kendall dressed and went in to breakfast feeling no slight awkwardness. he was apprehensive, too, apprehensive of the concierge. the affair had upset him in a complex sort of way. it had startled him, yet it had not shocked him especially, and he was inclined to take himself to task for not being shocked. he was disappointed, and yet he was not disappointed in madeleine. anyhow, he was reluctant to meet her, for fear that the meeting would set him against her irrevocably and so cause trouble between himself and bert.... and yet he was enjoying the experience as an experience, though he did not quite appreciate that he was enjoying it. half a dozen times he said to himself, as if carrying on a subconscious argument: “but she’s a nice girl.... darn it all, she’s a nice girl....” he was afraid a meeting with her would dispel this impression of her niceness.
bert and madeleine were already at table, waiting for him. bert said good morning nonchalantly, and madeleine smiled brightly and wished him “bon jour” without the least hint of embarrassment or self-consciousness. he was conscious of a feeling of relief. “by jove! she is a nice girl,” he said to himself, and took the hand which she arose and offered.
then arlette came in with the pitcher of chocolate, and kendall scrutinized her and then shook his head rather bewildered. arlette might have been serving breakfast to the most circumspect of families. the only thing one could say of arlette was that she served breakfast. she was normal, everything was normal. kendall’s bewilderment increased.
“mademoiselle andree? where is she?” madeleine asked, presently.
“at home,” said kendall.
“ah....” madeleine’s eyes twinkled.
“now listen here,” kendall said, “andree and i are friends, just friends. we—how do you say it?—camarades. that is all.”
“and you do not love thees mademoiselle andree? not at all?”
“i—” kendall hesitated and did not answer, and madeleine’s eyes twinkled as she went on with her cross-examination.
“and thees mademoiselle andree—she do not love you?”
“i tell you we are just friends....”
“for example!... i understand. you are just friends. oh yes. it is possible, because the french girl she is so col’.”
kendall applied himself to his chocolate and confiture industriously, while madeleine looked at him with twinkling eyes. if he failed to understand her or her system of life and philosophy, she was equally unable to understand him. if he found the present situation bewildering, she, for her part, regarded him as a strange phenomenon that bordered on the impossible. as a final conclusion she did not believe him in the least, but thought of him as absurdly discreet. no other solution was possible to her.
they finished breakfast and went down the four flights of stairs, bert and madeleine chatting gaily, kendall following apprehensively, for they must pass the omniscient eye of the concierge. he was inclined to make an excuse to go back to the apartment so that he would not be compelled to take part in the scene he feared.
bert and madeleine passed out of the big doors into the concrete-floored passageway that led to the street, and kendall drew himself together as he saw the concierge busily sweeping between them and the outer doors. she looked up and nodded and smiled. madeleine stopped and they chatted! actually chatted as if—why, as if there was no reason why they should not chat. and that concierge was a gray-haired, motherly soul who in detroit would have gone to foreign missionary meetings! kendall could not follow the conversation, but he caught fragments of it. it was just casual chatter, with here and there a question dropped in to make for a better acquaintance. then they bade each other good-by in the most friendly way imaginable and the trio went out to the street.
kendall was suspended in mid-air, feet off the ground, nothing solid within reach. he was in an element that was not his, in a universe where two solids could occupy the same place at the same time, or where the shortest distance between two points was a curve. all his rules and axioms were useless.... he began to realize that the years he had lived were more or less useless to him, and that if he wished to judge his present life and the people among whom he lived he must start at the beginning with an open mind. as an american he could never comprehend them; he could not think their thoughts nor understand their mental language. the part of him inherited from his mother could never get into rapport with france; the part inherited from his father never could quite comprehend, though it might tolerate with a kindly toleration, and say: “well, i don’t understand this way of doing things at all.... but maybe it’s all right—for the french.”
he kept glancing at madeleine. every glance reassured him. she was a nice girl. he liked her. there was nothing reprehensible about her, but, on the contrary, she was charming as he liked to see a girl charming, and modest, and good. he felt instinctively that she was good, just as he had felt that andree was good.... somewhere there must be an explanation. somehow the thing was reconcilable.
they left madeleine at the metro and walked to their offices. neither boy referred to the situation; bert, because he saw no reason for it; kendall, because he dared not. strangely, it was not madeleine and bert that troubled him; it was himself. he was not accustomed to studying himself, but he was doing so now. he had rather fancied himself a man capable of thought and understanding, a man who could look at the world and comprehend it. he had regarded himself as wise in his generation, not blatantly so, but with a certainty born of inherited dogmas and local dogmas. for the first time he saw dimly that one may understand the world from the detroit point of view and be utterly at a loss in new york; that he may understand life from the american point of view and be grossly ignorant of the french. he even asked himself this question:
“is one who lives up to his code of ethics, his moral conceptions, good and moral, even if those ethics and conceptions are utterly at variance with some other code of behavior?”
