<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>MAX</h1>
<h3>A NOVEL</h3>
<h3>BY</h3>
<h2>KATHERINE CECIL THURSTON</h2>
<SPAN name='PART_I'></SPAN>
<h2>PART I</h2>
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<h2><big>MAX</big></h2>
<br/>
<SPAN name="CHAPTER_I"></SPAN>
<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
<br/>
<div class="first">A NIGHT journey is essentially a thing of
possibilities. To those who count it as mere transit, mere linking
of experiences, it is, of course, a commonplace; but to the
imaginative, who by gift divine see a picture in every cloud, a
story behind every shadow, it suggests romance—romance in the
very making.</div>
<p>Such a vessel of inspiration was the powerful north express as
it thundered over the sleeping plains of Germany and France on its
night journey from Cologne to Paris. A thing of possibilities
indeed, with its varying human freight—stolid Teutons,
hard-headed Scandinavians, Slavs whom expediency or caprice had
forced to descend upon Paris across the sea of ice. It was the
month of January, and an unlikely and unlovely night for long and
arduous travel. There were few pleasure-passengers on the express,
and if one could have looked through the carriage windows, blurred
with damp mist, one would have seen upon almost every face the
look—resigned or resolute—of those who fare forth by
necessity rather than by choice. In the sleeping-cars all the
berths were occupied, but here and them throughout the length of
the train an occasional traveller slept on the seat of his
carriage, wrapped in coats and rugs, while in the dining-saloon a
couple of sleepy waiters lurched to and fro in attendance upon a
party of three men whose energy precluded the thought of wasting
even the night hours and who were playing cards at one of the small
tables. Up and down the whole overheated, swaying train there was
the suggestion of mystery, of contrast and effect, and the
twinkling eyes of the electric lamps seemed to wink from behind
their drawn hoods as though they, worldly wise and watchful, saw
the individuality—the inevitable story—behind the
drowsy units who sat or lay or lounged unguarded beneath them.</p>
<p>In one carriage, the fifth or sixth from the thundering engine,
these lights winked and even laughed one to the other each time the
train lurched over the points, and the dark, shrouding hoods
quivered, allowing a glimpse at the occupant of the
compartment.</p>
<p>It was the figure of a boy upon which the twinkling lamp-eyes
flickered—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, seen vaguely under a rough overcoat, had the freedom and
supple grace that belongs to early youth.</p>
<p>He was sleeping, this solitary traveller—one hand under
his head, the other instinctively guarding something that lay deep
and snug in the pocket of his overcoat. His attitude was relaxed,
but not entirely abandoned to the solace of repose; even in his
sleep a something of self-consciousness seemed to cling to
him—a need for caution that lay near to the surface of his
drowsing senses—for once or twice he started, once or twice
his straight, dark eyebrows twitched into a frown, once or twice
his fingers tightened nervously upon their treasure. He was
subconsciously aware that, deserted though the compartment was, it
yet exhaled an alien suggestion, embodied in the rugs, the coats,
the hand-baggage of the card-playing travellers, which was heaped
upon the seat opposite.</p>
<p>But, despite this physical uneasiness, he was dreaming as the
train tore along through the damp, peaceful country—dreaming
with that odd confusion of time and scene that follows upon keen
excitement, stress of feeling or stress of circumstance.</p>
<p>As he dreamed, he was standing again in the outer court of a
house in Petersburg—a house to which he was debtor for one
night's shelter; it was early morning and deadly cold. The whole
picture was sharp as a cut crystal—the triple court-yard, the
stone pavement, the gray well, and frozen pile of firewood. He saw,
recognized, lost it, and knew himself to be skimming down the
Nevskiy Prospekt and across the Winter Palace Square, where the
great angel towers upon its rose-granite monument. Forward, forward
he was carried, along the bank of the frozen Neva and over the
Troitskiy bridge, the powdered snow stinging his face like
pinpoints as it flew up from the nails in his little horse's shoes.
