Chapter 10

( Originally Published 1915 )

HILDA AT LAST HAS A GLIMPSE OF THE REAL MORAN; AND WHAT FOLLOWS SO MOVES HER THAT SHE THINKS SHE WILL GIVE ADELE SOMETHING TO WEAR

WHEN Moran entered her room, at a little after eight that evening, Hilda did not look up. She was seated by the window, gazing down into the quiet street. She felt tired and depressed. The baby was crying, interrupting itself with weak fits of coughing. Adele was in her own room, washing out the baby's clothes; and had shut the door, for quiet.

Hilda heard Moran stepping slowly and carefully across the room; and felt her pulse quicken. This would not do. She steeled herself against the emotion that this man could now stir in her by merely entering the room.

He paused, just behind her. Still she did not lift her eyes; but, chin on hand, fingers pressed against her mouth, she watched a fiacre that was rumbling by. The enameled white hat of the rotund driver reflected one street and window light after another as it moved slowly past.

Moran dropped his hand on her shoulder.

Hilda stirred to shake it off; but the movement was no more than a slight stirring, and he seemed unaware of it. His hand was solid and warm on her shoulder, yet it was light. For a flash she thought of asking him to take it away. But this seemed hardly fitting. She must not exhibit her own self-consciousness by making too much of what was to him a natural action. The thing to do was to say something offhand. But her throat was dry; and no words came at the moment. Finally, the silence lengthened out, until he too became self-conscious, and removed his hand. This did not relieve the situation.

She heard him tiptoe back to the baby's basket. He busied himself there for a moment; doubtless he was straightening out the wrinkled sheet. She had done this herself not a quarter of an hour earlier.

Soon he came back and stood beside her in the open window, looking down at her. She could feel that he was looking down. She decided to raise her eyes.

He was dressed in a black sweater with a high rolling collar, a pair of old flannel trousers, and the sort of light canvas and rubber shoes that Hilda knew as "sneakers." He had a steamer cap in his hand. The sweater was tight, and disclosed the outlines of his splendid body—the chest wide and deep, tapering down toward his waist and hips.

She manufactured a weary smile. "Beginning your road work ?"

He nodded. She felt that he was studying her, and lowered her eyes.

"Adele told me you didn't eat any dinner," said he.

She gave a little shrug. "I didn't want it. I'm all right. I've eaten enough to-day."

"Have you been out?"

She hesitated. "Well—no, if you will pin me down. But I had that long tramp yesterday. And tomorrow—"

"That's what I thought," said he. "You come on out with me."

"Not now?"

"Yes. Now."

Hilda smiled again. He did amuse her. "What is it to be this time ? Have I got to do this road work with you ?" She looked up now. "I'm not so good at running as I used to be."

He did not return her smile. "Come on," he said. "We'll leave Adele on the job. There's nothing you can do now for an hour, anyway." And when she was putting on her old homespun storm coat and the soft felt hat, he added : "The thing for you to do, Hilda, is to get out now, while you can. It isn't going to be so easy next week, I'm afraid."

She glanced sidewise as she passed the mirror. This was the costume she had worn that evening of the fights at the Porte Maillot. And he had been in evening dress ! She watched him as he moved to the door and opened it, after speaking to Adele. She liked him better in this costume. She fancied she could see the muscles play beneath the heavy sweater. So at last he was to have his big match. He was to fight the great Carpentier. It would call out all his speed and craft and power. He would be the tiger-man —he would have to be in order to hold his own with the champion of France and England. And she would see him !

They walked out behind the Madeleine, across the Boulevard Malesherbes, and through back streets to the Champs Elysees. Moran moved with an easy swinging stride, loose of hips and lithe of back. He made no pretense of slowing up for her; only once asking if the pace was too brisk. At this question she laughed a little, and stepped out more vigorously, with a stride not unlike his own. It had been like this on each of their recent walks. He always swept her along in a way that forced her to breathe more deeply and brought the color to her cheeks.

