Chapter 7

( Originally Published 1915 )

HILDA FEELS THAT SHE HAS DISPOSED OF STANLEY AITCHESON. MORAN TALKS WITH THE MANAGERS OF A PERSON OF IMPORTANCE. AND WILL HARPER GOES TO BUDAPEST

THE cab stopped at the curb, across from the Opera. Hilda hurried into the Express Company's building and directly to the winding double stairway that led to the mail and reading room above. Still deep within herself, her constant thought of the baby clouded at moments by surges of that spirit of rebellion against the confusing pressures about her, she gave not even a curious glance to the Americans at the various grated windows cashing traveler's checks, studying out circular tours and buying tickets, or chatting in groups near the door—she simply brushed by and ascended the stairs with nervously quick feet.

As she neared the top, a young man emerged from the mail room and stepped aside as if to descend the other stairway. Then suddenly he stopped short and fairly leaped back. Hilda looked up, and stood motionless, one foot on the top step, her hand gripping the rail. For an instant she could not bring her faculties clear.

Then, pale and sober, an expression of guardedly unsmiling recognition on her face she extended her hand.

He gripped it hard. "Oh," he said, low, "thank God . . I left a note. I was afraid I had missed you."

"I am going in for my mail now," she said, conveying nothing; and he moved on into the big room with her.

Stanley Aitcheson was a good-looking young man, with something of the artist's softness of outline in his face and of the artist's fire in his brown eyes—all this above a pair of athletic shoulders and a long, nervously alert body.

Hilda went straight to the "M to Z" window and took her place in the line. All of five minutes passed before she turned away, letters in hand: there had been time to think. She walked slowly toward a writing table, opening an envelope. The table she had deliberately chosen was close to others where other Americans sat writing or talking. She was giving Stanley no chance. It simply would not do to give him a chance. She had watched him as he stood by one of the long outer windows, staring down into the street, biting his lip and switching the light stick he carried against his leg.

He came over now and dropped into the chair at the other side of the table. He laid his stick across the desk blotter, stared gloomily at it for a moment, then put his hat on it, looked up, and smiled nervously.

Hilda was swiftly opening her other letters, throwing the envelopes into the waste basket one by one and arranging the enclosures in a neat pile. Aitcheson, biting his lip again, glanced covertly at the next table, and about at their other close neighbors. Hilda wondered if he had been drinking a little. He did that sometimes, she knew. But then, most men did.

He leaned forward, elbows on table.

"Can't we have a little talk ?" he said, his voice low andi not quite steady.

Hilda placed her two hands on the little heap of papers, raised her eyes, and looked steadily at him for a moment.

"I haven't much time to-day, Stanley."

He bit his lip. "How about tomorrow, then ?" He spoke as one who is determined to remain calm.

She thought this over. "I really shan't have much time for a few days."

He flashed a glance of genuine surprise at her. "But Levy just told me today that you've quit work."

"I have never accounted to Mr. Levy for my time."

"But--but--" His voice was rising a little. Despite her resolution to handle this situation without any show of personal concern, Hilda could not resist glancing about her. They must not be overheard.

"Look here," said he. "I've come all the way from New York to Paris just to talk with you. Do you think you're being quite fair with me ?"

Hilda mused. Perhaps it would be better to talk the thing clear out and have it over with. She dreaded the thought. It made her head ache. It was just another of those insistent pressures that were wearing her out. Certainly she could not sit here and quarrel with an excited boy. It was plain that evasion on her part merely stirred and embittered him. Delay would doubtless have the same effect.

"Very well," she replied, looking straight at him. "I really haven't the time now, but I'll take it."

"We can't say anything here," said he.

She agreed to this; and added, "The Cafe de la Paix is just down the block. We can sit there and talk quietly."

So, in silence, they crossed the street and walked over to the corner of the boulevard. Only a few early tea drinkers were in the restaurant. Aitcheson led her to the farthest corner, and in response to her nod ordered tea and toast.

"Now," she said, "I've brought you here with a purpose.

It was quite true that we couldn't talk there at the American Express. And we can't talk here, Stanley—not along the lines of your last letter. I must say that in some way that I am sure you will understand. This is to be the last time you and I ever discuss the subject. I don't feel toward you as you say you feel toward me. It is pretty certain that I never shall. You said it was unfair of me to refuse to talk with you after you have traveled so far to see me. Has it occurred to you that it was not fair of you to come ? I never encouraged such a thing. I have never encouraged you, except in a friendly way. You are annoying me now —disturbing me. You have no right to do it. My advice is that you take the next ship back, go straight to your desk, stop thinking about yourself, and try to make good at your job."

After saying which, she sat quietly there, her hands clasped against the table edge, her lips compressed, her eyes flashing a little, looking straight at him.

She could see that he was stunned by this broadside. He flushed, and dropped his eyes; and more than once raised them with a fluttering question. He had sunk back in his chair, his hands plunged into his coat pockets. Gradually he whitened about the mouth; and made a curiously unsuccessful little effort to smile. When he did speak, it was with a reversion to the slang of his boyhood, even now not so remote.

"Gee !" he breathed. "That sounds rather final." "It is final," said Hilda.