Then followed a magnifying of the picture—massed buildings
rising from the snow—buildings gold and turquoise-domed,
that, even as they materialized, lost splendor and merged into the
unpretentious frontage of the Finland station.</p>
<p>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. He was no longer rocking to the power of the north
express; he was standing on the platform at the end of a little
train that puffed out of the Finland station—a primitive,
miniature train, white with frost and powdered with the ashes of
its wood fuel. The vision came and passed a sketch, not a
picture—a suggestion of straight tracks, wide snow plains,
and the blue, misty blur of fir woods. Then a shifting, a juggling
of effects! Åbo, the Finnish port, painted itself upon his
imagination, and he was embarked upon the lonely sledge-drive, to
the harbor. He started in his sleep, shivered and sighed at that
remembered drive. The train passed over new points, the hoods of
the lamps swayed, the lights blinked and winked, and his mind swung
onward in response to the physical jar.</p>
<p>Åbo was obliterated. He was on board a ship—a ship
ploughing her way through the ice-fields as she neared Stockholm;
salt sea air flicked his nostrils, he heard the broken ice tearing
the keel like a million files, he was sensible of the crucial
sensation—the tremendous quiver—as the vessel slipped
from her bondage into the cradle of the sea, a sentient thing
welcoming her own element!</p>
<p>The heart of the dreamer leaped to that strange sensation. He
drew a long, sharp breath, and sat up, suddenly awake. It was over
and done with—the coldness, the rigor, the region of ice
bonds! The fingers of the future beckoned to him; the promises of
the future lapped his ears as the waves had lapped the ship's
sides.</p>
<p>He looked about him, at first excitedly, then confusedly, then a
little shamedfacedly, for we are always involuntarily shamed at
being tricked by our emotions into a false conception. Drawing his
hand from his coat-pocket, he stretched himself with an assumption
of ease, as though he saw and recognized the twinkle in the
electric lamps and spontaneously rose to its demands.</p>
<p>The train was flying forward at unabated speed. Outside, the raw
January air was clinging in a film to the carriage window; inside,
the dim light and overheated air made an artificial atmosphere,
enervating or stimulating according to the traveller's gifts. To
this solitary voyager stimulation was obviously the effect
produced, for, try as he might to cheat the inquisitive lamps,
interest in every detail of his surroundings was portrayed in his
face, in the poise of his head, the quickness of his glance as he
gazed round the compartment, verifying the impression that he was
alone.</p>
<SPAN name="standing"></SPAN>
<center><ANTIMG src="images/ill004.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="616" alt="STANDING AGAIN IN THE OUTER COURT OF A HOUSE IN PETERSBURG"></center>
<h5>"STANDING AGAIN IN THE OUTER COURT OF A HOUSE IN
PETERSBURG"</h5>
<p>Yes, he was absolutely alone! Everything was as it had been when
he settled himself to sleep on the departure of the three
strangers. There, on the opposite seat, were their rugs, their
fur-lined coats, their illustrated papers—all the impedimenta
of prosperous travellers; and there, on the rack above them, was
his own modest hand-bag without initials or label—a common
little bag that might have belonged to some poor Russian clerk or
held the possessions of some needy Polish student. The owner's
glance scanned and appraised it, then by suggestion fell to the
plain rough overcoat that covered him from his neck to the tops of
his high boots, and whose replica was to be seen any day in the
meaner streets of Petersburg or Moscow. Like the bag, it was a
little strange, a little incongruous in its comfortable
surroundings—a little savoring of mystery.</p>
<p>The traveller's pulses quickened, his being lifted to the
moment, for in his soul was the spark of adventure, in his eyes the
adventurous look—fearless, observant, questioning. In
composition, in expression and essence, this boy was that free and
fascinating creature, the born adventurer—high of courage,
prodigal of emotion, capturer of the world's loot.</p>
<p>The spirit within him shone out in the moment of solitude; he
passed his hands down the front, of his coat, revelling in its
coarse texture; he rose to his feet, turned to the sheet of gray,
misted glass, and, letting down the window, leaned out into the
night.</p>
<p>The scene was vague and ghostly, but to eyes accustomed to
