The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe TriflersThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The TriflersAuthor: Frederick Orin BartlettIllustrator: George Ellis WolfeRelease date: January 27, 2007 [eBook #20458]Most recently updated: May 24, 2014Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIFLERS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The TriflersAuthor: Frederick Orin BartlettIllustrator: George Ellis WolfeRelease date: January 27, 2007 [eBook #20458]Most recently updated: May 24, 2014Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines
Title: The Triflers
Author: Frederick Orin BartlettIllustrator: George Ellis Wolfe
Author: Frederick Orin Bartlett
Illustrator: George Ellis Wolfe
Release date: January 27, 2007 [eBook #20458]Most recently updated: May 24, 2014
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIFLERS ***
A new tenderness swept over herA new tenderness swept over her
A new tenderness swept over herA new tenderness swept over her
I.THE TROUBLE WITH MONTEII.THE TROUBLE WITH MARJORYIII.A SUMMONSIV.A PROPOSALV.PISTOLSVI.GENDARMES AND ETHERVII.THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING SHOTVIII.DRAWBACKS OF RECOVERYIX.BLUE AND GOLDX.THE AFFAIR AT MAXIM'SXI.A CANCELED RESERVATIONXII.A WEDDING JOURNEYXIII.A WEDDING JOURNEY (continued)XIV.THE BRIDE RUNS AWAYXV.IN THE DARKXVI.A WALK ON THE QUAYXVII.JUST MONTEXVIII.PETERXIX.AN EXPLANATIONXX.PAYING LIKE A MANXXI.BACK TO SCHEDULEXXII.A CONFESSIONXXIII.LETTERSXXIV.THE BLIND SEEXXV.SO LONGXXVI.FREEDOMXXVII.WARXXVIII.THE CORNICE ROADXXIX.BENEATH THE STARS
I.THE TROUBLE WITH MONTEII.THE TROUBLE WITH MARJORYIII.A SUMMONSIV.A PROPOSALV.PISTOLSVI.GENDARMES AND ETHERVII.THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING SHOTVIII.DRAWBACKS OF RECOVERYIX.BLUE AND GOLDX.THE AFFAIR AT MAXIM'SXI.A CANCELED RESERVATIONXII.A WEDDING JOURNEYXIII.A WEDDING JOURNEY (continued)XIV.THE BRIDE RUNS AWAYXV.IN THE DARKXVI.A WALK ON THE QUAYXVII.JUST MONTEXVIII.PETERXIX.AN EXPLANATIONXX.PAYING LIKE A MANXXI.BACK TO SCHEDULEXXII.A CONFESSIONXXIII.LETTERSXXIV.THE BLIND SEEXXV.SO LONGXXVI.FREEDOMXXVII.WARXXVIII.THE CORNICE ROADXXIX.BENEATH THE STARS
For a man to keep himself consistently amused for ten years after his graduation from college, even with an inheritance to furnish ample financial assistance, suggests a certain quality of genius. This much Monte Covington had accomplished—accomplished, furthermore, without placing himself under obligations of any sort to the opposite sex. He left no trail of broken hearts in his wake. If some of the younger sisters of the big sisters took the liberty of falling in love with him secretly and in the privacy of their chambers, that was no fault of his, and did neither them nor him the slightest harm.
Such minor complications could not very well be avoided, because, discreet as Monte tried to be, it was not possible for him to deny certain patent facts, to wit: that he was a Covington of Philadelphia; that he was six feet tall and light-haired; that he had wonderfully decent blue eyes; that he had a straight nose; that he had the firm mouth and jaws of an Arctic explorer; that he had more money than he knew what to do with; and that he was just old enough to be known as a bachelor without in the slightest looking like one.
At the point where the older sisters gave him up as hopeless, he came as a sort of challenge to the younger.
This might have proved dangerous for him had it not been for his schedule, which did not leave him very long in any one place and which kept him always pretty well occupied. By spending his winters at his New York club until after the holidays; then journeying to Switzerland for the winter sports; then to Nice for tennis; then to Paris for a month of gay spring and the Grand Prix; and so over to England for a few days in London and a month of golf along the coast—he was able to come back refreshed to his camp in the Adirondacks, there to fish until it was time to return to Cambridge for the football season, where he found himself still useful as a coach in the art of drop-kicking.
