As their motor-cab, on the way from the Gare du Nord, turnedinto the central glitter of the Boulevard, Darrow had bentover to point out an incandescent threshold.
"There!"Above the doorway, an arch of flame flashed out the name ofa great actress, whose closing performances in a play ofunusual originality had been the theme of long articles inthe Paris papers which Darrow had tossed into theircompartment at Calais.
"That's what you must see before you're twenty-four hoursolder!"The girl followed his gesture eagerly. She was all awakeand alive now, as if the heady rumours of the streets, withtheir long effervescences of light, had passed into herveins like wine.
"Cerdine? Is that where she acts?" She put her head out ofthe window, straining back for a glimpse of the sacredthreshold. As they flew past it she sank into her seat witha satisfied sigh.
"It's delicious enough just to KNOW she's there! I'venever seen her, you know. When I was here with Mamie Hokewe never went anywhere but to the music halls, because shecouldn't understand any French; and when I came backafterward to the Farlows' I was dead broke, and couldn'tafford the play, and neither could they; so the only chancewe had was when friends of theirs invited us--and once itwas to see a tragedy by a Roumanian lady, and the other timeit was for 'L'Ami Fritz' at the Francais."Darrow laughed. "You must do better than that now. 'LeVertige' is a fine thing, and Cerdine gets some wonderfuleffects out of it. You must come with me tomorrow eveningto see it--with your friends, of course.--That is," headded, "if there's any sort of chance of getting seats."The flash of a street lamp lit up her radiant face. "Oh,will you really take us? What fun to think that it'stomorrow already!"It was wonderfully pleasant to be able to give suchpleasure. Darrow was not rich, but it was almost impossiblefor him to picture the state of persons with tastes andperceptions like his own, to whom an evening at the theatrewas an unattainable indulgence. There floated through hismind an answer of Mrs. Leath's to his enquiry whether shehad seen the play in question. "No. I meant to, of course,but one is so overwhelmed with things in Paris. And thenI'm rather sick of Cerdine--one is always being dragged tosee her."That, among the people he frequented, was the usual attitudetoward such opportunities. There were too many, they were anuisance, one had to defend one's self! He even rememberedwondering, at the moment, whether to a really fine taste theexceptional thing could ever become indifferent throughhabit; whether the appetite for beauty was so soon dulledthat it could be kept alive only by privation. Here, at anyrate, was a fine chance to experiment with such a hunger: healmost wished he might stay on in Paris long enough to takethe measure of Miss Viner's receptivity.
She was still dwelling on his promise, "It's too beautifulof you! Oh, don't you THINK you'll be able to getseats?" And then, after a pause of brimming appreciation: "Iwonder if you'll think me horrid?--but it may be my onlychance; and if you can't get places for us all, wouldn't youperhaps just take ME? After all, the Farlows may haveseen it!"He had not, of course, thought her horrid, but only the moreengaging, for being so natural, and so unashamed of showingthe frank greed of her famished youth. "Oh, you shall gosomehow!" he had gaily promised her; and she had droppedback with a sigh of pleasure as their cab passed into thedimly-lit streets of the Farlows' quarter beyond theSeine...
This little passage came back to him the next morning, as heopened his hotel window on the early roar of the NorthernTerminus.
The girl was there, in the room next to him. That had beenthe first point in his waking consciousness. The second wasa sense of relief at the obligation imposed on him by thisunexpected turn of everts. To wake to the necessity ofaction, to postpone perforce the fruitless contemplation ofhis private grievance, was cause enough for gratitude, evenif the small adventure in which he found himself involvedhad not, on its own merits, roused an instinctive curiosityto see it through.
When he and his companion, the night before, had reached theFarlows' door in the rue de la Chaise, it was only to find,after repeated assaults on its panels, that the Farlows wereno longer there. They had moved away the week before, notonly from their apartment but from Paris; and Miss Viner'sbreach with Mrs. Murrett had been too sudden to permit herletter and telegram to overtake them. Both communications,no doubt, still reposed in a pigeon-hole of the loge;but its custodian, when drawn from his lair, sulkilydeclined to let Miss Viner verify the fact, and only flungout, in return for Darrow's bribe, the statement that theAmericans had gone to Joigny.
