Max

  Produced by Rick Niles, John Hagerson, Stephanie Fleck and the PGOnline Distributed Proofreading Team.

  "I HAVE WAITED ALL MY LIFE FOR THIS"]

  MAX

  A NOVEL

  BYKATHERINE CECIL THURSTON

  AUTHOR OF"THE MASQUERADER""THE GAMBLER" ETC.

  ILLUSTRATED BYFRANK CRAIG

  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERSNEW YORK AND LONDONMCMX

  Published September, 1910.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  "I HAVE WAITED ALL MY LIFE FOR THIS"

  STANDING AGAIN IN THE OUTER COURT OF A HOUSE IN PETERSBURG

  TWO SOULS, DRAWN TOGETHER, TOUCHED IN A FIRST SUBTLE FUSION

  "WHY, BOY, THIS IS CLEVER--CLEVER--CLEVER!"

  THE IMPRESSION OF A MYSTERY FLOWED BACK UPON HIM

  "LOOK! THIS IS WHAT I SHALL DO. THIS!"

  THE COMPLETE SEMBLANCE OF THE WOMAN

  "_C'EST LA VIE! L'ETERNELLE, LA TOUTE-PUISSANTE VIE!_"

  PART I

  MAX

  CHAPTER I

  A night journey is essentially a thing of possibilities. To those whocount it as mere transit, mere linking of experiences, it is, of course,a commonplace; but to the imaginative, who by gift divine see a picturein every cloud, a story behind every shadow, it suggestsromance--romance in the very making.

  Such a vessel of inspiration was the powerful north express as itthundered over the sleeping plains of Germany and France on its nightjourney from Cologne to Paris. A thing of possibilities indeed, with itsvarying human freight--stolid Teutons, hard-headed Scandinavians, Slavswhom expediency or caprice had forced to descend upon Paris across thesea of ice. It was the month of January, and an unlikely and unlovelynight for long and arduous travel. There were few pleasure-passengers onthe express, and if one could have looked through the carriage windows,blurred with damp mist, one would have seen upon almost every face thelook--resigned or resolute--of those who fare forth by necessity ratherthan by choice. In the sleeping-cars all the berths were occupied, buthere and them throughout the length of the train an occasional travellerslept on the seat of his carriage, wrapped in coats and rugs, while inthe dining-saloon a couple of sleepy waiters lurched to and fro inattendance upon a party of three men whose energy precluded the thoughtof wasting even the night hours and who were playing cards at one of thesmall tables. Up and down the whole overheated, swaying train there wasthe suggestion of mystery, of contrast and effect, and the twinklingeyes of the electric lamps seemed to wink from behind their drawn hoodsas though they, worldly wise and watchful, saw the individuality--theinevitable story--behind the drowsy units who sat or lay or loungedunguarded beneath them.

  In one carriage, the fifth or sixth from the thundering engine, theselights winked and even laughed one to the other each time the trainlurched over the points, and the dark, shrouding hoods quivered,allowing a glimpse at the occupant of the compartment.

  It was the figure of a boy upon which the twinkling lamp-eyesflickered--a boy who had as yet scarce passed the barrier of manhood,for the skin of the face was clean and smooth, and the limbs, seenvaguely under a rough overcoat, had the freedom and supple grace thatbelongs to early youth.

  He was sleeping, this solitary traveller--one hand under his head, theother instinctively guarding something that lay deep and snug in thepocket of his overcoat. His attitude was relaxed, but not entirelyabandoned to the solace of repose; even in his sleep a something ofself-consciousness seemed to cling to him--a need for caution that laynear to the surface of his drowsing senses--for once or twice hestarted, once or twice his straight, dark eyebrows twitched into afrown, once or twice his fingers tightened nervously upon theirtreasure. He was subconsciously aware that, deserted though thecompartment was, it yet exhaled an alien suggestion, embodied in therugs, the coats, the hand-baggage of the card-playing travellers, whichwas heaped upon the seat opposite.

  But, despite this physical uneasiness, he was dreaming as the train torealong through the damp, peaceful country--dreaming with that oddconfusion of time and scene that follows upon keen excitement, stress offeeling or stress of circumstance.