The fact that he could get into his old football togs without letting out any strings or pulling any in, and could even come through an occasional scrimmage without losing his breath, was proof that he kept himself in good condition.
It was not until his eleventh trip that Monte became aware of certain symptoms which seemed to hint that even as pleasant a cycle as his could not be pursued indefinitely. At Davos he first noted a change. Though he took the curves in the long run with a daring that proved his eye to be as quick and his nerves as steady as ever, he was restless.
Later, when he came to Nice, it was with a listlessness foreign to him. In the first place, he missed Edhart, the old maître d'hôtel who for a decade had catered to his primitive American tastes in the matter of foodstuffs with as much enthusiasm as if he had been a Parisian epicure.
The passing of Edhart did more to call Monte's attention to the fact that in his own life a decade had also passed than anything else could possibly have done. Between birthdays there is only the lapse each time of a year; but between the coming and going of the maître d'hôtel there was a period of ten years, which with his disappearance seemed to vanish. Monte was twenty-two when he first came to Nice, and now he was thirty-two. He became thirty-two the moment he was forced to point out to the new management his own particular table in the corner, and to explain that, however barbarous the custom might appear, he always had for breakfast either a mutton chop or a beefsteak. Edhart had made him believe, even to last year, that in this matter and a hundred others he was merely expressing the light preferences of a young man. Now, because he was obliged to emphasize his wishes by explicit orders, they became the definite likes and dislikes of a man of middle age.
For relief Monte turned to the tennis courts, and played so much in the next week that he went stale and in the club tournament put up the worst game of his life. That evening, in disgust, he boarded the train for Monte Carlo, and before eleven o'clock had lost five thousand francs at roulette—which was more than even he could afford for an evening's entertainment that did not entertain. Without waiting for the croupier to rake in his last note, Monte hurried out and, to clear his head, walked all the way back to Nice along the Cornice Road. Above him, the mountains; below, the blue Mediterranean; while the road hung suspended between them like a silver ribbon. Yet even here he did not find content.
Monte visited the rooms every evening for the next three days; but, as he did not play again and found there nothing more interesting than the faces, or their counterparts, which he had seen for the past ten years, the programme grew stupid.
So, really, he had no alternative but Paris, although it was several weeks ahead of his schedule. As a matter of fact, it was several weeks too early. The city was not quite ready for him. The trees in the Champs Élysées were in much the condition of a lady half an hour before an expected caller. The broad vista to the triumphal arches was merely the setting for a few nurses and their charges. The little iron tables were so deserted that they remained merely little iron tables.
Of course the boulevards were as always; but after a night or two before the Café de la Paix he had enough. Even with fifty thousand people passing in review before him, he was not as amused as he should have been. He sipped his black coffee as drowsily as an old man.
In an effort to rouse himself, he resolved to visit the cafés upon Montmartre, which he had outgrown many years ago. That night he climbed the narrow stairs to l'Abbaye. It was exactly as it had been—a square room bounded by long seats before tables. Some two dozen young ladies of various nationalities wandered about the center of the room, trying their best, but with manifest effort, to keep pace to the frenzied music of an orchestra paid to keep frenzied. A half-dozen of the ladies pounced upon Monte as he sat alone, and he gladly turned over to them the wine he purchased as the price of admission. Yvonne, she with the languid Egyptian eyes, tried to rouse the big American. Was it that he was bored? Possibly it was that, Monte admitted. Then another bottle of wine was the proper thing. So he ordered another bottle, and to the toast Yvonne proposed, raised his glass. But the wine did him no good, and the music did him no good, and Yvonne did him no good. The place had gone flat. Whatever he needed, it was nothing l'Abbaye had to offer.
Covington went out into the night again, and, though the music from a dozen other cafés called him to come in and forget, he continued down the hill to the boulevard, deaf to the gay entreaties of the whole city. It was clear that he was out of tune with Paris.
As he came into the Place de l'Opera he ran into the crowd pouring from the big gray opera house, an eager, voluble crowd that jostled him about as if he were an intruder. They had been warmed by fine music and stirred by the great passions of this mimic world, so that the women clung more tightly to the arms of their escorts.