Again he tried to smile at her; but, failing, turned his head and gazed out through the window curtains at the empty, wind-swept sidewalk tables and the pedestrians and street traffic beyond them.

Hilda watched him, and pondered. After all, the boy had come clear across the ocean to find her; or at least to find a response to the turbulent emotions within himself. Even granting that his imagination had as much to do with this erratic adventure as any devotion for a particular person, there was something rather appealing in the thought of it. Having struck him so solidly with her verbal bludgeon, she now found herself softening. She had seen other men in this condition; and even when they were most completely sunk in their egotistic self-pity, they had stirred her—always to her own surprise. This boy was stirring her now—again to her surprise. She wondered how it would be to feel like that. Then an unexpected gust blew up disconcertingly from the deepest caverns of memory and fanned a little flickering blaze in her heart. She had once felt like that . . . years ago.

In his last letter, the one she had been unable to answer, Stanley had called her hard. She wondered, with a momentary tightening of the nerves, if it could be true. Toward him, of course, she must continue to appear hard. There was no escaping that. It was out, of the question that she should surrender her life into the hands of this inexperienced. boy, whom she hardly knew. Quite out of the question. She knew—had realized for a year or more, in her occasional dwellings on the problem—that the time had definitely passed when it would be possible for her to cast in her lot with a struggling young man and help him make his way against the currents of life. Once she could have done this; but now too much had happened. Her life had widened and, in a measure, richened.. Her abilities had grown.

"Well," he was saying—"I guess that ends it all."

He did not meet her glance of inquiry. "What do you mean by that ?" she asked.

"It's over. I'm through. There's nothing left for me." "Don't be tragic, Stanley."

He looked at her now. "Is that all ?" he asked huskily. "You just look at me, cold and hard as nails, and tell me not to be tragic ?"

It seemed to her that he was indulging his emotions to the point of working up a scene. But she did not blame him. He was the sort that lives always in one or another emotional storm.

She leaned forward on the table, and looked at him—kindly, even gently.

"Perhaps I understand better than you think, Stanley," she said. He brightened a little at the change in her. "I don't believe you -are in love with me. No, please don't shake your head. And please make an effort to catch what I am saying. It is true that we can't go on talking about this. I can not go on having violent scenes with you and reading violent letters. It would simply wear me out without in any way making you happier. Indeed, you would lose ground by it, for you have at least had my cordial friendship . . . Now, please listen. You are not in love with me. You actually don't know me—yes, that does make a difference. But you are in a state of mind that is dangerous to yourself and others. You are not a man who should live alone. The thing you really do need, Stanley, is the companionship of a woman. Not my kind, somebody simpler and younger. You ought to marry, Stanley."

"You don't mean," said he, slowly, after a long silence, "that you think I could turn my affections toward any one !"

She was silent.

"Where are your ideals ?" he went on. His voice was low and uneven. "At least I supposed you would know that love is a high and beautiful thing."

She suppressed a momentary impatience. She must see this situation through. The boy appeared to be a quivering mass of youthful illusions.

"You evidently don't know what love is," he added.

She clasped her hands and rested them on the table-cloth. She could not reply to this.

"You have never suffered," said he.

The reproach in his voice fanned her inner blaze high and higher, until it roared at the ears of her mind. Her clasped hands tightened. She looked straight at him, and a mask dropped from her face.

"There you are wrong, Stanley." At the sudden low vibrancy in her voice, he shifted his position and shot a puzzled glance at her. This was the voice of a woman he had never known. But she seemed to brush this glance aside as, roused now, she swept on. "I have suffered. I have suffered because I do know what love is. I loved a man, and I had to send him away."

"Oh," he murmured, "you sent him away, too."

"Don't, Stanley—please !" she said. He had never seen her eyes flash like this. He had never seen her so beautiful and so human. She continued. "I had to. He was married. And there were children. But I loved him. And I think he loved me—then."

She sank back in her chair, still looking straight at him; and the fire slowly died in her eyes. "There, Stanley," she concluded, more gently—"I have told you more than I ever told another living being. But if it helps you to understand me, I shall not be sorry. I do not like to hurt you, and yet I must stop you from pursuing me in this way."

Her eyes were swimming; but he did not look up just then.

"Was it some one you worked with ?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. "But I think you had better not ask questions, Stanley. It was a long time ago. He was a big man—the biggest I have ever known. He helped me. I gave him loyalty up to the time when it became a question of giving love. Then we had to break. He was bitter. He could not see what was so plain to me, even then—that in these affairs the wife always wins. It seemed to me that she was a selfish woman. Perhaps I was not fair to her; but it seemed so to me then. And during those years I know that she was not the helpmate to him that I was. I worked and fought with him in his deepest struggles and difficulties. He is successful now. But I worked through those years by his side. I never see him."

Aitcheson was gazing down at the table-cloth, where his fingers absently and slowly traced the flower pattern in the fabric. She leaned forward again, elbows on table, hands clasped.

