The Triflers

Before madame left she turned and whispered in Marie's ear.

"I may be late," she said; "but you will be here when I return."

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"Without fail?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

Marie watched monsieur take his bride's arm as they went out the door, and the thing she whispered to herself had nothing to do with madame at all.

"Poor monsieur!" she said.

CHAPTER X

THE AFFAIR AT MAXIM'S

It was all new to Marjory. In the year and a half she had lived in Paris with her aunt she had dined mostly in her room. Such cafés as this she had seen only occasionally from a cab on her way to the opera. As she stood at the entrance to the big room, which sparkled like a diamond beneath a light, she was as dazed as a debutante entering her first ballroom. The head waiter, after one glance at Monte, was bent upon securing the best available table. Here was an American prince, if ever he had seen one.

Had monsieur any choice?

Decidedly. He desired a quiet table in a corner, not too near the music.

Such a table was immediately secured, and as Covington crossed the room with Marjory by his side he was conscious of being more observed than ever he had been when entering the Riche alone. His bandaged arm lent him a touch of distinction, to be sure; but this served only to turn eyes back again to Marjory, as if seeking in her the cause for it. She moved like a princess, with her head well up and her dark eyes brilliant.

"All eyes are upon you," he smiled, when he had given his order.

"If they are it's very absurd," she returned.

Also, if they were, it did not matter. That was the fact she most appreciated. Ever since she had been old enough to observe that men had eyes, it had been her duty to avoid those eyes. That had been especially true in Paris, and still more especially true in the few weeks she had been there alone.

Now, with Monte opposite her, she was at liberty to meet men's eyes and study them with interest. There was no danger. It was they who turned away from her—after a glance at Monte. It amused her to watch them turn away; it gave her a new sense of power. But of one thing she was certain: there was not a man in the lot with whom she would have felt comfortable to be here as she felt comfortable with Monte.

Monte was having a very pleasant time of it. The thing that surprised him was the way Marjory quickened his zest in old things that had become stale. Here, for instance, she took him back to the days when he had responded with a piquant tingle to the lights and the music and the gay Parisian chatter, to the quick glance of smiling eyes where adventure lurked. He had been content to observe without accepting the challenges, principally because he lived mostly in the sunshine. To-night, in a clean, decent way, he felt again the old tingle. But this time it came from a different source. When Marjory raised her eyes to his, the lights blazed as brilliantly as if a hundred new ones had been lighted; the music mixed with his blood until his thoughts danced.

With the coffee he lighted a cigarette and leaned back contentedly until it was time to go.

As they went out of the room, he was aware that once again all eyes were turned toward her, so that he threw back his shoulders a little farther than usual and looked about with some scorn at those who had with them only ordinary women.

The comedy at the Gymnase was sufficiently amusing to hold her attention, and that was the best she could ask for; but Monte watched it indifferently, resenting the fact that it did hold her attention. Besides, there were too many people all about her here. For two hours and a half it was as if she had gone back into the crowd. He was glad when the final curtain rang down and he was able to take her arm and guide her out.

"Maxim's next?" he inquired.

"Do you want to go?" she asked.

"It's for you to decide," he answered.

She was dead tired by now, but she did not dare to stop.

"All right," she said; "we'll go."

It was a harlequin crowd at Maxim's—a noisier, tenser, more hectic crowd than at the Riche. The room was gray with smoke, and everywhere she looked were gold-tipped wine bottles. Though it was still early, there was much hysterical laughter and much tossing about of long streamers of colored paper and confetti. As they entered she instinctively shrank away from it. Had the waiter delayed another second before leading them to a table, she would have gone out.

Monte ordered the wine he was expected to order, but Marjory scarcely touched it to her lips, while he was content to watch it bubble in his glass. He did not like to have her here, and yet it was almost worth the visit to watch her eyes grow big, to watch her sensitive mouth express the disgust she felt for the mad crowd, to have her unconsciously hitch her chair nearer his.

"The worst of it is," he explained to her, "it's the outsiders who are doing all this—Americans, most of them."