Covington, who had fallen back a little to watch them pass, felt strangely isolated. They hurried on without seeing him, as if he were merely some spectral bystander. Yet the significant fact was not that a thousand strangers should pass him without being aware of his presence, but that he himself should notice their indifference. It was not like him.
Ordinarily it was exactly what he would desire. But to-night he was in an unusual mood—a mood that was the culmination of a restlessness covering an entire month. But what the deuce was the name and cause of it? He could no longer attribute it to the fact that he had gone stale physically, because he had now had a rest of several weeks. It was not that he was bored; those who are bored never stop to ask themselves why they are bored or they would not be bored. It was not that he was homesick, because, strictly speaking, he had no home. A home seems to involve the female element and some degree of permanence. This unrest was something new—something, apparently, that had to do vaguely with the fact that he was thirty-two. If Edhart—
Impatiently he started again for his hotel. This confoundedly good-natured, self-satisfied crowd moving in couples irritated him. At that moment a tall, slender girl turned, hesitated, then started toward him. He did not recognize her at first, but the mere fact that she came toward him—that any one came toward him—quickened his pulse. It brought him back instantly from the shadowy realm of specters to the good old solid earth. It was he, Covington, who was standing there.
Then she raised her eyes—dark eyes deep as trout pools; steady, confident, but rather sad eyes. They appeared to be puzzled by the eagerness with which he stepped forward and grasped her hand.
"Marjory!" he exclaimed. "I did n't know you were in Paris!"
She smiled—a smile that extended no farther than the corners of her perfect mouth.
"That's to excuse yourself for not looking me up, Monte?"
She had a full, clear voice. It was good to hear a voice that he could recognize.
"No," he answered frankly. "That's honest. I thought you were somewhere in Brittany. But are you bound anywhere in particular?"
"Only home."
"Still living on the Boulevard Saint-Germain?"
She nodded.
"Number forty-three?"
He was glad he was able to remember that number.
"Number sixty-four," she corrected.
They had been moving toward the Metro station, and here she paused.
"There is no need for you to come with me," she said. "But I'd like to have you drop in for tea some afternoon—if you have time."
The strangers were still hurrying past him—to the north, the south, the east, the west. Men and women were hurrying past, laughing, intent upon themselves, each with some definite objective in mind. He himself was able to smile with them now. Then she held out her gloved hand, and he felt alone again.
"I may accompany you home, may I not?" he asked eagerly.
"If you wish."
Once again she raised her eyes with that expression of puzzled interest. This was not like Monte. Of course he would accompany her home, but that he should seem really to take pleasure in the prospect—that was novel.
"Let me call a taxi," he said. "I'm never sure where these French undergrounds are going to land me."
"They are much quicker," she suggested.
"There is no hurry," he answered.
With twenty-four hours a day on his hands, he was never in a hurry.
Instead of giving to the driver the number sixty-four Boulevard Saint-Germain, he ordered him to forty-seven Rue Saint-Michel, which is the Café d'Harcourt.
It had suddenly occurred to Monte what the trouble was with him. He was lonesome.
She was surprised when the car stopped before the café, and mildly interested.
"Do you mind?" he asked.
"No, Monte."
She followed him through the smoke and chatter to one of the little dining-rooms in the rear where the smoke and chatter were somewhat subdued. There Henri removed their wraps with a look of frank approval. It was rather an elaborate dinner that Monte ordered, because he remembered for the first time that he had not yet dined this evening. It was also a dinner of which he felt Edhart would thoroughly approve, and that always was a satisfaction.
"Now," he said to the girl, as soon as Henri had left, "tell me about yourself."
"You knew about Aunt Kitty?" she asked.
"No," he replied hesitatingly, with an uneasy feeling that it was one of those things that he should know about.
"She was taken ill here in Paris in February, and died shortly after we reached New York," she explained.
What Covington would have honestly liked to do was to congratulate her. Stripping the situation of all sentimentalism, the naked truth remained that she had for ten years given up her life utterly to her aunt—had almost sold herself into slavery. Ostensibly this Aunt Kitty had taken the girl to educate, although she had never forgiven her sister for having married Stockton; had never forgiven her for having had this child, which had cost her life; had never forgiven Stockton for losing in business her sister's share of the Dolliver fortune.