  As he dreamed, he was standing again in the outer court of a house inPetersburg--a house to which he was debtor for one night's shelter; itwas early morning and deadly cold. The whole picture was sharp as a cutcrystal--the triple court-yard, the stone pavement, the gray well, andfrozen pile of firewood. He saw, recognized, lost it, and knew himselfto be skimming down the Nevskiy Prospekt and across the Winter PalaceSquare, where the great angel towers upon its rose-granite monument.Forward, forward he was carried, along the bank of the frozen Neva andover the Troitskiy bridge, the powdered snow stinging his face likepinpoints as it flew up from the nails in his little horse's shoes. Thenfollowed a magnifying of the picture--massed buildings rising from thesnow--buildings gold and turquoise-domed, that, even as theymaterialized, lost splendor and merged into the unpretentious frontageof the Finland station.

  The scroll of the dream unwound; the dreamer moved, easing his position,shaking back a lock of dark hair that had fallen across his forehead. Hewas no longer rocking to the power of the north express; he was standingon the platform at the end of a little train that puffed out of theFinland station--a primitive, miniature train, white with frost andpowdered with the ashes of its wood fuel. The vision came and passed asketch, not a picture--a suggestion of straight tracks, wide snowplains, and the blue, misty blur of fir woods. Then a shifting, ajuggling of effects! Abo, the Finnish port, painted itself upon hisimagination, and he was embarked upon the lonely sledge-drive, to theharbor. He started in his sleep, shivered and sighed at that remembereddrive. The train passed over new points, the hoods of the lamps swayed,the lights blinked and winked, and his mind swung onward in response tothe physical jar.

  Abo was obliterated. He was on board a ship--a ship ploughing her waythrough the ice-fields as she neared Stockholm; salt sea air flicked hisnostrils, he heard the broken ice tearing the keel like a million files,he was sensible of the crucial sensation--the tremendous quiver--as thevessel slipped from her bondage into the cradle of the sea, a sentientthing welcoming her own element!

  The heart of the dreamer leaped to that strange sensation. He drew along, sharp breath, and sat up, suddenly awake. It was over and donewith--the coldness, the rigor, the region of ice bonds! The fingers ofthe future beckoned to him; the promises of the future lapped his earsas the waves had lapped the ship's sides.

  He looked about him, at first excitedly, then confusedly, then a littleshamedfacedly, for we are always involuntarily shamed at being trickedby our emotions into a false conception. Drawing his hand from hiscoat-pocket, he stretched himself with an assumption of ease, as thoughhe saw and recognized the twinkle in the electric lamps andspontaneously rose to its demands.

  The train was flying forward at unabated speed. Outside, the raw Januaryair was clinging in a film to the carriage window; inside, the dim lightand overheated air made an artificial atmosphere, enervating orstimulating according to the traveller's gifts. To this solitary voyagerstimulation was obviously the effect produced, for, try as he mightto cheat the inquisitive lamps, interest in every detail of hissurroundings was portrayed in his face, in the poise of his head, thequickness of his glance as he gazed round the compartment, verifying theimpression that he was alone.

  STANDING AGAIN IN THE OUTER COURT OF A HOUSE INPETERSBURG]

  Yes, he was absolutely alone! Everything was as it had been when hesettled himself to sleep on the departure of the three strangers. There,on the opposite seat, were their rugs, their fur-lined coats, theirillustrated papers--all the impedimenta of prosperous travellers; andthere, on the rack above them, was his own modest hand-bag withoutinitials or label--a common little bag that might have belonged to somepoor Russian clerk or held the possessions of some needy
Polish student.The owner's glance scanned and appraised it, then by suggestion fell tothe plain rough overcoat that covered him from his neck to the tops ofhis high boots, and whose replica was to be seen any day in the meanerstreets of Petersburg or Moscow. Like the bag, it was a little strange,a little incongruous in its comfortable surroundings--a little savoringof mystery.

  The traveller's pulses quickened, his being lifted to the moment, for inhis soul was the spark of adventure, in his eyes the adventurouslook--fearless, observant, questioning. In composition, in expressionand essence, this boy was that free and fascinating creature, the bornadventurer--high of courage, prodigal of emotion, capturer of theworld's loot.

  The spirit within him shone out in the moment of solitude; he passed hishands down the front, of his coat, revelling in its coarse texture; herose to his feet, turned to the sheet of gray, misted glass, and,letting down the window, leaned out into the night.

  The scene was vague and ghostly, but to eyes accustomed to northernwhiteness it was full of suggestion, full of secrecy; to nostrilsaccustomed to keen, rarefied air there was something poignant anddelicious in the scent of turned earth, the savor of vegetation. Hecould see little or nothing as the train rocked and the landscape torepast, but the atmosphere spoke to him as it speaks to blind men,penetrating his consciousness. Here were open spaces, tracts of countryfructifying for the spring to come. A land of promise--of growth--offulfilment!