Suddenly, from behind them, a clear tenor voice made itself heard through the din. The first notes were indistinct; but in a few seconds the singer had the room to himself. Turning quickly, Marjory saw the slender figure of Hamilton, swaying slightly, standing by a table, his eyes leveled upon hers. He was singing "The Rosary"—singing it as only he, when half mad, could sing it.

She clutched Monte's hand as he half rose from his seat.

"Please," she whispered, "it's best to sit still."

Stronger and stronger the plaintive melody fell from his lips, until finally the orchestra itself joined. Women strained forward, and half-dazed men sat back and listened with bated breath. Even Monte forgot for a moment the boldness that inspired Hamilton, and became conscious only of Marjory's warm fingers within his. So, had the singer been any one else, he would have been content to sit to the end. But he knew the danger there. His only alternative, however, was to rise and press through the enraptured crowd, which certainly would have resented the interruption. It seemed better to wait, and go out during the noisy applause that was sure to follow.

At the second verse Hamilton, still singing, came nearer. A path opened before him, as before an inspired prophet. It was only Monte who moved his chair slightly and made ready. Still there was nothing he could do until the man committed some overt act. When Hamilton concluded his song, he was less than two feet away. By then Monte was on his feet. As the applause swept from every corner of the room, Hamilton seized from a near-by table a glass of wine, and, raising it, shouted a toast:—

"To the bride."

The crowd followed his eyes to the shrinking girl behind Monte. In good humor they rose, to a man, and joined in, draining their glasses. It was Monte's opportunity. Taking Marjory's arm, he started for the door.

But Hamilton was madder than he had ever been. He ran forward, laughing hysterically.

"Kiss the bride," he called.

This he actually attempted. Monte had only his left arm, and it was not his strongest; but back of it he felt a new power. He took Hamilton beneath the chin, and with a lurch the man fell sprawling over a table among the glasses. In the screaming confusion that followed, Monte fought his way to the door, using his shoulders and a straight arm to clear a path. In another second he had lifted Marjory into a cab.

Leaning forward, she clutched his arm as the cab jumped ahead.

"I'm sorry I had to make a scene," he apologized. "I should n't have hit him, but—I saw red for a second."

She would never forget that picture of Monte standing by her side, his head erect, his arm drawn back for the second blow which had proved unnecessary. All the other faces surrounding her had faded into a smoky background. She had been conscious of him alone, and of his great strength. She had felt that moment as if his strength had literally been hers also. She could have struck out, had it been necessary.

"You did n't hurt your shoulder, did you?" she asked anxiously.

He did not know—it did not much matter. Had Hamilton actually succeeded in reaching her lips, he would have torn his wounded arm from the bandages and struck with that too. He had never realized until then what sacred things her lips were. He had known them only as beautiful. They were beautiful now as he looked down at them. Slightly parted, they held his eyes with a strange, new fascination. They were alive, those lips. They were warm and pulsating. He found himself breathing faster because of them. He seemed, against his will, to be bending toward them. Then, with a wrench, he tore himself free from the spell, not daring to look at her again.

Leaving her to Marie at the door of her room, Monte went into his own apartment. He threw open a window, and stood there in the dark with the cool night breeze blowing in upon him. After Maxim's, the more clean air the better; after what had followed in the cab, the more cool air the better.

He was still confused by it; still frightened by it. For a moment he had felt himself caught in the clutch of some power over which he had no control. That was the startling truth that stood out most prominently. He had been like one intoxicated—he who never before in his life had lost a grip upon himself. That fact struck at the very heart of his whole philosophy of life. Always normal—that had been his boast; never losing his head over this thing or that. It was the only way a man could keep from worrying. It was the only way a man could keep sane. The moment you wanted anything like the devil, then the devil was to pay. This evening he had proved that.

He went back to the affair at Maxim's. He should have known better than to take her there, anyway. She did not belong in such a place. She did not belong anywhere he had taken her to-day. To-morrow—but all this was beside the point.