Poor old Stockton—he had done his best, and the failure killed him. It was Chic Warren who had told Covington the pitiful little tale. Chic always spoke of the aunt as "the Vamp.," the abbreviation, as he explained, being solely out of respect to her gray hairs. Marjory had received her education, to be sure; but she had paid for it in the only coin she had—the best of her young self from seventeen to twenty-seven. The only concession the aunt had ever made was to allow her niece to study art in Paris this last year.
"I have n't heard from Chic since Christmas," he explained; "so I did n't know. Then you are back here in Paris—alone?"
Unconsciously he had emphasized that word "alone."
"Why not?" she asked directly.
She held her head a bit high, as if in challenge.
"Nothing; only—"
He did not finish. He could not very well tell her that she was too confoundedly good-looking to be alone in Paris. Yet that was what he thought, in spite of his belief that, of all the women he had ever met, she was the best able to be alone anywhere. There were times when he had sat beside her, not feeling sure that he was in the same room with her: it was as if he were looking at her through plate-glass. To-night, however, it was not like that. She looked like a younger sister of herself.
"Still painting?" he inquired.
"As much as they will let me."
"They?"
She leaned forward with a frown, folding her arms upon the table.
"What is the matter with men?" she demanded. "Why won't they believe a woman when she tells the truth?"
He was somewhat startled by the question, and by her earnestness.
"Just what do you mean?"
"Why can't they leave a woman alone?"
It was clear that he was not expected to answer, and so, with her permission, he lighted a cigarette and waited with considerable interest for her to go on.
For a moment she studied him, as if wondering if it were worth while to continue her confidence. Her acquaintance with Monte dated back ten years, when, as a girl of seventeen, she had met him on one of his rare week-end visits to the Warrens. She was then fresh from finishing school, and he was one of the very few men she had been allowed to meet in any more intimate way than merely to shake hands with in passing. She had been tremendously impressed. She could smile at it now. But, really, she had been like one of the younger sisters, and for a year or so after that he had been to her a sort of vague knight errant.
It was three years ago that her aunt had begun to travel with her, and after that she had seen Monte not oftener than once or twice a year, and then for scarcely more than a greeting and good-bye. On the other hand, Mrs. Warren had always talked and written to her a great deal about him. Chic and he had been roommates in college, and ever since had kept in close touch with each other by letter. The trivial gossip of Monte's life had always been passed on to Marjory, so that she had really for these last few years been following his movements and adventures month by month, until she felt in almost as intimate contact with him as with the Warrens. She had reason to think that, in turn, her movements were retailed to Monte. The design was obvious—and amusing.
On the whole, Marjory concluded that it was not especially worth while to burden him with her troubles; and yet, it was just because of that she was inclined to continue—in, however, a less serious mood. Monte had so few burdens of his own. That odd little smile—scarcely more than the ghost of a smile—returned to the corners of her mouth.
"To-night," she said, "I ran away from Teddy Hamilton, for all the world like a heroine of melodrama. Do you know Teddy?"
"Yes," he answered slowly, "I do."
He refrained with difficulty from voicing his opinion of the man, which he could have put into three words—"the little beast." But how did it happen that she, of all women, had been thrown into contact with this pale-faced Don Juan of the New York music-halls and Paris cafés?
"I lent Marie, my maid, one of my new hats and a heavy veil," she went on. "She came out and stepped into a taxi, with instructions to keep driving in a circle of a mile. Teddy followed in another machine. And"—she paused to look up and smile—"for all I know, he may still be following her round and round. I came on to the opera."
"Kind of tough on Marie," he commented, with his blue eyes reflecting a hearty relish of the situation.
"Marie will undoubtedly enjoy a nap," she said. "As for Teddy—well, he is generally out of funds, so I hope he may get into difficulties with the driver."
"He won't," declared Monte. "He'll probably end by borrowing apour-boireof the driver."
She nodded.
"That is possible. He is very clever."
"The fact that he is still out of jail—" began Monte.
Then he checked himself. He was not a man to talk about other men—even about one so little of a man as Teddy Hamilton.
"Tell me what you know of him," she requested.
"I'd rather not," he answered.
"Is he as bad as that?" she queried thoughtfully. "But what I don't understand is why—why, then, he can sing like a white-robed choir-boy."