  He closed his eyes, living in the suggestion, and his spirit spedforward with the onrush of the train. Somewhere beyond the darkness laythe land of his desires! Somewhere behind the veil shone the lights ofParis! With a quick, exulting excitement he laughed; but even as thelaugh was caught and scattered to the winds by the thunder of theengine, his bearing changed, the excitement dropped from him, a mask ofimmobility fell upon his face, and he wheeled round from the window. Thecard-playing travellers had opened the door of the carriage.

  From his shadowy corner the boy eyed them; and they, alert from theirgame, slightly dazed by the darkness of the carriage, peered back athim, frankly curious. When they had left the compartment he had been ahuddled figure demanding no attention; now he was awake and anindividual, and human nature prompted interest.

  Each in turn looked at him, and at each new glance his coldness ofdemeanor deepened; until, as the eldest of the party came down thecarriage and appropriated the seat beside him, he turned away, pullingup the window with resentful haste.

  "Don't do that!" said the third man, pausing in the doorway and speakingin French easily and pleasantly. "Don't do that--if you want the air!"

  The boy started and looked round.

  "I thank you! But I do not need the air!"

  The man smiled acquiescence, but as he stepped into the carriage he tooka sharp look at the boy's clothes--the common Russian clothes--and aslightly questioning, slightly satirical expression crossed his face. Hewas a man who knew his world the globe over, and in his bearing lurkedthe toleration, the kindly scepticism that such knowledge breeds.

  "As you please!" he said, settling himself comfortably in the corner bythe door, while the elder of his companions--a tall, spareAmerican--crossed his long legs and lighted a thin black cigar, and theyounger--a spruce young Englishman wearing an eye-glass and a smallmustache--wrapped himself in his rugs, took a clean pocket-handkerchieffrom his dressing-case, and opened a large bundle of illustratedpapers--French, German, and English.

  For a space the train rocked on. No one attempted to speak, and theRussian boy continued to stand by the window, pretending to look throughthe blurred panes, in reality wondering how he could with leastcommotion pass down the carriage to his own vacated place.

  At last the man with the long cigar broke the silence in a slow, coolvoice that betrayed his nationality.

  "We're well on time, Blake," he remarked, drawing out his watch.

  The youth by the window shot an involuntary, fleeting glance at the twoyounger men, to see which would answer to the name; and the student ofhuman nature noted the fact that he understood English.

  "Oh, it's a good service!" he acquiesced, the tolerant look--halfsceptical, half humorous--- passing again over his face.

  "I don't know! I think we could do with another few kilometres to thehour." The thin man studied his flat gold watch with the loving interestof one to whom time is a sacred thing.

  At this point the youngest of the three raised his head.

  "Marvellous sight you have, McCutcheon! Wish I could see by this light!"

  McCutcheon leaned forward, replacing his watch. "What! Can't you seeyour picture-books? Let's have the blinkers off!" He rose, his long,spidery figure stretching up like a grotesque shadow, but as his armwent out to the nearest of the shrouded lamps he was compelled to drawback against the seat of the carriage, and an exclamation of surpriseescaped him.

  Without warning or apology the Russian boy had turned from the window,and stepping down the carriage, had tumbled into his former seat,hunching himself up with his face to the cushions and his back to hisfellow-travellers.

  It was a sudden and an uncivil proceeding. The man called Blake smiled;the Englishman shrugged his shoulders; the American, with a movement ofquiet determination, drew back the lamp hoods.

  In the flood of light the carriage lost its air of mystery, and Blake,who had a fancy for the mysterious, dropped back into his corner andtook out his cigar-case with a little feeling of regret. In traversingthe world's pathways, beaten or wild, he always made a point of seeingthe story behind the circumstance; and, had he realized it, a commoninstinct bound him in a triangular link to the peering, winking lamps,and to the Russian boy lying unsociably wrapped in his heavy coat. Allthree had an eye for an adventure.

  But the lights were up, and the curtain down--it was a theatre betweenthe acts; and presently the calculating voice of McCutcheon broke forthagain, as he relapsed into his original attitude, coiling up his longlimbs and nursing his cigar to a glow.

  "I can't get over that 'four jacks,'" he said. "To think I could havebeen funked into seeing Billy at fifty!"

  Blake laughed. "'Twas the eye-glass did it, Mac! A man shouldn't beallowed to play poker with an eye-glass; it's taking an undueadvantage."