The question that he would most like to answer at this moment was whether this last wild episode of Hamilton's was due to absinthe or to that same weird passion which a few weeks before had led the man to shoot. It had been beastly of Hamilton to try to reach her lips. That, doubtless, was the absinthe. It robbed him of his senses. But the look in the man's eyes when he sang, the awful hunger that burned in them when he gave his mad toast—those things seemed to spring from a different source. The man, in a room full of strangers, had seen only her, had sung only to her. Monte doubted if the crazed fellow saw even him. He saw no one but this one woman. That was madness—but it did not come of absinthe. The absinthe may have caused the final utter breakdown of Hamilton's self-control here and at Madame Courcy's—but that the desire could be there without it Monte had twice proved to himself that evening.

Once was when he had struck Hamilton. He alone knew that when he hit that time it was with the lust to kill—even as Hamilton had shot to kill. The feeling lasted only the fraction of a second—merely while his fist was plunging toward Hamilton's chin. But, however brief, it had sprung from within him—a blood-red, frenzied desire to beat down the other man. At the moment he was not so much conscious of trying to protect her as to rid himself of Hamilton.

The second mad moment had come in the cab, when he had looked down at her lips. As the passion to kill left him, another equally strong passion had taken its place. He had hungered for her lips—the very lips Hamilton, a moment before, had attempted to violate. He who all his life had looked as indifferently upon living lips as upon sculptured lips had suddenly found himself in the clutch of a mighty desire. For a second he had swayed under the temptation. He had been ready to risk everything, because for a heart-beat or two nothing else seemed to matter. In his madness, he had even dared think that delicate, sensitive mouth trembled a like desire.

Even here in the dark, alone, something of the same desire returned. He began to pace the room.

How she would have hated him had he yielded to that impulse! He shuddered as he pictured the look of horror that would have leaped into her dark eyes. Then she would have shrunk away frightened, and her eyes would have grown cold—those eyes that had only so lately warmed at all. Her face would have turned to marble—the face that only so lately had relaxed.

She trusted him—trusted him to the extent of being willing to marry him to save herself from the very danger with which he had threatened her. Except that at the last moment he had resisted, he was no better than Hamilton.

In her despair she had cried, "Why won't they let me alone?" And he had urged her to come with him, so that she might be let alone. He was to be merely her camarade de voyage—her big brother. Then, in less than twelve hours, he had become like the others. He felt unfit to remain in the next room to her—unfit to greet her in the morning. In an agony of remorse, he clenched his fists.

He drew himself up shortly. A new question leaped to his brain. Was this, then, love? The thought brought both solace and fresh terror. It gave him at least some justification for his moment of temptation; but it also brought vividly before him countless new dangers. If this were love, then he must face day after day of this sort of thing. Then he would be at the mercy of a passion that must inevitably lead him either to Hamilton's plight or to Chic Warren's equally unenviable position. Each man, in his own way, paid the cost: Hamilton, mad at Maxim's; Chic pacing the floor, with beaded brow, at night. With these two examples before him, surely he should have learned his lesson. Against them he could place his own normal life—ten years of it without a single hour such as these hours through which he was now living.

That was because he had kept steady. Ambition, love, drunkenness, gluttony—these were all excesses. His own father had desired mightily to be governor of a State, and it had killed him; his grandfather had died amassing the Covington fortune; he had friends who had died of love, and others who had overdrunk and overeaten. The secret of happiness was not to want anything you did not have. If you went beyond that, you paid the cost in new sacrifices, leading again to sacrifices growing out of those.

Monte lighted a cigarette and inhaled a deep puff. The thing for him to do was fairly clear: to pack his bag and leave while he still retained the use of his reasoning faculties. He had been swept off his feet for an instant, that was all. Let him go on with his schedule for a month, and he would recover his balance.

The suggestion was considerably simplified by the fact that it was not necessary to consider Marjory in any way. He would be in no sense deserting her, because she was in no way dependent upon him. She had ample funds of her own, and Marie for company. He had not married her because of any need she had for him along those lines. The protection of his name she would still have. As Mrs. Covington she could travel as safely without him as with him. Even Hamilton was eliminated. He had received his lesson. Anyway, she would probably leave Paris at once for Étois, and so be out of reach of Hamilton.

Monte wondered if she would miss him. Perhaps, for a day or so; but, after all, she would have without him the same wider freedom she craved. She would have all the advantages of a widow without the necessity of admitting that her husband was dead. He would always be in the background—an invisible guard. It was odd that neither she nor he had considered that as an attractive possibility. It was decidedly more practical than the present arrangement.