To pursue them there at that hour was manifestly impossible,and Miss Viner, disturbed but not disconcerted by this newobstacle, had quite simply acceded to Darrow's suggestionthat she should return for what remained of the night to thehotel where he had sent his luggage.
The drive back through the dark hush before dawn, with thenocturnal blaze of the Boulevard fading around them like thefalse lights of a magician's palace, had so played on herimpressionability that she seemed to give no farther thoughtto her own predicament. Darrow noticed that she did notfeel the beauty and mystery of the spectacle as much as itspressure of human significance, all its hidden implicationsof emotion and adventure. As they passed the shadowycolonnade of the Francais, remote and temple-like in thepaling lights, he felt a clutch on his arm, and heard thecry: "There are things THERE that I want so desperatelyto see!" and all the way back to the hotel she continued toquestion him, with shrewd precision and an artless thirstfor detail, about the theatrical life of Paris. He wasstruck afresh, as he listened, by the way in which hernaturalness eased the situation of constraint, leaving to itonly a pleasant savour of good fellowship. It was the kindof episode that one might, in advance, have characterized as"awkward", yet that was proving, in the event, as muchoutside such definitions as a sunrise stroll with a dryad ina dew-drenched forest; and Darrow reflected that mankindwould never have needed to invent tact if it had not firstinvented social complications.
It had been understood, with his good-night to Miss Viner,that the next morning he was to look up the Joigny trains,and see her safely to the station; but, while he breakfastedand waited for a time-table, he recalled again her cry ofjoy at the prospect of seeing Cerdine. It was certainly apity, since that most elusive and incalculable of artistswas leaving the next week for South America, to miss whatmight be a last sight of her in her greatest part; andDarrow, having dressed and made the requisite excerpts fromthe time-table, decided to carry the result of hisdeliberations to his neighbour's door.
It instantly opened at his knock, and she came forth lookingas if she had been plunged into some sparkling element whichhad curled up all her drooping tendrils and wrapped her in ashimmer of fresh leaves.
"Well, what do you think of me?" she cried; and with a handat her waist she spun about as if to show off some miracleof Parisian dress-making.
"I think the missing trunk has come--and that it was worthwaiting for!""You DO like my dress?""I adore it! I always adore new dresses--why, you don't meanto say it's NOT a new one?"She laughed out her triumph.
"No, no, no! My trunk hasn't come, and this is only my oldrag of yesterday--but I never knew the trick to fail!" And,as he stared: "You see," she joyously explained, "I'vealways had to dress in all kinds of dreary left-overs, andsometimes, when everybody else was smart and new, it used tomake me awfully miserable. So one day, when Mrs. Murrettdragged me down unexpectedly to fill a place at dinner, Isuddenly thought I'd try spinning around like that, and sayto every one: 'WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ME?' And, doyou know, they were all taken in, including Mrs. Murrett,who didn't recognize my old turned and dyed rags, and toldme afterward it was awfully bad form to dress as if I weresomebody that people would expect to know! And ever since,whenever I've particularly wanted to look nice, I've justasked people what they thought of my new frock; and they'realways, always taken in!"She dramatized her explanation so vividly that Darrow feltas if his point were gained.
"Ah, but this confirms your vocation--of course," he cried,"you must see Cerdine!" and, seeing her face fall at thisreminder of the change in her prospects, he hastened to setforth his plan. As he did so, he saw how easy it was toexplain things to her. She would either accept hissuggestion, or she would not: but at least she would wasteno time in protestations and objections, or any vainsacrifice to the idols of conformity. The conviction thatone could, on any given point, almost predicate this of her,gave him the sense of having advanced far enough in herintimacy to urge his arguments against a hasty pursuit ofher friends.