"You told me I was hard, Stanley." He shifted uneasily, but she swept along. "Well—I'm afraid it is true. Yes, probably I am hard. All these years—and. I am older than you—I have been at the job of building up a new and solitary life. And what have I found? Every man friend—every man I thought big and honest enough to be a friend, these recent years—has ended by trying to make love to me, by showing the beast in him—"

She shuddered slightly. Aitcheson observed, "Perhaps you are judging them too harshly;" but apparently without reaching her ear. "One by one," she continued, "I've had to let my men friends go. It wasn't possible. And. their wives never would receive me. Among the wives there is always—always—that suspicion of a woman who lives an independent business life. Unless she is old. Or a hag. Everywhere I turn, always, there is nothing but pressure and suspicion. So I've driven myself to work harder and harder. But look at the cost ! I'm wearing out—at thirty-two. . . . Do you wonder I'm hard ? Do you wonder I can't talk with you about love ? No, Stanley, I'm not for you. But if you do feel gently toward me, you can help me by letting me alone. That's what I need."

Round and round the flower pattern went Stanley's finger. His eyes followed it intently.

But finally he looked up. "When you put it that way," he said, unsteadily, "it seems as if I ought to be able to do that. But I'm with you now. And we're talking real things. The trouble will come after I leave you—to-morrow, maybe. I shall want to see you. And those bitter feelings will come."

"Don't be bitter, Stanley," said she, gently. "I've been. And it doesn't help. That's just my fight—to keep from being bitter. You'd better fight it, too."

She was drawing on her gloves.

"I know," said he, "but I get so bewildered."

A middle-aged couple, Americans, entered the restaurant, followed by a fresh young girl—an extremely pretty girl.

Stanley caught sight of them first in the mirror behind Hilda. Then he turned. Hilda saw a momentary flush mount his cheek. The woman bowed—then the girl. The man, at his wife's word, smiled and waved a friendly hand.

Stanley excused himself and joined them. They received him cordially; but Hilda saw and felt the mother shoot a questioning glance in her direction.

In a few moments he was back. "Some people I met on the steamer," he explained. "Name of Macy. From Philadelphia."

Hilda had her gloves on now. "I must go, Stanley," she said.

"Let me take you back to your hotel," he suggested.

She smiled, and shook her head. "You and I have got to part—until there is some sort of a change and we can be friends. We may as well part here."

He accompanied her to the sidewalk and hailed a taxi for her. She was conscious of a momentary elation. It seemed to her that she had handled the situation with something of her old power. But when the chauffeur leaned forward for the address, and again the necessity for concealment came to her, her smile faded and her mouth set itself firmly.

"I have an errand or two," she said briskly. "I'll walk."

She pressed Stanley's hand, with cordiality enough, and hurried away, leaving him there.

As she walked, the resentment was high again. She wasted little thought on Stanley. He was an emotional young genius, and this was his mating time. Love is not always personal. And, besides, the man's freedom was his. Her thoughts turned—as she walked along the boulevard past the Parnasse and turned off behind the shadowy mass of the Madeleine—toward the quiet solid Moran. His talk about the worker bees flashed back to her surface thoughts with unexpected vividness. They were the females, those workers. "Mostly they work every day, until they die," he had said. "That's all they do, just work." And then, "Sometimes they seem to go sort of crazy." At which she had said to herself, "I should think they would." That would be when there was little honey to be got in the fields—when all the sweet early flowers had died. They become demoralized. They get "honey drunk." They even take to robbing other hives.

This thought brought swift vivid pictures of the baby. By the watch on her wrist it was nearly five o'clock. She walked more rapidly.

She was surprised to find Adele in her room. When she opened the door, the girl was seated by the baby's basket, her arm over the back of the chair, her face pillowed on it. She looked up, startled, as Hilda came in; then sprang to her feet and rushed out past her without a word, without even closing the door. She had been weeping.

There was no explanation until Moran appeared in the early evening.

"I wanted to see you," he said. "But I had to have dinner with Carpentier's people. There was some rather important business."

She thought him even graver than usual. "Is it---is it about . . ."

"They're talking a match, yes," said he.

"It isn't settled ?"

"No. I don't much think they'll do it. But some of the papers have had a good deal to say, and I suppose his managers think they have to consider it. They've been accusing him of picking the easy ones, and they say he ought to meet me. It all depends on how strong the papers keep at him. There's an English weekly, friends of mine, that is hammering pretty hard. You see, he thinks more of his reputation than some of our American men do. He's a decent fellow, Carpentier."

He hung his hat on the nearest bed-post and for a moment stood looking down at the baby, now asleep. "Sit down," said Hilda. "I want to ask about Adele."

"Did you see her ?"

"Yes, but she wouldn't speak. She had been crying. And it was five o'clock. Why didn't she go to the Parnasse ?"

Moran drew up a chair and seated himself. He crossed his legs, and clasped his knee in his strong hands. He was very grave indeed. It seemed to her that he was perhaps something embarrassed.

"Will Harper has gone to Budapest," he finally said. "Skipped. With Blondie. He's got a job there."

"Oh !" Hilda drew in her breath. "But what becomes of Adele ?"

This question appeared. to relieve his mind. "That's just it," he replied. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about—only I couldn't be sure you'd be interested."