerves when a knock fell upon the door, telling of a new intruder.