As for himself, he was ready to admit frankly that after to-day golf on an English course would for a time be a bore. From the first sight of her this morning until now, he had not had a dull moment. She had taken him back to the days when his emotions had been quick to respond to each day as a new adventure in life.

It was last winter in Davos that he had first begun to note the keen edge of pleasure becoming the least bit dulled. He had followed the routine of his amusements almost mechanically. He had been conscious of a younger element there who seemed to crowd in just ahead of him. Some of them were young ladies he remembered having seen with pig-tails. They smiled saucily at him—with a confidence that suggested he was no longer to be greatly feared. He could remember when they blushed shyly if he as much as glanced in their direction. His schedule had become a little too much of a schedule. It suggested the annual tour of the middle-aged gentlemen who follow the spas and drink of the waters.

He felt all those things now even more keenly than he had at the time. Looking back at them, he gained a new perspective that emphasized each disagreeable detail. But he had only to think of Marjory as there with him and—presto, they vanished. Had she been with him at Davos—better still, were she able to go to Davos with him next winter—he knew with what joy she would sit in front of him on the bob-sled and take the breathless dip of the Long Run. He knew how she would meet him in the morning with her cheeks stung into a deep red by the clean cold of the mountain air. She would climb the heights with him, laughing. She would skate with him and ski with him, and there would be no one younger than they.

Monte again began to pace his room. She must go to Davos with him next winter. He must take her around the whole schedule with him. She must go to England and golf with him, and from there to his camp. She would love it there. He could picture her in the woods, on the lake, and before the camp-fire, beneath the stars.

From there they would go on to Cambridge for the football season. She would like that. As a girl she had been cheated of all the big games, and he would make up for it. So they would go on to New York for the holidays. He had had rather a stupid time of it last year. He had gone down to Chic's for Christmas, but had been oppressed by an uncomfortable feeling that he did not belong there. Mrs. Chic had been busy with so many presents for others that he had felt like old Scrooge. He had made his usual gifts to relatives, but only as a matter of habit. With Marjory with him, he would be glad to go shopping as Chic and Mrs. Chic did. He might even go on to Philadelphia with her and look up some of the relatives he had lately been avoiding.

Where in thunder had his thoughts taken him again? He put his head in his hands. He had carried her around his whole schedule with him just as if this were some honest-to-God marriage. He had done this while she lay in the next room peacefully sleeping in perfect trust.

She must never know this danger, nor be further subjected to it. There was only one safe way—to take the early train for Calais without even seeing her again.

Monte sat down at the writing-desk and seized a pen.

Dear Marjory [he began]: Something has come up unexpectedly that makes it necessary for me to take an early train for England. I can't tell how long I shall be gone, but that of course is not important. I hope you will go on to Étois, as we had planned; or, at any rate, leave Paris. Somehow, I feel that you belong out under the blue sky and not in town.

He paused a moment and read over that last sentence. Then he scratched it out. Then he tore up the whole letter.

What he had to say should be not written. He must meet her in the morning and tell her like a man.

CHAPTER XI

A CANCELED RESERVATION

Though it was late when he retired, Monte found himself wide awake at half past seven. Springing from bed, he took his cold tub, shaved, and after dressing proceeded to pack his bags. The process was simple; he called the hotel valet, gave the order to have them ready as soon as possible, and went below. From the office he telephoned upstairs to Marie, and learned that madame would meet him in the breakfast-room at nine. This left him a half-hour in which to pay his bill at the hotel, order a reservation on the express to Calais, and buy a large bunch of fresh violets, which he had placed on the breakfast table—a little table in a sunshiny corner.

Monte was calmer this morning than he had been the night before. He was rested; the interval of eight hours that had passed since he last saw her gave him, however slight, a certain perspective, while his normal surroundings, seen in broad daylight, tended to steady him further. The hotel clerk, busy about his uninspired duties; the impassive waiters in black and white; the solid-looking Englishmen and their wives who began to make their appearance, lent a sense of unreality to the events of yesterday.