Yes, it would certainly be foolish--she at once agreed--inthe case of such dear indefinite angels as the Farlows, todash off after them without more positive proof that theywere established at Joigny, and so established that theycould take her in. She owned it was but too probable thatthey had gone there to "cut down", and might be doing so inquarters too contracted to receive her; and it would beunfair, on that chance, to impose herself on themunannounced. The simplest way of getting farther light onthe question would be to go back to the rue de la Chaise,where, at that more conversable hour, the conciergemight be less chary of detail; and she could decide on hernext step in the light of such facts as he imparted.
Point by point, she fell in with the suggestion,recognizing, in the light of their unexplained flight, thatthe Farlows might indeed be in a situation on which onecould not too rashly intrude. Her concern for her friendsseemed to have effaced all thought of herself, and thislittle indication of character gave Darrow a quitedisproportionate pleasure. She agreed that it would be wellto go at once to the rue de la Chaise, but met his proposalthat they should drive by the declaration that it was a"waste" not to walk in Paris; so they set off on footthrough the cheerful tumult of the streets.
The walk was long enough for him to learn many things abouther. The storm of the previous night had cleared the air,and Paris shone in morning beauty under a sky that was allbroad wet washes of white and blue; but Darrow again noticedthat her visual sensitiveness was less keen than her feelingfor what he was sure the good Farlows--whom he alreadyseemed to know--would have called "the human interest." Sheseemed hardly conscious of sensations of form and colour, orof any imaginative suggestion, and the spectacle beforethem--always, in its scenic splendour, so moving to hercompanion--broke up, under her scrutiny, into a thousandminor points: the things in the shops, the types ofcharacter and manner of occupation shown in the passingfaces, the street signs, the names of the hotels theypassed, the motley brightness of the flower-carts, theidentity of the churches and public buildings that caughther eye. But what she liked best, he divined, was the merefact of being free to walk abroad in the bright air, hertongue rattling on as it pleased, while her feet kept timeto the mighty orchestration of the city's sounds. Herdelight in the fresh air, in the freedom, light and sparkleof the morning, gave him a sudden insight into her stifledpast; nor was it indifferent to him to perceive how much hispresence evidently added to her enjoyment. If only as asympathetic ear, he guessed what he must be worth to her.
The girl had been dying for some one to talk to, some onebefore whom she could unfold and shake out to the light herpoor little shut-away emotions. Years of repression wererevealed in her sudden burst of confidence; and the pity sheinspired made Darrow long to fill her few free hours to thebrim.
She had the gift of rapid definition, and his questions asto the life she had led with the Farlows, during theinterregnum between the Hoke and Murrett eras, called upbefore him a queer little corner of Parisian existence. TheFarlows themselves--he a painter, she a "magazine writer"--rose before him in all their incorruptible simplicity: anelderly New England couple, with vague yearnings forenfranchisement, who lived in Paris as if it were aMassachusetts suburb, and dwelt hopefully on the "higherside" of the Gallic nature. With equal vividness she setbefore him the component figures of the circle from whichMrs. Farlow drew the "Inner Glimpses of French Life"appearing over her name in a leading New England journal:
the Roumanian lady who had sent them tickets for hertragedy, an elderly French gentleman who, on the strength ofa week's stay at Folkestone, translated English fiction forthe provincial press, a lady from Wichita, Kansas, whoadvocated free love and the abolition of the corset, aclergyman's widow from Torquay who had written an "EnglishLadies' Guide to Foreign Galleries" and a Russian sculptorwho lived on nuts and was "almost certainly" an anarchist.
It was this nucleus, and its outer ring of musical,architectural and other American students, which posedsuccessively to Mrs. Farlow's versatile fancy as a centre of"University Life", a "Salon of the Faubourg St. Germain", agroup of Parisian "Intellectuals" or a "Cross-section ofMontmartre"; but even her faculty for extracting from it themost varied literary effects had not sufficed to create apermanent demand for the "Inner Glimpses", and there weredays when--Mr. Farlow's landscapes being equallyunmarketable--a temporary withdrawal to the country(subsequently utilized as "Peeps into Chateau Life") becamenecessary to the courageous couple.
