XXXIVTHE HOUSE OF DUCIER
QUEER drama, from eight to twelve that night in the little house of Ducier. Four hours—as long as an uncut opera! The sick man moaned, and interrupted everything, calling to Dicky Cobden:
“For the love of God, don’t go ’way and leave me here! I’m done for, if you leave me alone again.... Oh, Cobden, Cobden——”
The daughter wept. It was her entire part. She had a brown mole upon her ruddy rounded cheek, and very white small teeth in gums of a red that Dicky had never seen before except in dental advertisements. She was made of little curves, and all of them were required in the art of her weeping.
“What’s the matter?” Dicky asked her, during a halt in the proceedings.
“You are taking him away!”
“I don’t seem to be very successful about it.”
“Oh, but you will—you are taking him away!”
Dicky was glad to hear that he was going to get what he came for, but the obstacles still looked serious.
“Isn’t that what you want—to be rid and paid?”
“My father—yes—but me—no, no! He is my lover—oh, such an adored!”
It was new to Cobden’s experience just how obdurate an outraged European can be. M. Ducier reiterated grimly that weeks ago in this house, he had suddenly discovered a condition which destroyed all his past and future. He had forced marriage, but that did not suffice. Dicky turned to the bed at this point.
“How did you happen to stand for marriage, Melton?”
“Nothing to do with it—I was gassed!”
Here the daughter’s cries arose, the hands of the mother were uplifted to heaven, and the face of the father became more grim. It was against Dicky’s training and heredity to stand for being bilked, yet he hesitated to call for help. To start the police at work would mean the American Legation before he was finished, and incredible delay. Momentarily Melton made it harder.
“If you go away and leave me after all they have said,” he moaned, “there won’t be any need for you to come back! I am telling you, Cobden, they keep me here—just as if my legs were tied.”
Rufe spoke in English, which the mother and father did not understand, but of which the daughter had plenty to catch the drift. Dicky did not miss the fact that in the midst of her weeping there were subtle affairs to confide to her father.... It cost him eighteen hundred dollars to get Melton clear that night; but, at least, Melton was thoroughly clear, the marriage certificate and receipt for heartbalm in full, in his pocket. He watched curiously now to see if the tearsof Daughter Ducier were dried—but no, though Melton spurned her last proffer of a kiss—at least with her, money was not all.
In the days that followed, Dicky wasn’t able to get any rest from a sense that he had done well. With every ounce of his returning strength Rufe Melton yearned to get out of Paris. He had been abused; he was frightened to depths hitherto unplumbed. He lived in a mortal dread day and night that the Duciers would come for him again.
“I can’t get a passage for you at a moment’s notice,” Dicky would say. “Besides, you’re not fit to travel for a few days yet. I don’t want to send you back to New York looking like a hounded Apache. Let me do this thing right, Melton, while I’m in on it.”
“But don’t go away and leave me here!” Rufe moaned. “Let me go out with you when you go.”
“You needn’t have the slightest fear from the Duciers.”
The hands came up and waved hopelessly.
“You don’t know them! You don’t know her!” Rufe moaned. “I want to get out of here. I want to get on the ship. I don’t want to be left alone.”
And this was what he was getting ready to send back to Pidge! Once, when Dicky was really hard driven, a sudden chill of rage came over him and he proceeded this far with a sentence:
“Why, Melton, I really ought to put you——”
The other words—“to death,” he somehow managed to keep from speech. Dicky suffered especially from thefeeling that he was playing the boob. To be sincerely in wrong was his pet aversion—dating from the night of the Punjabi dinner. Besides, he was tortured with the thought that Pidge Musser wouldn’t thank him. Surely, for her sake, his mind repeated, it would have been better even to put old Ames straight, and let one American meet Paris unaided. But Rufe had called for him in his trouble, had mentioned the name of Cobden to the others.
One of the strangest things to Dicky now was that Pidge’s husband could accept all this—somehow as if it were his due. Like a family affair. Rufe seldom spoke of Pidge. Apparently getting back to New York meant her; apparently they weren’t separated. Rufe had the most extraordinary sense of taking her for granted. If he had any money or resources in Paris, he didn’t let the fact be known. It was Dicky who purchased his passage for New York. Again Dicky’s capacity for astonishment was stretched, because Rufe seemed able to comfort himself with the fact that he had it all coming. He had never been sick before. His present infirmity was entirely engrossing. “I was gassed,” covered all discrepancies of word and deed.
Back in his room, after packing Rufe aboard the steamer, Dicky found himself nervous, tired and irritable. A servant came and took out the extra bed Rufe had occupied. The place was stiller than ever, after that—no moaning, no fears, no complaints; but it wasn’t all relief as Dicky had fancied it would be. Hemissed something—the world was so crazy anyway—something that had taken him out of himself for two weeks; something at least, that had played upon a different set of faculties. Suddenly it dawned upon him, though he couldn’t tell why, that Pidge would be glad after all. If you play orderly and guardian and benefactor to a child—of course you miss the wretch. And Pidge was a woman, and she had said—what had she said, about there not being two ways? Now Dicky felt better. There had not been two ways for him. The chapter was ended at any rate....
Another event of this fall of 1918, so far as Dicky Cobden was concerned, was the Armistice. You can tell how inactive hope had become within him at this time, and within the breasts of tens of thousands of others, when he hadn’t believed that any other than a state of war could exist.
And finally, in December, six weeks after the Armistice, at the time of the greatest rush in history for trans-Atlantic steamers, when Dicky had about concluded that the quickest way home to New York would be around by Asia, asepoyon leave crossed the city of Paris from the cantonments in Lourdenvoie, and asked to see the American at theGaronne.
“You are Richard Cobden?” the young Hindu said, when the room door was closed.
Dicky nodded, a certain gladness in him that he did not understand. At the same time he was intent in a scrutiny of the caller’s face—a youth, but very worn.Something about the eyes made the American think of a camel.
“You have been to Ahmedabad, Mr. Cobden?”
“Yes.”
“Might I ask the name of the river there?”
“The Sabarmati.”
“Are you expecting a message from an American in Ahmedabad?”
“No.”
“From any one there?”
“Yes.” Now Dicky knew that it was the patience in the young Hindu’s eyes that made him think of a camel.
“Is the name Juna?”
“Nagarjuna.”
The soldier bowed. “It is well. I was told to be assured, before giving you the message. It is this:That the curtain has risen, the play begun, and that a seat is reserved for you.”
“Is there need of haste?”
“No haste, but no delay!”
“My plan now is to go to New York——”
“That need not be changed, since it was added for me to say—that it will be well for you to travel westward rather than to the East.”
“To Ahmedabad at once?”
“You will do well to go first to Bombay.”
“Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Only say to Nagarjuna—that I, too, hope to come for the end of that play.”
“Your name?”
“He knows his messenger. Here I am not a name, hardly a number——”
“A cigarette—a drink?”
“I will not tarry since it is far to the cantonments.”
Thesepoybowed and departed.