The bare winter trees were thick about them as they swung rhythmically along the wide path. Lounging French youths eyed them curiously as they passed—the big man in cap and sweater and soft shoes, and the young woman in gray coat and soft black hat who moved with a grace as easy if not as bold as his. Straight on up the gradual incline to the Arc de Triomphe they walked, and across the curving roadway, dodging taxis, and through the arch. It had been their custom to turn off here into the Avenue Kleber toward the Trocadero and the Seine; but to-night he went on into the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. She kept by his side, asking no questions.

The broad avenue, with its wide borders of grass and its trees, was like a park. It was nearly deserted : an occasional automobile went by; and they saw one love-lorn couple on a bench. Moran nodded his head toward the couple as they passed.

"Have you got used to that yet, Hilda ?" he asked—"the way they make love everywhere ?"

"I know," she said. "It did take me several trips to get used to the kissing in the restaurants."

Moran chuckled. "They don't care."

"No," Hilda agreed, "they don't care."

At a bench farther on he stopped and took her arm.

"Here's a good place to do my running," he said. "You won't catch cold if you sit down a while, will you—ten or fifteen minutes ?"

Hilda shook her head. "Of course not."

"Better button up your coat, though."

She obeyed, wondering a little as she did so. It was an odd sensation, this of accepting the guidance of a man in the little personal details of one's life; but it was not an unpleasant sensation.

"Now you sit down," he said, "and count the laps for me. There ought to be about seven or eight to the mile—say eight."

She followed his gaze, and saw that he was measuring one of the subdivisions of the parkway, cut off by transverse paths.

"I don't think any one can bother you," he added. "I'll be in sight all the time, except when I'm behind that clump of trees. And I'll pass you every half minute or so."

"I'm not afraid," she replied. "Go ahead."

He took off his sweater, and spread it out for her on the bench. Then he stood before her, all white in his flannel trousers and soft shirt that was open at the neck. "I'll do twenty laps, Hilda: That'll be about two miles and a half. You keep count now !"

"Go ahead," said. she again.

He turned and was off with a bound. She followed the white figure—along the roadway, off to the left, down a sloping path, and then, smaller, jogging along the farther roadway behind the shrubs and trees. When he passed her for the first time she caught her first real impression of his activity and power. He seemed to spring upward and forward with each step.

It interested her, too, to observe that his running was methodical, businesslike. His head was well back, as were his shoulders. His elbows were close to his sides; his feet slanting so that his weight fell well forward of the heels. She wished that he would let himself out a little more when be passed her. Indeed, knowing the almost universal impulse in men of all ages to exhibit their physical prowess to the maximum before women, she rather expected it. But he did nothing of the sort, merely trotted round and round the shadowy quadrangle, occasionally calling out to know the number of laps.

She had never seen such endurance. She could not perceive that he was even breathing hard. And while he did not seem to be running very fast, still his long bounding strides were carrying him over the ground, she knew, at a really rapid rate.

As he passed for the fourteenth time, he called :

"Let me know when I've done sixteen."

She nodded, wondering a little. Then, as his white figure was rounding the turn and disappearing behind the trees, she realized that he meant to quicken his pace for the last half mile. Memories of college athletic contests she had seen came to her. Runners always "sprinted" at the end, of course. At last she was to see him extend himself.

Once more he passed, at the same even gait. Unconsciously Hilda sat erect, even moved forward on the seat. She had been keeping count on her fingers ; but now she clasped her hands.

There he was, coming up the transverse path. He turned into the road; jogging easily nearer and nearer.

She stood up, and waved the black sweater at him. "All right !" she cried. "It's sixteen."

He gave her a casual nod, and came steadily along. Then, just as he passed her, standing there at the edge of the gravelly path, he shot forward.

Hilda drew in an involuntary quick breath. The moment had come for which she had been waiting ever since her eyes first rested on the man. It was as if some irresistible force had suddenly come to life within him. His stride had lengthened; his loose-playing hips and muscular back had suddenly become a part of the stride. His whole splendid body was in action.