Yet, even so, his thoughts clung tenaciously to the necessity of his departure. In a way, the very normality of this morning world emphasized that necessity. He recalled that it was to just such a day as this he had awakened, yesterday. The hotel clerk had been standing exactly where he was now, sorting the morning mail, stopping every now and then with a troubled frown to make out an indistinct address. The corpulent porter in his blue blouse stood exactly where he was now standing, jealously guarding the door. Vehicles had been passing this way and that on the street outside. He had heard the same undertone of leisurely moving life—the scuffling of feet, the closing of doors, distant voices, the rumble of traffic. Then, after this lazy prelude, he had been swept on and on to the final dizzy climax.

That must not happen again. At this moment he knew he had a firm grip on himself—but at this moment yesterday he had felt even more secure. There had been no past then. That seemed a big word to use for such recent events covering so few hours; and yet it was none too big. It covered nothing less than the revelation of a man to himself. If that process sometimes takes years, it is none the less significant if it takes place in a day.

"Good-morning, Monte."

He turned quickly—so quickly that she started in surprise.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked.

She was in blue this morning, and wore at an angle a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with black and white. He thought her eyes looked a trifle tired. He would have said she had not slept well.

"I—I didn't know you were down," he faltered.

The interval of six hours upon which he had been depending vanished instantly. To-day was but the continuation of yesterday. As he moved toward the breakfast-room at her side, the outside world disappeared as by magic, leaving only her world—the world immediately about her, which she dominated. This room which she entered by his side was no longer merely the salle-à-manger of the Normandie. He was conscious of no portion of it other than that which included their table. All the sunshine in the world concentrated into the rays that fell about her.

He felt this, and yet at the same time he was aware of the absurdity of such exaggeration. It was the sort of thing that annoyed him when he saw it in others. All those newly married couples he used to meet on the German liners were afflicted in this same way. Each one of them acted as if the ship were their ship, the ocean their ocean, even the blue sky and the stars at night their sky and their stars. When he was in a good humor, he used to laugh at this; when in a bad humor, it disgusted him.

"Monte," she said, as soon as they were seated, "I was depending upon you this morning."

She studied him a second, and then tried to smile, adding quickly:—

"I don't like you to disappoint me like this."

"What do you mean?" he asked nervously.

She frowned, but it was at herself, not at him. It did not do much except make dimples between her brows.

"I lay awake a good deal last night—thinking," she answered.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "You ought n't to have done that!"

"It was n't wise," she admitted. "But I looked forward to the daylight—and you—to bring me back to normal."

"Well, here we are," he hastened to assure her. "I had the sun up ready for you several hours ago."

"You—you look so serious."

She leaned forward.

"Monte," she pleaded, "you must n't go back on me like that—now. I suppose women can't help getting the fidgets once in a while and thinking all sorts of things. I was tired. I 'm not used to being so very gay. And I let myself go a little, because I thought in the morning I 'd find you the same old Monte. I 've known you so long, and you always have been the same."

"It was a pretty exciting day for both of us," he tried to explain.

"How for you?"

"Well, to start with, one does n't get married every morning."

He saw her cheeks flush. Then she drew back.

"I think we ought to forget that as much as possible," she told him.

Here was his opportunity. The way to forget—the only way—was for him to continue with his interrupted schedule to England, and for her to go on alone to Étois. It was not too late for that—if he started at once. Surely it ought to be the matter of only a few weeks to undo a single day. Let him get the tang of the salt air, let him go to bed every night dog-tired physically, let him get out of sight of her eyes and lips, and that something—intangible as a perfume—that emanated from her, and doubtless he would be laughing at himself as heartily as he had laughed at others.

But he could not frame the words. His lips refused to move. Not only that, but, facing her here, it seemed a grossly brutal thing to do. She looked so gentle and fragile this morning as, picking up the violets, she half hid her face in them.

"You mean we ought to go back to the day before yesterday?" he asked.

"In our thoughts," she answered.

"And forget that we are—"

She nodded quickly, not allowing him to finish.

"Because," she explained, "I think it must be that which is making you serious. I don't know you that way. It is n't you. I 've seen you all these years, wandering around wherever your fancy took you—care-free and smiling. I've always envied you, and now—I thought you were just going to keep right on, only taking me with you. Is n't that what we planned?"

