“Because I am not your love!  I am not your friend!  I am not your Max—­or your Maxine!”

Swift as she, he was on his feet, his bearing changed, his manhood recognizing the challenge in her voice, his instinct of possession alive to combat it.

“Not mine?” he said; and to Maxine, standing white and frail before him, the words seemed to have all the significance of life itself.  Now at last they confronted each other—­man and woman; now at last the issue in the war of sex was to be put to the test.

She had always known that this moment would arrive—­always known that she would meet it in some such manner as she was meeting it now.

“Not mine?” Blake said again.

She shook her head, throwing back her shoulders, clasping her hands behind her, unconsciously taking on the attitude of defiance.

“And why not?”

It was curt, this question, as man’s vital questions ever are; it was an onslaught that clove to the heart of things.

She trembled for an instant, then met his eyes.

“Because I will belong to no one.  I must possess myself.”

He stared at her.

“But it is not given to any one to possess himself!  How can you separate an atom from the universal mass?”

“An atom may detach itself—­”

“And fall into space!  Is that self-possession?  But, my God, are we going to split hairs?  Maxine!  Maxine!” He came close to her and put out his arms, but with a fierce gesture she evaded him; then, as swiftly, caught his hand.

“Oh, Ned!  Oh, Ned!  Can’t you see?”

“No!” said Blake, simply.  “I cannot.”

“Listen!  Then listen!  I know myself for an individual—­for a definite entity; I know that here—­here, within me”—­she struck her breast—­“I have power—­power to think—­power to achieve.  And how do you think that power is to be developed?” She paused, looking at him with burning eyes.  “Not by the giving of my soul into bondage—­not by the submerging of myself in another being.  That night in Petersburg I saw my way—­the hard way, the lonely way!  Oh, Ned!” She stopped again, searching his face, but his face was pale and immobile—­curiously, unnaturally immobile.

With a passionate gesture, she flung his hand from her.  “Oh, it is so cruel!  Can’t you see?  Can’t you understand?  I left Russia to make a new life; I made myself a man, not for a whim, but as a symbol.  Sex is only an accident, but the world has made man the independent creature—­and I desired independence.  Sex is only an accident.  Mentally, I am as good a man as you are.”

“Ten times a better man,” said Blake, startingly.  “But not near so good a woman.  For I know the highest thing—­and you do not.”

“The highest thing?”

“Love.”

“Ah!” She threw up her hands in despair and walked to the window, looking up blankly at the stars.  Then, suddenly, she spoke again, tossing her words back into the room.