He swung out across the path in order to make a wider turn, then shot down the cross-path. She watched him flying along the back stretch; and up the other cross-path. He came swinging out around the turn, and in a few seconds was past her. He did not give her so much as a glance now; his thoughts were bent on getting out every available ounce of energy. She could see that. And he seemed younger than she had ever thought him; indeed, it gave her a momentary pang to think how young he appeared. And he was beautiful. Yes, beautiful ! A lithe bounding creature, full of exuberant health, as God surely meant man to be. She forgot the Gothic eyelid, that had made her smile at first. She forgot that he sometimes seemed slow and a little lacking in mental responsiveness. She thought of him now only as the strong, vibrant, yet splendidly self-controlled man he certainly had proved himself to be. She even thought of him, with a curious flutter of inner excitement, as he would appear in the ring, facing the great Carpentier—stripped to loin-cloth and shoes, a lithe powerful tiger of a man, with shining sweaty skin and delicately playing muscles beneath it.

She was glad, too, that this exhibition was not of the beautiful but heartless strength of unthinking youth. For it was not. It was the strength of a man of unusual soberness and, even, of kindness. It was a calculated strength, to be used deliberately toward an end. There was no uncertainty in it; no waste. His body was a perfect engine, under perfect control.

He passed her again, running even more rapidly at every step pounding solidly on the smooth oily surface of the avenue, yet light as a greyhound. "Why," she breathed, "he's a bundle of steel springs! It is wonderful 1" And again she peered after him through the semi-darkness, fascinated by the way every muscle from hips to shoulders seemed to be playing its part in those swift leaping strides.

At the beginning of the last lap she shouted after him : "You've done nineteen !" And she thought he nodded.

This time when he swung into the road from the back stretch he extended himself still more. If she had not seen this final burst of speed she would not have believed it possible.

He ran on for a hundred feet or more beyond her before pulling himself up. Then he walked back, holding his cap in his hand and mopping his face with his handkerchief. She hurried to meet him, and held his sweater for him as if it had been a coat. He accepted the little attention simply and naturally. She saw that this extra effort had, as he himself would have said, "got to him." He was breathing hard.

They walked on a little way; she thoughtful, he continuing to mop his face and neck as he buttoned his sweater.

She suddenly laid a hand on his arm and stopped short, swinging him around.

"You're a wonderful man !" she said impulsively. Then, as suddenly, she compressed her lips and walked on.

He shook his head. "No," said he, "I'm softer than I thought. Three weeks from now I'll be doing ten miles, and I won't be blowing like this either."

She let this pass. They approached a narrow street, leading off to the right.

"Had enough walking ?" he asked.

"You've had enough," she replied. "Anyway, you're all heated up now, and you ought to get right back."

"Oh, no," said he, "not with this sweater on, and if I keep moving. If you say so, we'll take our regular walk—around by the river."

"It would be nice to see it at night, if you're sure.

He slipped his arm through hers, and turned her off down the side street. He kept her arm, moving her along at a faster pace than he had ever taken with her before.

She pressed his arm firmly and stepped right out with him. It was exhilarating. But she found it difficult to talk; and, in fact, kept silent.

They emerged on the grounds of the Trocadero Palace, crossing the street and walking up into the curving porch that connects the main building with the right wing. Here, between the great columns, Hilda stopped short and held her breath in sheer delight at the scene that had suddenly appeared before her eyes. Moran's arm was still locked with hers.

Directly beneath them, a little to the left, extended the terraced fountains, half a hundred yards of masonry and statuary, faintly lighted by the numerous globes that dot the little park. Beside the fountains, directly in front of Hilda and her escort, lay the gardens, sloping down to the Quai. Just beyond flowed the Seine; a smooth glistening river, specked with innumerable quivering reflections of the lights along the farther bank. From a point on the Quai opposite the center of the Trocadero Gardens leaped out a curving double arch of lights which Hilda knew for the Pont d'Iena.