Monte looked serious.
"I've heard him," he admitted. "But it was generally after he had been sipping absinthe rather heavily. His specialty is 'The Rosary.'"
"And the barcarole from the 'Contes d'Hoffmann.'"
"And little Spanish serenades," he added.
"But if he's all bad inside?"
She raised those deep, dark eyes as a child might. She had been for ten years like one in a convent.
Covington shook his head.
"I can't explain it," he said. "Perhaps, in a way, it's because of that—because of the contrast. But I 've heard him do it. I 've heard him make a room full of those girls on Montmartre stop their dancing and gulp hard. But where—"
"Did I meet him?" she finished. "It was on the boat coming over this last time. You see— I 'm talking a great deal about myself."
"Please go on."
He had forgotten that her face was so young. The true lines of her features were scarcely more than sketched in, though that much had been done with a sure hand. Whatever was to come, he thought, must be added. There would be need of few erasures. Up to a certain point it was the face of any of those young women of gentle breeding that he met when at home—the inheritance of the best of many generations.
As she was sitting now, her head slightly turned, the arch of one brow blended in a perfect curve into her straight, thin nose. But the mouth and chin—they were firmer than one might have expected. If, not knowing her, he had seen her driving in the Bois or upon Rotten Row, he would have been curious about her title. It had always seemed to him that she should by rights have been Her Royal Highness Something or Other.
This was due partly to a certain air of serene security and a certain aloofness that characterized her. He felt it to a lesser degree to-night than ever before, but he made no mistake. He might be permitted to admire those features as one admires a beautiful portrait, but somewhere a barrier existed. There are faces that reflect the soul; there are faces that hide the soul.
"Please go on," he repeated, as she still hesitated.
She was trying to explain why it was that she was tempted at all to talk about herself to-night. Perhaps it was because she had been so long silent—for many years silent. Perhaps it was because Monte was so very impersonal that it was a good deal like talking out loud to herself, with the advantage of being able to do this without wondering if she were losing her wits. Then, too, after Teddy, Monte's straight-seeing blue eyes freshened her thoughts like a clean north wind. She always spoke of Monte as the most American man she knew; and by that she meant something direct and honest—something four-square.
"I met Teddy on the boat," she resumed. "I was traveling alone because—well, just because I wanted to be alone. You know, Aunt Kitty was very good to me, but I'd been with her every minute for more than ten years, and so I wanted to be by myself a little while. Right after she died, I went down to the farm—her farm in Connecticut—and thought I could be alone there. But—she left me a great deal of money, Monte."
Somehow, she could speak of such a thing to him. She was quite matter-of-fact about it.
"It was a great deal too much," she went on. "I did n't mind myself, because I could forget about it; but other people—they made me feel like a rabbit running before the hounds. Some one put the will in the papers, and people I'd never heard of began to write to me—dozens of them. Then men with all sorts of schemes—charities and gold mines and copper mines and oil wells and I don't know what all, came down there to see me: down there to the little farm, where I wanted to be alone. Of course, I could be out to them; but even then I was conscious that they were around. Some of them even waited until I ventured from the house, and waylaid me on the road.
"Then there were others—people I knew and could n't refuse to see without being rude. I felt," she said, looking up at Monte, "as if the world of people had suddenly all turned into men, and that they were hunting me. I could n't get away from them without locking myself up, and that was just the thing I did n't want to do. In a way, I 'd been locked up all my life. So I just packed my things and took the steamer without telling any one but my lawyer where I was going."
"It's too bad they wouldn't let you alone," said Monte.
"It was like an evil dream," she said. "I did n't know men were like that."
Monte frowned.
Of course, that is just what would happen to a young woman as good-looking as she, suddenly left alone with a fortune. Her name, without a doubt, was on the mailing list of every promoter from New York to San Francisco. It was also undoubtedly upon the list of every man and woman who could presume an acquaintance with her. She had become fair game.
"Then on the boat I met Teddy," she went on. "It was difficult not to meet him."
He nodded.
"I did n't mind so much at first; he was interesting."
"Yes, he's that," admitted Monte.
"And he was very pleasant until—he began to make love to me."
If Monte knew Teddy Hamilton, this happened about the third day.
