The Project Gutenberg EBook of Max, by Katherine Cecil Thurston

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Title: Max

Author: Katherine Cecil Thurston

Release Date: November 15, 2004 [EBook #14054]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: "I HAVE WAITED ALL MY LIFE FOR THIS"]

MAX

A NOVEL

BY
KATHERINE CECIL THURSTON

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

ILLUSTRATED BY
FRANK CRAIG

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMX

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 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.

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 th