She looked off to the right, down-stream; but found the view blocked by trees and buildings. To the left, however, half a mile up-stream and on the farther bank, she could see, through a net of bare branches, the blazing red lights that mark the entrance to that newest and most garish of amusement resorts, "le Magic City."

Hilda pressed Moran's arm. "See," she said, "how that red light shines in the water. Isn't it wonderful?" He nodded slowly and reflectively.

"I can't get used to the idea of these Magic Cities and Luna Parks—in Paris." She laughed softly.

"I know," said he. "Things have changed so much even since I came here that sometimes I want to pinch myself. But I guess that's Paris, after all—picking up everything new from everywhere, and playing with it."

Hilda gazed out over the bridge toward the Champ-deMars, now a great dark reach of open country twinkling with thousands of lights. Then she looked up.

There it was—dim and high—rising from the very center of the thousands of lights—a thin spider's web stretched from earth to clouds—the Eiffel Tower.

"It is wonderful," said she, "how these Paris views are arranged. They are always leading your eye up to some wonderful building or monument."

"Yes," said he, "it is a well-planned city. I guess those fellows knew their business."

They walked slowly down the winding path beside the fountains, and turned to the left along the Quai—toward the Place de la Concorde, the Madeleine, and the little hotel that was for the time their common home.

"Listen," said she, after they had walked for a few moments without speaking, "I've got to be there when you box Carpentier."

He inclined his head. "Of course I'd like to have you there, Hilda. It will be easy enough to manage, if things are all right with the baby."

"I know," said she. "I was thinking of that, too. It's too soon to plan, of course. But I'm coming if I can." Her thoughts ranged ahead, scheming out ways and means of devising her reappearance on the Rue de Rivoli and at Armandeville's; perhaps as one just returned from a tour. It would not be difficult to plan a leading conversation that would end in one of the handy men from Armandeville's acting as her escort—or somebody. Perhaps they would get up a little party. Natural curiosity, the adventurous impulse of the sightseer, would explain her desire to do so unconventional a thing. . . . Come to think of it, Ed Johnson would be turning up in Paris within the month, after his annual combing-out of the glove manufacturing towns of Spain, Italy, Austria and Germany. If his time worked out right she would make Ed take her.

Then, quite suddenly and vividly, pictures rose in her mind of the helpless waif of a baby there in her own room. She felt guilty that she had thought even for an hour of herself and her own pleasures. She quickened her step.

"What is it ?" he asked. "Are you cold?"

"No," said she. "It's the baby. We must hurry back." "All right," said he. Then—"About the fight? I can fix it."

She waited for him to go on; but he added nothing. So she said : "Oh, don't bother. You'll have all you can attend to. I'll make some one take me. Only I'll have to keep very quiet and look my properest, so they won't know how anxious I shall be for you."

"You needn't be anxious, Hilda."

Again they were silent for a space. Once she stole a sidelong glance at him, under a street light. His brows were knit. He was thinking hard. She pressed his arm a little closer.

Several moments more passed before he began, slowly and very soberly :

"Now listen here, Hilda—" Then he stopped. "I'm listening," said she.

"I want to tell you about this—about how things are.

You see, I've never saved very much. I never had to somehow. My father's pretty thrifty. But it doesn't seem to be very hard for me to make money. Two years ago was my best year. I cleaned up almost nineteen thousand dollars. Net, I mean—above all extra training expenses and Henry's share."

The unusual exuberance that had been rising in Hilda's spirit during the evening was quieting down. A queer foreboding had crept into her mind. She was sure that she had caught a note of emotion in his voice. What was he getting at, in talking to her of his personal finances. She slipped her arm out from his.

"Nineteen thousand dollars !" she exclaimed, in her most matter-of-fact voice. "That's a lot."

"Yes," said he, "it is. But I shall beat it this season, I think—with this Carpentier match. A boxer can earn a good deal, you know, nowadays."

"I should say so. Why, I've got what is considered an unusually good job, in my line, and I don't earn anything like that. Eight thousand is my limit, so far."