northern whiteness it was full of suggestion, full of secrecy; to
nostrils accustomed to keen, rarefied air there was something
poignant and delicious in the scent of turned earth, the savor of
vegetation. He could see little or nothing as the train rocked and
the landscape tore past, but the atmosphere spoke to him as it
speaks to blind men, penetrating his consciousness. Here were open
spaces, tracts of country fructifying for the spring to come. A
land of promise—of growth—of fulfilment!</p>
<p>He closed his eyes, living in the suggestion, and his spirit
sped forward with the onrush of the train. Somewhere beyond the
darkness lay the land of his desires! Somewhere behind the veil
shone the lights of Paris! With a quick, exulting excitement he
laughed; but even as the laugh was caught and scattered to the
winds by the thunder of the engine, his bearing changed, the
excitement dropped from him, a mask of immobility fell upon his
face, and he wheeled round from the window. The card-playing
travellers had opened the door of the carriage.</p>
<p>From his shadowy corner the boy eyed them; and they, alert from
their game, slightly dazed by the darkness of the carriage, peered
back at him, frankly curious. When they had left the compartment he
had been a huddled figure demanding no attention; now he was awake
and an individual, and human nature prompted interest.</p>
<p>Each in turn looked at him, and at each new glance his coldness
of demeanor deepened; until, as the eldest of the party came down
the carriage and appropriated the seat beside him, he turned away,
pulling up the window with resentful haste.</p>
<p>"Don't do that!" said the third man, pausing in the doorway and
speaking in French easily and pleasantly. "Don't do that—if
you want the air!"</p>
<p>The boy started and looked round.</p>
<p>"I thank you! But I do not need the air!"</p>
<p>The man smiled acquiescence, but as he stepped into the carriage
he took a sharp look at the boy's clothes—the common Russian
clothes—and a slightly questioning, slightly satirical
expression crossed his face. He was a man who knew his world the
globe over, and in his bearing lurked the toleration, the kindly
scepticism that such knowledge breeds.</p>
<p>"As you please!" he said, settling himself comfortably in the
corner by the door, while the elder of his companions—a tall,
spare American—crossed his long legs and lighted a thin black
cigar, and the younger—a spruce young Englishman wearing an
eye-glass and a small mustache—wrapped himself in his rugs,
took a clean pocket-handkerchief from his dressing-case, and opened
a large bundle of illustrated papers—French, German, and
English.</p>
<p>For a space the train rocked on. No one attempted to speak, and
the Russian boy continued to stand by the window, pretending to
look through the blurred panes, in reality wondering how he could
with least commotion pass down the carriage to his own vacated
place.</p>
<p>At last the man with the long cigar broke the silence in a slow,
cool voice that betrayed his nationality.</p>
<p>"We're well on time, Blake," he remarked, drawing out his
watch.</p>
<p>The youth by the window shot an involuntary, fleeting glance at
the two younger men, to see which would answer to the name; and the
student of human nature noted the fact that he understood
English.</p>
<p>"Oh, it's a good service!" he acquiesced, the tolerant
look—half sceptical, half humorous—- passing again over
his face.</p>
<p>"I don't know! I think we could do with another few kilometres
to the hour." The thin man studied his flat gold watch with the
loving interest of one to whom time is a sacred thing.</p>
<p>At this point the youngest of the three raised his head.</p>
<p>"Marvellous sight you have, McCutcheon! Wish I could see by this
light!"</p>
<p>McCutcheon leaned forward, replacing his watch. "What! Can't you
see your picture-books? Let's have the blinkers off!" He rose, his
long, spidery figure stretching up like a grotesque shadow, but as
his arm went out to the nearest of the shrouded lamps he was
compelled to draw back against the seat of the carriage, and an
exclamation of surprise escaped him.</p>
<p>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 his fellow-travellers.</p>
<p>It was a sudden and an uncivil proceeding. The man called Blake
smiled; the Englishman shrugged his shoulders; the American, with a
movement of quiet determination, drew back the lamp hoods.</p>
<p>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 and took out his cigar-case with a little feeling of regret.