"That was very annoying," she said reminiscently. "It was annoying, not only because of Teddy, but in itself. In some ways he did it very nicely—especially when he sang in the moonlight. I suppose it was my fault that I gave him the opportunity. I could have kept myself in my stateroom, or I could have played bridge with the elderly ladies in the cabin. But, you see, that's what Aunty always made me do, and I did want to get out. I did enjoy Teddy up to that point. But I did not want to fall in love with him, or with any one else. I suppose I 'm too selfish—too utterly and completely selfish."
"To—er—to fall in love?" he questioned.
"Yes. Oh, as long as I'm making you my father confessor, I may as well be thorough." She smiled.
Monte leaned forward with sudden interest. Here was a question that at odd moments had disturbed his own peace of mind. It was Chic Warren who had first told him that in remaining a bachelor he was leading an utterly selfish life.
"Does a distaste for falling in love necessarily go back to selfishness?" he asked. "Is n't it sometimes merely a matter of temperament?"
"And temperament," she asked, "is what?"
That was altogether too abstract a problem for Monte to discuss. Yet he had his own ideas.
"It's the way you're made," he suggested.
"I doubt it, Monte," she answered. "I think it's rather the way you make yourself; because I imagine that, to start with, we are all made a good deal alike. It's just what you 'd rather do."
"And you'd rather paint?"
She considered a moment. It was as if she were trying at this time to be very honest with herself.
"I'd rather be free to paint or not," she declared. "While Aunty was alive, to paint seemed to be the only way to be free. It gave me the excuse for coming here, for getting away a few hours a day. Now—well, just to be free seems enough. I don't suppose a man knows how a woman hungers for that—for just sheer, elemental freedom."
He did not. He supposed that freedom was what women enjoyed from birth—like queens. He supposed they even had especial opportunities in that direction, and that most men were in the nature of being their humble servitors.
"It is n't that I want to do anything especially proper or improper," she hastened to assure him. "I have n't either the cravings or the ambitions of the new woman. That, again, is where I 'm selfish. I'd like to be"—she spoke hesitatingly—"I'd like to be just like you, Monte."
"Like me?" he exclaimed in surprise.
"Free to do just what I want to do—nothing particularly good, nothing particularly bad; free to go here or go there; free to live my own life; free to be free."
"Well," he asked, "what's to prevent?"
"Teddy Hamilton—and the others," she answered. "In a way, they take the place of Aunty. They won't let me alone. They won't believe me when I tell them I don't want them around. They seem to assume that, just because I'm not married— Oh, they are stupid, Monte!"
Henri, who had been stealing in with course after course, refilled the glasses. He smiled discreetly as he saw her earnest face.
"What you need," suggested Monte, "is a sort of chaperon or secretary."
She shook her head.
"Would you like one yourself?" she demanded.
"It would be a good deal of a nuisance," he admitted; "but, after all—"
"I won't have it!" she burst out. "It would spoil everything. It would be like building one's own jail and employing one's own jailer. I could n't stand that. I 'd rather be annoyed as I am than be annoyed by a chaperon."
She was silent a moment, and then she exclaimed:
"Why, I'd almost rather marry Teddy! I'd feel freer—honestly, I think I 'd feel freer with a husband than a chaperon."
"Oh, see here!" protested Monte. "You must n't do that."
"I don't propose to," she answered quietly.
"Then," he said, "the only thing left is to go away where Teddy and the others can't find you."
"Where?" she asked with interest.
"There are lots of little villages in Switzerland."
She shook her head.
"And along the Riviera."
"I love the little villages," she replied. "I love them here and at home. But it's no use."
She smiled. There was something pathetic about that smile—something that made Covington's arm muscles twitch.
"I should n't even have the aid of the taxis in the little villages," she said.
Monte leaned back.
"If they only had here in Paris a force of good, honest Irish cops instead of these confounded gendarmes," he mused.
She looked her astonishment at the irrelevant observation.
"You see," he explained, "it might be possible then to lay for Teddy H. some evening and—argue with him."
"It's nice of you, Monte, to think of that," she murmured.
Monte was nice in a good many ways.
"The trouble is, they lack sentiment, these gendarmes," he concluded. "They are altogether too law-abiding."