"Eight thousand !" It was his turn to exclaim. He looked down at her. "I didn't know any woman earned as much as that."

"You didn't !" said she, a thought nettled. "Why shouldn't a woman earn it ?"

"I don't know," said he. "I guess I've never thought about it. Then you're used to living pretty well. Yes, I can see that. And that's—of course, if you're as independent as all that, it makes the whole thing look different. I don't know as I could—"

Hilda interrupted him here, gazing oat over the twinkling surface of the river to conceal the smile that she could not wholly suppress. "Tell me—who is Henry ?"

"Henry Huybers, my manager. I was going to say—keeping in condition as I do, and not fussing with the white lights, I ought to be really good for—well, say three or four years more. Two, anyway. With what I've got saved now, and all I ought to be able to shake down in. these few years ahead, I expect to be fairly well fixed. You see, my reputation is getting bigger all the time, and likely as not my publicity value will be greatest for a year or so after I've begun to slow up. Even if Carpentier beats me, this match is bound to be a big help."

"He won't beat you," said Hilda.

"No, I don't think he will myself. But you never can tell. I may not be quite so good as I think. And then, in this game, there's always the possibility of the weaker man winning on a lucky blow. You have to take your chances. Well, as I was going to say—"

Hilda was trying desperately, and unsuccessfully, to think up ways of diverting him. One difficulty was that she could not down the curiously unexpected buoyancy of spirit that was surging up again within her. She even caught herself humming a little café tune. It was the sprightly one-step, Tingle, Tingle, that Will Harper had danced to, at the Parnasse.

"—a man in my position ought to look ahead. I've had my lines out for a couple of years in a business way. It seems to me that aeroplanes are the coming thing, and I've invested a little already in a company that a French fellow I know is starting. It looks as if he had worked out the stabilizer at last. And if he has, and can make a real showing, I thought maybe I'd put a little more in. You see—"

Hilda was at her wit's end. There was not the slightest doubt now that he was very serious indeed, dangerous even. She felt vaguely afraid—of herself as well as of him. She wanted to put her hands over her ears; to sing out loud, talk rapidly and excitedly, do anything but listen to that sober slow voice, with its constant and fascinating suggestion of unlimited strength of character in reserve behind it.

But instead of doing any of these things, she was fighting back the soft smile that would keep on hovering about her mouth. The only thing she seemed able to do with any success was to keep her face turned so that he could not see it, and gaze steadily at that beautiful river.

"—you see, I wouldn't be any good in a regular business. They'd go through me in no time. I'd be lucky to keep my clothes. But this aeroplane thing is a little more in my line. I could take to driving the machines myself. Be a practical demonstrator, you know. And then the business would have to pay me something regular instead of just taking my money away from me. I'd have to do something active, you see. I'd never be happy any other way."

They had reached the Place de la Concorde. He took her arm again, and guided her across the broad areas of pavement from one lamplit isle to another. His touch was a caress.

"I've wanted to talk this all over with you pretty seriously, Hilda, because—well, I'd have to tell you all about how I'm fixed and what my prospects are before—"

Hilda again got her arm away, and threw out both hands in a sudden gesture. "Don't let's talk seriously !" she cried. "I don't want to talk seriously !"

He made no reply at all to this; and they walked on in silence.

The lights of Maxim's were just ahead. She could see the pasty-faced little chasseur at the door, waiting, in his blue uniform and leather puttees, for the night's business to begin; and she thought of Stanley. Where was he ? and what was he doing ? The distinctly unpleasant thought came to her that, likely as not, he was even now engaged in the rather commonplace occupation (among weak and over-nervous men) known as "going to pieces." Just one more American in Paris, blowing up. She even felt a queer twinge of conscience, as if she were, after all, responsible for Stanley.