"Yes," he nodded. "We started yesterday."

"I shall never forget that part of yesterday," she said.

"It was n't so bad, except for Hamilton."

"It was n't so bad even with Hamilton," she corrected. "I don't think I can ever be afraid of him again."

"Then it was n't he that bothered you last night?" he asked quickly.

"No," she answered.

"It—it was n't I?"

She laughed uneasily.

"No, Monte; because you were just yourself yesterday."

He wondered about that. He wondered, if he placed before her all the facts, including the hours after he left her, if she would have said that. Here was his second opportunity to tell her what he had planned. If he did not intend to go on, he should speak now. To-morrow it would be too late. By noon it would be too late. By the time they finished their breakfast, it would be too late.

He met her eyes. They were steady as planets. They were honest and clear and clean and confident. They trusted him, and he knew it. He took a deep breath and leaned forward. Impulsively she leaned across the table and placed her hand upon his.

"Dear old Monte," she breathed.

It was too late—now! He saw her in a sort of mist of dancing golden motes. He felt the steady throb of her pulse.

She withdrew her hand as quickly as she had given it. It was as if she did not dare allow it to remain there. It was that which made him smile with a certain confidence of his own.

"What we'd better do," he said, "is to get out of Paris. I'm afraid the pace here is too hot for us."

"To Étois?" she asked.

"That's as good a place as any. Could you start this afternoon?"

"If you wish."

"The idea is to move on as soon as you begin to think," he explained, with his old-time lightness. "Of course, the best way is to walk. If you can't walk—why, the next best thing—"

He paused a moment to consider a new idea. It was odd that it had never occurred to him before.

"I have it!" he continued. "We'll go to Étois by motor. It's a beautiful drive down there. I made the trip alone three years ago in a car I owned. We'll take our time, putting up at the little villages along the way. We'll let the sun soak into us. We'll get away from people. It's people who make you worry. I have a notion it will be good for us both. This Hamilton episode has left us a bit morbid. What we need is something to bring us back to normal."

"I'd love it," she fell in eagerly. "We'll just play gypsy."

"Right. Now, what you want to do is to throw into a dress-suitcase a few things, and we'll ship the trunks by rail to Nice. All you need is a toothbrush, a change of socks, and—"

"There's Marie," she interrupted.

"Can't we ship her by rail too?"

"No, Monte," she answered, with a decided shake of her head.

"But, hang it all, people don't go a-gypsying with French maids!"

"Why not?" she demanded.

She asked the question quite honestly. He had forgotten Marie utterly until this moment, and she seemed to join the party like an intruder. Always she would be upon the back seat.

"Wouldn't you feel freer without her?" he asked.

"I should n't feel at all proper," she declared.

"Then we might just as well not have been married."

"Only," she laughed, "if we had n't taken that precaution it would n't have been proper for me to go, even with Marie."

"I'm glad we've accomplished something, anyhow," he answered good-naturedly.

"We've accomplished a great deal," she assured him. "Yesterday morning I could n't—at this time—have done even the proper things and felt proper. Oh, you don't know how people look at you, and how that look makes you feel, even when you know better. I could n't have sat here at breakfast with you and felt comfortable. Now we can sit here and plan a wonderful trip like this. It's all because you're just Monte."

"And you just you!"

"Only I don't count for anything. It makes me feel even more selfish than I am."

"Don't count?" he exclaimed. "Why—"

He stifled the words that sprang to his lips. It was only because she thought she did not count that she was able to feel comfortable. Once let her know that she counted as at that moment she did count to him, and even what little happiness he was able to bring her would vanish. He would be to her then merely one of the others—even as he was to himself.

He rose abruptly.

"I must see about getting a machine," he said. "I want to start this afternoon if possible."

"I'll be ready," she agreed.

As they went out to the office, the clerk stepped up to him.

"I have secured the reservation, monsieur," he announced.

"Please cancel it," replied Monte.

"Reservation?" inquired Marjory.

"On the Calais express—for a friend of mine who has decided not to go," he answered.