Five years of Mrs. Murrett's world, while increasing Sophy'stenderness for the Farlows, had left her with few illusionsas to their power of advancing her fortunes; and she did notconceal from Darrow that her theatrical projects were of thevaguest. They hung mainly on the problematical good-will ofan ancient comedienne, with whom Mrs. Farlow had a slightacquaintance (extensively utilized in "Stars of the FrenchFootlights" and "Behind the Scenes at the Francais"), andwho had once, with signs of approval, heard Miss Vinerrecite the Nuit de Mai.
"But of course I know how much that's worth," the girl brokeoff, with one of her flashes of shrewdness. "And besides,it isn't likely that a poor old fossil like Mme. Dolle couldget anybody to listen to her now, even if she really thoughtI had talent. But she might introduce me to people; or atleast give me a few tips. If I could manage to earn enoughto pay for lessons I'd go straight to some of the big peopleand work with them. I'm rather hoping the Farlows may findme a chance of that kind--an engagement with some Americanfamily in Paris who would want to be 'gone round' with likethe Hokes, and who'd leave me time enough to study."In the rue de la Chaise they learned little except the exactaddress of the Farlows, and the fact that they had sub-lettheir flat before leaving. This information obtained,Darrow proposed to Miss Viner that they should stroll alongthe quays to a little restaurant looking out on the Seine,and there, over the plat du jour, consider the next stepto be taken. The long walk had given her cheeks a glowindicative of wholesome hunger, and she made no difficultyabout satisfying it in Darrow's company. Regaining theriver they walked on in the direction of Notre Dame, delayednow and again by the young man's irresistible tendency tolinger over the bookstalls, and by his ever-fresh responseto the shifting beauties of the scene. For two years hiseyes had been subdued to the atmospheric effects of London,to the mysterious fusion of darkly-piled city and low-lyingbituminous sky; and the transparency of the French air,which left the green gardens and silvery stones soclassically clear yet so softly harmonized, struck him ashaving a kind of conscious intelligence. Every line of thearchitecture, every arch of the bridges, the very sweep ofthe strong bright river between them, while contributing tothis effect, sent forth each a separate appeal to somesensitive memory; so that, for Darrow, a walk through theParis streets was always like the unrolling of a vasttapestry from which countless stored fragrances were shakenout.
It was a proof of the richness and multiplicity of thespectacle that it served, without incongruity, for sodifferent a purpose as the background of Miss Viner'senjoyment. As a mere drop-scene for her personal adventureit was just as much in its place as in the evocation ofgreat perspectives of feeling. For her, as he againperceived when they were seated at their table in a lowwindow above the Seine, Paris was "Paris" by virtue of allits entertaining details, its endless ingenuities ofpleasantness. Where else, for instance, could one find thedear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically-laid anchovies and radishes, the thin golden shells ofbutter, or the wood strawberries and brown jars of creamthat gave to their repast the last refinement of rusticity?
Hadn't he noticed, she asked, that cooking always expressedthe national character, and that French food was clever andamusing just because the people were? And in private houses,everywhere, how the dishes always resembled the talk--howthe very same platitudes seemed to go into people's mouthsand come out of them? Couldn't he see just what kind of menuit would make, if a fairy waved a wand and suddenly turnedthe conversation at a London dinner into joints andpuddings? She always thought it a good sign when peopleliked Irish stew; it meant that they enjoyed changes andsurprises, and taking life as it came; and such a beautifulParisian version of the dish as the navarin that wasjust being set before them was like the very best kind oftalk--the kind when one could never tell before-hand justwhat was going to be said!
Darrow, as he watched her enjoyment of their innocent feast,wondered if her vividness and vivacity were signs of hercalling. She was the kind of girl in whom certain peoplewould instantly have recognized the histrionic gift. Butexperience had led him to think that, except at the creativemoment, the divine flame burns low in its possessors. Theone or two really intelligent actresses he had known hadstruck him, in conversation, as either bovine or primitively"jolly". He had a notion that, save in the mind of genius,the creative process absorbs too much of the whole stuff ofbeing to leave much surplus for personal expression; and thegirl before him, with her changing face and flexiblefancies, seemed destined to work in life itself rather thanin any of its counterfeits.