  McCutcheon smiled his dry smile and shot a quizzical glance at the neatyoung Englishman, who had become absorbed in one of his papers.

  "Solid face, Blake!" he agreed. "Nothing so fine as an eye-glass forsheer bluff. What would Billy be without one? Well, perhaps we won'tsay. But with it you have no use for doubt--he's a diplomat all thetime."

  The young man named Billy showed no irritation. With the composure whichhe wore as a garment, he went on with his occupation.

  For a time McCutcheon bore this aloofness, then he opened a new attack."What are you reading, my son? Makes a man sort of want his breakfast tosee that hungry look in your eyes. Share the provender, won't you?"

  Billy looked up sedately.

  "You fellows think my life's a game," he said. "But I tell you it takessome doing to keep in touch with things."

  Blake laughed chaffingly. "And the illustrated weekly papers are anexcellent substitute for Blue-books?"

  Billy remained undisturbed. "It's all very well to scoff, but one mayget a side-light anywhere. In diplomacy nothing's too insignificant tonotice."

  Again Blake laughed. "The principle on which it offers you a living?"

  "Oh, come," said Billy, "that's rather rough! You know very well what Imean. 'Tisn't always in the serious reports you get the color of a fact,just as the gossip of a dinner-table is often more enlightening than acabinet council."

  "Apropos?"

  "I was thinking of this Petersburg affair."

  "What? The everlasting Duma business?" McCutcheon drew in a long breathof smoke.

  Billy looked superior, as befitted a man who dealt in subtler mattersthan mere politics. "Not at all," he said. "The disappearance of thePrincess Davorska."

  Here Blake made a murmur of impatience. "Oh, Billy, don't!
" he said."It's so frightfully banal."

  McCutcheon took his cigar from his mouth. "The woman who disappeared onthe eve of her marriage?"

  "Yes," broke in Blake, "disappeared on the eve of her marriage to elopewith some poet or painter, and set society by the ears. Thoroughlymodern and banal!"

  The young diplomat glanced up once more.

  "I don't think there's any suggestion of a lover."

  "Fact is more potent than suggestion, Billy. Of course there is a lover.Princesses don't disappear alone."

  "You're a Socialist, Ned." Billy's eyes returned to his paper. "Like allgood Socialists, crammed to the neck with class bigotry. Nobody is suchan individualist as the man who advocates equality!"

  Blake smiled. "That seems to sound all right," he said; "but it doesn'tremove the lover."

  The good-humored scepticism at last forced a way to Billy'ssusceptibilities.

  "Look here," he said, crossly, "if hearing's not believing, perhapsseeing is! Look at these pictures; they're not particularly modern orbanal."

  He held out his paper, but Blake shook his head.

  "No! No, Billy, not for me. If it was some little Rumanian gypsy who hadrun away from her tribe I'd take her to my heart and welcome. But aPrincess Davorska--no!"

  At this point McCutcheon stretched out his long arm and took the paperfrom Billy's hand. "Let's have a squint!" he said. "Lover or no lover,she must be a bit wide awake." And, curling himself up again, he beganto read from the paper, in a monotonous murmuring voice: "'_ThePrincess, as well as being a woman of artistic accomplishments, is anardent sportswoman, having in her early girlhood hunted and shot withkeen zest on her father's estates. The above picture shows her at theage of seventeen, carrying a gun_.' By the Lord, she is wide awake!" headded, by way of comment. "She is wide awake carrying that gun, but I'dlay my money on the second picture. Say, Billy, she looks a queen in hercourt finery!"

  But here real disgust crossed Blake's face. "Oh, that'll do, Mac! Giveus peace about the woman. I'm sick to death of all such nonsense. We'redue in a couple of hours. I think I'll try for forty winks." He threwaway his cigar and tucked his rug about him.

  McCutcheon glanced at him, and, seeing that he was in earnest, handedthe paper back to Billy.

  "Thanks, Mac!" Blake murmured. "Sorry if I was a bear! Don't switch offthe light, it won't bother me." He nodded, smiled, drew his rug closerabout his knees, and settled himself to sleep with the ease of theaccustomed traveller.

  For close upon an hour complete silence reigned in the heated carriage.Blake slept silently and peacefully; Billy went methodically through hispapers, dropping them one by one at his feet as he finished with them;McCutcheon smoked, gazing into space with the blank expression of thestrenuous man who has learned to utilize his momentary respites; while,stretched along the cushions of the carriage, his face hidden, his eyeswide open and attentive, lay the young Russian, his fingers tentativelycaressing the treasure in the pocket of his coat.