In traversing the world's pathways, beaten or wild, he always made
a point of seeing the story behind the circumstance; and, had he
realized it, a common instinct bound him in a triangular link to
the peering, winking lamps, and to the Russian boy lying unsociably
wrapped in his heavy coat. All three had an eye for an
adventure.</p>
<p>But the lights were up, and the curtain down—it was a
theatre between the acts; and presently the calculating voice of
McCutcheon broke forth again, as he relapsed into his original
attitude, coiling up his long limbs and nursing his cigar to a
glow.</p>
<p>"I can't get over that 'four jacks,'" he said. "To think I could
have been funked into seeing Billy at fifty!"</p>
<p>Blake laughed. "'Twas the eye-glass did it, Mac! A man shouldn't
be allowed to play poker with an eye-glass; it's taking an undue
advantage."</p>
<p>McCutcheon smiled his dry smile and shot a quizzical glance at
the neat young Englishman, who had become absorbed in one of his
papers.</p>
<p>"Solid face, Blake!" he agreed. "Nothing so fine as an eye-glass
for sheer bluff. What would Billy be without one? Well, perhaps we
won't say. But with it you have no use for doubt—he's a
diplomat all the time."</p>
<p>The young man named Billy showed no irritation. With the
composure which he wore as a garment, he went on with his
occupation.</p>
<p>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 to see that hungry look in your eyes. Share the
provender, won't you?"</p>
<p>Billy looked up sedately.</p>
<p>"You fellows think my life's a game," he said. "But I tell you
it takes some doing to keep in touch with things."</p>
<p>Blake laughed chaffingly. "And the illustrated weekly papers are
an excellent substitute for Blue-books?"</p>
<p>Billy remained undisturbed. "It's all very well to scoff, but
one may get a side-light anywhere. In diplomacy nothing's too
insignificant to notice."</p>
<p>Again Blake laughed. "The principle on which it offers you a
living?"</p>
<p>"Oh, come," said Billy, "that's rather rough! You know very well
what I mean. '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 a cabinet council."</p>
<p>"Apropos?"</p>
<p>"I was thinking of this Petersburg affair."</p>
<p>"What? The everlasting Duma business?" McCutcheon drew in a long
breath of smoke.</p>
<p>Billy looked superior, as befitted a man who dealt in subtler
matters than mere politics. "Not at all," he said. "The
disappearance of the Princess Davorska."</p>
<p>Here Blake made a murmur of impatience. "Oh, Billy, don't!" he
said. "It's so frightfully banal."</p>
<p>McCutcheon took his cigar from his mouth. "The woman who
disappeared on the eve of her marriage?"</p>
<p>"Yes," broke in Blake, "disappeared on the eve of her marriage
to elope with some poet or painter, and set society by the ears.
Thoroughly modern and banal!"</p>
<p>The young diplomat glanced up once more.</p>
<p>"I don't think there's any suggestion of a lover."</p>
<p>"Fact is more potent than suggestion, Billy. Of course there is
a lover. Princesses don't disappear alone."</p>
<p>"You're a Socialist, Ned." Billy's eyes returned to his paper.
"Like all good Socialists, crammed to the neck with class bigotry.
Nobody is such an individualist as the man who advocates
equality!"</p>
<p>Blake smiled. "That seems to sound all right," he said; "but it
doesn't remove the lover."</p>
<p>The good-humored scepticism at last forced a way to Billy's
susceptibilities.</p>
<p>"Look here," he said, crossly, "if hearing's not believing,
perhaps seeing is! Look at these pictures; they're not particularly
modern or banal."</p>
<p>He held out his paper, but Blake shook his head.</p>
<p>"No! No, Billy, not for me. If it was some little Rumanian gypsy
who had run away from her tribe I'd take her to my heart and
welcome. But a Princess Davorska—no!"</p>
<p>At this point McCutcheon stretched out his long arm and took the
paper from 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 began to read from the paper, in a monotonous murmuring
voice: "'<i>The Princess, as well as being a woman of artistic
accomplishments, is an ardent sportswoman, having in her early
girlhood hunted and shot with keen zest on her father's estates.
The above picture shows her at the age of seventeen, carrying a
gun</i>.' By the Lord, she is wide awake!" he added, by way of
comment. "She is wide awake carrying that gun, but I'd lay my money
on the second picture. Say, Billy, she looks a queen in her court
finery!"</p>
<p>But here real disgust crossed Blake's face. "Oh, that'll do,
Mac! Give us peace about the woman. I'm sick to death of all such
nonsense. We're due in a couple of hours. I think I'll try for
forty winks." He threw away his cigar and tucked his rug about
him.</p>
<p>McCutcheon glanced at him, and, seeing that he was in earnest,
handed the paper back to Billy.</p>
<p>"Thanks, Mac!" Blake murmured. "Sorry if I was a bear! Don't
switch off the light, it won't bother me." He nodded, smiled, drew
his rug closer about his knees, and settled himself to sleep with
the ease of the accustomed traveller.</p>
<p>For close upon an hour complete silence reigned in the heated
carriage. Blake slept silently and peacefully; Billy went
methodically through his papers, dropping them one by one at his
feet as he finished with them; McCutcheon smoked, gazing into space
with the blank expression of the strenuous man who has learned to
utilize his momentary respites; while, stretched along the cushions
of the carriage, his face hidden, his eyes wide open and attentive,
lay the young Russian, his fingers tentatively caressing the
treasure in the pocket of his coat.</p>
<p>But at last the spell was broken. The diplomatic Englishman
dropped his last paper, and McCutcheon stretched himself and looked
once more at his watch.</p>
<p>"Paris in an hour, Billy! Didn't those loafers in the dining-car
promise us coffee somewhat about this time?"</p>
<p>Billy looked up, unruffled of mind and body as in the first
moment of the journey. "I believe they did," he said. "Tell you
what! You jog their memories, while I go and wash. What about
calling Ned?"</p>
<p>At sound of his own name, Blake's eyes opened. His waking was
characteristic of him. It was no slow recovery of the senses; he
was asleep and then awake—fully, easily awake, with a
complete consciousness of his position—a complete, assured
grasp of time and place.</p>
<p>"We're getting on, eh?" he said. "I suppose you're going to tub
before those fat Belgians in the sleeping-car, Billy? If you are,
keep a second place for me, like a good boy. There's nothing more
fiendishly triumphant than taking a bath in the basin while the
rest of the train is rattling the door-handle. Don't forget! Second
place!" Then he turned to the American. "What about the coffee,
Mac? I expect those poor devils of waiters have slept your order
off."</p>
<p>"I was just about to negotiate that coffee transaction."