Monte himself had sometimes been accused of lacking sentiment; and yet, the very first thing he did when starting for his walk the next morning was to order a large bunch of violets to be sent to number sixty-four Boulevard Saint-Germain. Then, at a somewhat faster pace than usual, he followed the river to the Jardin des Tuileries, and crossed there to the Avenue des Champs Élysées into the Bois.
He walked as confidently as if overnight his schedule had again been put in good running order; for, overnight, spring had come, and that was what his schedule called for in Paris. The buds, which until now had hesitated to unfold, trembled forth almost before his eyes under the influence of a sun that this morning blazed in a turquoise sky. Perhaps they had hurried a trifle to overtake Monte.
With his shoulders well back, filling his lungs deep with the perfumed morning air, he swung along with a hearty, self-confident stride that caused many a little nursemaid to turn and look at him again.
He had sent her violets; and yet, except for the fact that he had never before sent her flowers, he could not rightly be accused of sentimentalism. He had acted on the spur of the moment, remembering only the sad, wistful smile with which she had bade him good-night when she stood at the door of thepension. Or perhaps he had been prompted by the fact that she was in Paris alone.
Until now it had never been possible to dissociate her completely from Aunt Kitty. Marjory had never had a separate existence of her own. To a great many people she had never been known except as Miss Dolliver's charming niece, although to Monte she had been known more particularly as a young friend of the Warrens. But, even in this more intimate capacity, he had always been relieved of any sense of responsibility because of this aunt. Wherever he met her, there was never any occasion for him to put himself out to be nice to her, because it was always understood that she could never leave Aunt Kitty even for an evening. This gave him a certain sense of security. With her he never was forced to consider either the present or the future.
Last night it had been almost like meeting her for the first time alone. It was as if in all these years he had known her only through her photograph, as one knows friends of one's friends about whom one has for long heard a great deal, without ever meeting them face to face. From the moment he first saw her in the Place de l'Opera she had made him conscious of her as, in another way, he had always been conscious of Edhart. The latter, until his death, had always remained in Monte's outer consciousness like a fixed point. Because he was so permanent, so unchanging, he dominated the rest of Monte's schedule as the north star does the mariner's course.
Each year began when Edhart bade him a smiling au revoir at the door of the Hôtel des Roses; and that same year did not end, but began again, when the matter of ten or eleven months later Monte found Edhart still at the door to greet him. So it was always possible, the year round, to think of Edhart as ever standing by the door smilingly awaiting him. This was very pleasant, and prevented Monte from getting really lonesome, and consequently from getting old. It was only in the last few weeks that he fully realized all that Edhart had done for him.
It was, in some ways, as if Edhart had come back to life again in Marjory. He had felt it the moment she had smilingly confided in him; he felt it still more when, after she bade him good-night, he had turned back into the city, not feeling alone any more. Now it was as if he were indebted to her for this morning walk, and for restoring to him his springtime Paris. It was for these things that he had sent her violets—because she had made him comfortable again. So, after all, his act had been one, not of sentimentalism, but of just plain gratitude.
Monte's objection to sentiment was not based upon any of the modern schools of philosophy, which deplore it as a weakness. He took his stand upon much simpler grounds: that, as far as he had been able to observe, it did not make for content. It had been his fate to be thrown in contact with a good deal of it in its most acute stages, because the route he followed was unhappily the route also followed by those upon their honeymoon. If what he observed was sentiment at its zenith, then he did not care for it. Bridegrooms made the poorest sort of traveling companions; and that, after all, was the supreme test of men. They appeared restless, dazed, and were continually looking at their watches. Few of them were able to talk intelligently or to play a decent game of bridge.
Perhaps, too, he had been unfortunate in the result of his observations of the same passion in its later stages; but it is certain that those were not inspiring, either. Chic Warren was an exception. He seemed fairly happy and normal, but Covington would never forget the night he spent there when Chic, Junior had the whooping-cough. He walked by Chic's side up and down the hall, up and down the hall, up and down the hall, with Chic a ghastly white and the sweat standing in beads upon his forehead. His own throat had tightened and he grew weak in the knees every time the rubber-soled nurse stole into sight. Every now and then he heard that gasping cough, and felt the spasmodic grip of Chic's fingers upon his arm. It was terrible; for weeks afterward Covington heard that cough.