  But at last the spell was broken. The diplomatic Englishman dropped hislast paper, and McCutcheon stretched himself and looked once more at hiswatch.

  "Paris in an hour, Billy! Didn't those loafers in the dining-car promiseus coffee somewhat about this time?"

  Billy looked up, unruffled of mind and body as in the first moment ofthe journey. "I believe they did," he said. "Tell you what! You jogtheir memories, while I go and wash. What about calling Ned?"

  At sound of his own name, Blake's eyes opened. His waking wascharacteristic of him. It was no slow recovery of the senses; he wasasleep and then awake--fully, easily awake, with a completeconsciousness of his position--a complete, assured grasp of time andplace.

  "We're getting on, eh?" he said. "I suppose you're going to tub beforethose fat Belgians in the sleeping-car, Billy? If you are, keep a secondplace for me, like a good boy. There's nothing more fiendishlytriumphant than taking a bath in the basin while the rest of the trainis rattling the door-handle. Don't forget! Second place!" Then he turnedto the American. "What about the coffee, Mac? I expect those poor devilsof waiters have slept your order off."

  "I was just about to negotiate that coffee transaction." McCutcheonstood up. "You come too, my son! A little exercise will give you anappetite." He paused to stretch his long, lean body, and incidentallyhis glance fell upon their travelling companion, and he indicated therecumbent figure with a jerk of the head.

  "Say, Ned, ought we to wake our unsociable friend?" Blake cast one quickglance at the huddled form, then he answered, tersely: "Let him alone!He's not asleep--and, anyway, he understands English."

  At which McCutcheon made a comprehending grimace, and the two left thecarriage.

  * * * * *

  For many minutes the young Russian did not move; then, when positivecertainty of his solitude had grown into his mind, he lifted himself onone elbow and looked cautiously about him.

  A change had passed over his face in the last hour--an interestingchange. The smooth cheek that the night air had cooled to paleness wasnow flushed, and there was a spark of anger in the bright eyes.Unquestionably this boy had a temper and a spirit of his own, and bothhad been aroused. There was a certain arrogance, a certain contempt inhis glance now as it swept the inoffensive coats and rugs of thedeparted travellers, a certain antagonism as he sat up, tossed back thelock of hair that had again fallen across his forehead, and turned hiseyes to the heap of papers lying upon the carriage floor.

  For long he gazed upon these papers, as though they exercised a magneticinfluence, and at last, with a swift impulse, extremely characteristic,he stretched out his arm and drew forth the lowest of the heap.

  He regained his former position with a quick, lithe movement of thebody, and in an instant he was poring over the paper, the pages turningwith incredible speed under the eagerness of his touch. At last hereached the page he sought, the page that had offered ground fordiscussion to the three voyagers an hour earlier.

  His eyes flashed, his fingers tightened, his dark head was bent lowerover the paper. Two pictures confronted him. The first was of a woman inRussian court dress, who wore her jewels and her splendor of apparelwith an air of pride and careless supremacy that had in it somethingmagnificent, something semi-barbaric. The boy looked at this curious andarresting picture, but only for a moment; by some affinity, some subtleattraction, his eyes turned instantly to the second portrait--the girlcarrying the gun--and as if in answer to some secret sympathy, somesilent comprehension, the frown upon his brows relaxed and his lipsparted.

  It was still the woman of the jewels and the splendid apparel, but itwas a woman infinitely free, infinitely unhampered. The plain,serviceable clothes fitted the slight figure as though they had beenlong worn and loved; the hair was closely coiled, so that the young facelooked out upon the world frank and unadorned as a boy's. Here, as inthe first picture, the eyes looked forth with a curious, prouddirectness; but beneath the directness was a glint of humor, a flash ofdaring absent in the other face; the mouth smiled, seeming to anticipatelife's secrets, the ungloved hand held the gun with a touch peculiarlycaressing, peculiarly firm.

  The traveller looked, looked again, and then, with a deliberation odd inso slight a circumstance, folded the paper, rose, and stepped to thewindow of the carriage.

  The night mist beat in, still raw and cold, but somewhere behind thedarkness was the stirring, the vague presage of the day to come. Heleaned out, fingers close about the paper, lips and nostrils breathingin the suggestive, vaporous air. For a moment he stood, steadyinghimself to the motion of the train, palpitating to his secret thoughts;then, with a little theatricality all for his own edification, he openedhis fingers and, freeing the paper, watched it swirl away, hang for asecond like a moth against the lighted window, and vanish into thenight.