McCutcheon stood up. "You come too, my son! A little exercise will
give you an appetite." He paused to stretch his long, lean body,
and incidentally his glance fell upon their travelling companion,
and he indicated the recumbent figure with a jerk of the head.</p>
<p>"Say, Ned, ought we to wake our unsociable friend?" Blake cast
one quick glance at the huddled form, then he answered, tersely:
"Let him alone! He's not asleep—and, anyway, he understands
English."</p>
<p>At which McCutcheon made a comprehending grimace, and the two
left the carriage.</p>
<br/>
<br/>
<p>For many minutes the young Russian did not move; then, when
positive certainty of his solitude had grown into his mind, he
lifted himself on one elbow and looked cautiously about him.</p>
<p>A change had passed over his face in the last hour—an
interesting change. The smooth cheek that the night air had cooled
to paleness was now 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 both had been aroused. There was a certain arrogance,
a certain contempt in his glance now as it swept the inoffensive
coats and rugs of the departed travellers, a certain antagonism as
he sat up, tossed back the lock of hair that had again fallen
across his forehead, and turned his eyes to the heap of papers
lying upon the carriage floor.</p>
<p>For long he gazed upon these papers, as though they exercised a
magnetic influence, and at last, with a swift impulse, extremely
characteristic, he stretched out his arm and drew forth the lowest
of the heap.</p>
<p>He regained his former position with a quick, lithe movement of
the body, and in an instant he was poring over the paper, the pages
turning with incredible speed under the eagerness of his touch. At
last he reached the page he sought, the page that had offered
ground for discussion to the three voyagers an hour earlier.</p>
<p>His eyes flashed, his fingers tightened, his dark head was bent
lower over the paper. Two pictures confronted him. The first was of
a woman in Russian court dress, who wore her jewels and her
splendor of apparel with an air of pride and careless supremacy
that had in it something magnificent, something semi-barbaric. The
boy looked at this curious and arresting picture, but only for a
moment; by some affinity, some subtle attraction, his eyes turned
instantly to the second portrait—the girl carrying the
gun—and as if in answer to some secret sympathy, some silent
comprehension, the frown upon his brows relaxed and his lips
parted.</p>
<p>It was still the woman of the jewels and the splendid apparel,
but it was a woman infinitely free, infinitely unhampered. The
plain, serviceable clothes fitted the slight figure as though they
had been long worn and loved; the hair was closely coiled, so that
the young face looked out upon the world frank and unadorned as a
boy's. Here, as in the first picture, the eyes looked forth with a
curious, proud directness; but beneath the directness was a glint
of humor, a flash of daring absent in the other face; the mouth
smiled, seeming to anticipate life's secrets, the ungloved hand
held the gun with a touch peculiarly caressing, peculiarly
firm.</p>
<p>The traveller looked, looked again, and then, with a
deliberation odd in so slight a circumstance, folded the paper,
rose, and stepped to the window of the carriage.</p>
<p>The night mist beat in, still raw and cold, but somewhere behind
the darkness was the stirring, the vague presage of the day to
come. He leaned out, fingers close about the paper, lips and
nostrils breathing in the suggestive, vaporous air. For a moment he
stood, steadying himself to the motion of the train, palpitating to
his secret thoughts; then, with a little theatricality all for his
own edification, he opened his fingers and, freeing the paper,
watched it swirl away, hang for a second like a moth against the
lighted window, and vanish into the night.</p>
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