The coffee and liqueurs were already on the table when hermind suddenly sprang back to the Farlows. She jumped upwith one of her subversive movements and declared that shemust telegraph at once. Darrow called for writing materialsand room was made at her elbow for the parched ink-bottleand saturated blotter of the Parisian restaurant; but themere sight of these jaded implements seemed to paralyze MissViner's faculties. She hung over the telegraph-form withanxiously-drawn brow, the tip of the pen-handle pressedagainst her lip; and at length she raised her troubled eyesto Darrow's.
"I simply can't think how to say it.""What--that you're staying over to see Cerdine?""But AM I--am I, really?" The joy of it flamed over herface.
Darrow looked at his watch. "You could hardly get an answerto your telegram in time to take a train to Joigny thisafternoon, even if you found your friends could have you."She mused for a moment, tapping her lip with the pen. "But Imust let them know I'm here. I must find out as soon aspossible if they CAN, have me." She laid the pen downdespairingly. "I never COULD write a telegram!" shesighed.
"Try a letter, then and tell them you'll arrive tomorrow."This suggestion produced immediate relief, and she gave anenergetic dab at the ink-bottle; but after another intervalof uncertain scratching she paused again."Oh, it's fearful!
I don't know what on earth to say. I wouldn't for the worldhave them know how beastly Mrs. Murrett's been."Darrow did not think it necessary to answer. It was nobusiness of his, after all. He lit a cigar and leaned backin his seat, letting his eyes take their fill of indolentpleasure. In the throes of invention she had pushed backher hat, loosening the stray lock which had invited histouch the night before. After looking at it for a while hestood up and wandered to the window.
Behind him he heard her pen scrape on.
"I don't want to worry them--I'm so certain they've gotbothers of their own." The faltering scratches ceased again.
"I wish I weren't such an idiot about writing: all the wordsget frightened and scurry away when I try to catch them."He glanced back at her with a smile as she bent above hertask like a school-girl struggling with a "composition." Herflushed cheek and frowning brow showed that her difficultywas genuine and not an artless device to draw him to herside. She was really powerless to put her thoughts inwriting, and the inability seemed characteristic of herquick impressionable mind, and of the incessant come-and-goof her sensations. He thought of Anna Leath's letters, orrather of the few he had received, years ago, from the girlwho had been Anna Summers. He saw the slender firm strokesof the pen, recalled the clear structure of the phrases,and, by an abrupt association of ideas, remembered that, atthat very hour, just such a document might be awaiting himat the hotel.
What if it were there, indeed, and had brought him acomplete explanation of her telegram? The revulsion offeeling produced by this thought made him look at the girlwith sudden impatience. She struck him as positivelystupid, and he wondered how he could have wasted half hisday with her, when all the while Mrs. Leath's letter mightbe lying on his table. At that moment, if he could havechosen, he would have left his companion on the spot; but hehad her on his hands, and must accept the consequences.
Some odd intuition seemed to make her conscious of hischange of mood, for she sprang from her seat, crumpling theletter in her hand.
"I'm too stupid; but I won't keep you any longer. I'll goback to the hotel and write there."Her colour deepened, and for the first time, as their eyesmet, he noticed a faint embarrassment in hers. Could it bethat his nearness was, after all, the cause of herconfusion? The thought turned his vague impatience with herinto a definite resentment toward himself. There was reallyno excuse for his having blundered into such an adventure.
Why had he not shipped the girl off to Joigny by the eveningtrain, instead of urging her to delay, and using Cerdine asa pretext? Paris was full of people he knew, and hisannoyance was increased by the thought that some friend ofMrs. Leath's might see him at the play, and report hispresence there with a suspiciously good-looking companion.
The idea was distinctly disagreeable: he did not want thewoman he adored to think he could forget her for a moment.
And by this time he had fully persuaded himself that aletter from her was awaiting him, and had even gone so faras to imagine that its contents might annul the writer'stelegraphed injunction, and call him to her side at once...