She stole a glance at her silent escort. His face told her nothing. He looked just as he always looked. He was silent. But then he was often silent. She wondered what he was thinking. Had she hurt him? Or did he just think her capricious, "feminine" ? He was always kind. But he didn't take women very seriously. It came to her now for the first time that he would undoubtedly be pretty conservative about women. Cruelly idealistic, even. For rough practical men, she knew, were often just that. . . . She stole another glance at him, but said nothing. It occurred to her, just then, that it was usually she who broke the silences. She would let him be the first to break this one. It would be a contest. She would make him feel her strength, as he had so often made her feel his.

So they walked on, briskly and steadily, side by side, each looking straight ahead. Hilda was determined not to look at him again; and her lips were compressed. She knew, without looking at him, that his lips were not compressed, that it was literally no effort at all for him to control himself. She wondered how much of this exasperatingly quiet power of his was real character, as she understood the word, and how much was nothing more than lack of imagination. Certainly, however, positive or negative though it might be, the power was there. It was a fact.

They came to the end of the street, crossed the Place de la Madeleine, and walked around the great temple, in the shadow, to, the Rue Tronchet and its little tributary street in which their modest Hotel de l'Amerique was the dominant structure. At the crossings he would have taken her arm again, had she given him the opportunity. But at each she stepped off rapidly and a little ahead of him. . . . What a man ! He had gone through an elaborate explanation that could have been meant only as the preliminary step to a proposal of marriage. Then, at her first mild protest, he had stopped short. She almost wished she had let him go through with it. . . . Now why had he stopped in that way? She read him for the kind of man who would certainly fight hard for anything he really wanted. Once fully aroused, he would be irresistible. Was it that she had failed to stir him deeply ? Or that he had blundered prematurely into his proposal, and, finding his mistake, had decided to settle back and deliberately wait for a better time ? Or could it be that he was not analyzing the situation at all? . . . Any way she tried to puzzle it out, she could reach no other conclusion than that there was something in the very texture of his mind that lay outside the range of her experience. "I don't understand him," she thought. And it nettled her that she didn't.

They entered the hotel, still without speaking, and walked up the stairs side by side. There was a red carpet on those stairs, with a green figure. Hilda studied the carpet as she went up. She had never noticed it before, beyond noting vaguely that it was there.

He came to her door with her. She opened it and peered in. Adele was sitting there, in the dim light from the shaded electric lamp. The colored tissue-paper was still wrapped about that lamp, that she had put there during her first night with the baby. That seemed a long time ago.

The baby was sleeping at the moment. Standing motionless in the doorway, Hilda could hear her rapid hoarse breathing. So everything was all right, or as nearly all right as could be expected. She turned to say good night to Moran. She was distinctly tired. It was not easy to muster up a smile

He extended his hand.

She took it.

Then he said: "Good. night, Hilda. Get all the sleep you can."

He had spoken first. She had won. Even at the moment she knew well enough that her sudden little uprush of jubilant feeling was pure childishness. . . . But was it, though ?

She replied. with a whispered. "Good night" ; then slipped. into the room and. closed the door softly behind her.

She went over to Adele, and rested. a light hand. on her shoulder. She felt in an unusually kindly frame of mind toward Adele; gentle, even. It occurred. to her that she hadn't fully realized before what a really desperate condition the girl was in, and with what a sweet spirit she was making the best of that situation. Not a word of complaint had been heard from her.

Adele looked up, with a swift smile, and. reached up to caress Hilda's hand.

Hilda saw that the girl had a handkerchief crumpled in her other hand, and that she was sniffling.

"You've been crying, child," she whispered.

Adele's smile lingered. "It's my cold, mostly," she replied. "I seem to have caught it from the baby."

"Then you go right to bed. and get some rest. I'll get into a negligee and. lie down in here."

When Adele had gone, Hilda reflected, standing at her wardrobe trunk and swinging the clothes hangers, that were crowded with suits, frocks, wraps and dainty things:

"That poor child doesn't even own a negligee to get into. I must give her some things to wear. She is nearly my height—they won't need much altering. She is such a simple, honest little thing, I know she would be grateful."