could it be that a thing abominable in america because america’s code was set against it could be perfectly proper in persia because persia’s code permitted it? that there was an abstract good he believed, and that there was an abstract evil. but could a definite act be made universally evil by legislation or by the custom of only a part of the world? it was deeper reasoning than he had ever essayed before, and he limped sadly as he traveled toward no conclusion at all. the result was multiplied bewilderment....
one conclusion he reached: if madeleine had been an american girl he would have been shocked, outraged.... this led him to think of maude knox, and suddenly he wanted to see her, to talk to her, to be with her because she was american as he was american. he wanted to get his feet on solid earth and to tread accustomed paths for a while. he determined he would see her.
at noon he told bert he would not be at home for dinner, and then at six o’clock he hurried to the h?tel wagram and telephoned miss knox’s room. she was in, and would be delighted to dine with him if he would wait twenty minutes. he sat down in the spacious lobby and smoked and waited.
she came down the stairs very trim and american and pleasing to the eye. he noted the little swagger—the rather charming swagger—to her walk. it was accentuated by the fact that she carried her hands in the side pockets of her coat. she was not in uniform; had left it off for the evening as the women in the various services love to do. he arose and walked to the stairway to meet her, and they shook hands in the frank american way.
“well?” she said, with a humorous twinkle in her eye.
“i got to wanting to see you this morning,” he said, “and it grew. so i just came along and took a chance.”
“to-morrow would be too late. i’ve got a job with a combat division and i’m going out to-morrow. maybe i’ll get close to the front.”
“congratulations. you’re luckier than i.... we’ll make this a celebration. where would you like to eat?”
“any place.... i don’t care—somewhere where we won’t see an american.... have you seen the papers?”
“no. i’ve been grubbing all day, but a hint of the news has dribbled in to me.”
“then you’ve heard that the hun is stopped! and that we did it. isn’t that glorious? we—americans—saved paris. i wonder if it can be true.”
they bought a herald from a kiosk and found a brief, unsatisfactory, much-censored story, but it was a confirmation. the marines had been in it. apparently they had been thrown in to stop a gap, and had stopped it effectively. kendall knew that this meant the second division, comprising two regiments of marines and some of the old regular army. they had been thrown across the paris-metz road—and the boches had been halted abruptly. it was glorious, thrilling news.
“how would you like to go to a little restaurant where i eat once in a while? it’s very parisian. there will be no americans there, and while it doesn’t look much, the food is bully and the crowd amusing.”
“fine!” she said, and he stopped a passing taxicab. by dint of many repetitions he was able to make the chauffeur comprehend that he wanted to be driven to marty’s on the rue de richelieu.
they were a trifle early. few of the regular habitués de maison were present yet, and they had their choice of tables. ken selected the one at which he had sat the other evening. one by one the regulars appeared and, recognizing kendall, smiled and nodded. monsieur robert appeared with the spanish tragedian, and monsieur robert came over to shake hands and be very cordial. ken presented him to maude and watched her face with amusement when the handsome young actor bent over her hand and kissed it. then entered the elderly critic with the pointed white beard who was invariably accompanied by a beautiful girl—a new beautiful girl every evening. and then appeared monsieur jacques, swinging his artificial leg hilariously, waving his cane, and with his hat awry, as was its custom. he shouted greetings to all, then, espying kendall, he rushed to his chair, clapped the captain on the back, and, turning, harangued the room. his subject was americans. the americans were heroic. they had appeared in france’s hour of need. they were shedding their blood in france’s quarrel, and france should proclaim her gratitude. had not these so-much-to-be-loved americans saved paris from the boche. but certainly! that very day.... vive l’amérique!... suddenly, in a transport of enthusiasm, he threw his arm about kendall’s neck and kissed him resoundingly on both cheeks....
kendall was frightfully embarrassed, especially when he heard the room laugh until the dishes rocked. he was angry, but before he could give vent to his anger his eye encountered maude knox, mirthful tears rolling down her cheeks. then he himself laughed, if a bit ruefully. jacques threw himself into a seat across the table and began talking in his wild way to maude knox, who spoke french very well indeed. there was no need for introductions here. jacques never thought of such a thing and maude appeared perfectly willing to forgo the ceremony. kendall was rather out of it temporarily. he looked across at monsieur robert, who was bobbing his head and laughing and writing on the back of a carte de jour.... then he arose and handed it to kendall.
monsieur had a trifle of english of which he was very proud, and this communication, relating to jacques, was couched in that language. ken read it and then laughed in real earnest, for it made this rather amazing announcement:
“it is not a bad boy, but he is a few mad!”
what more could one ask of a single sentence?
“if you are looking for something un-american you get it here,” he said to maude.
“i like it.... i’m enjoying every second of it,” she said, delightedly. “they’re just like children.”
“but jacques here has an artificial leg, a silver plate in the crown of his head, the médaille militaire and the croix de guerre,” he said.
jacques, meantime, had possessed himself of monsieur robert’s note and, leaping to his feet, was heaping scorn and derision on the young actor’s head, while monsieur robert feigned terror and made as though he would hide under the table.
“are they always like this,” maude asked, “or is it relief—now that paris seems to be safe?”
“they are always so,” he said.
“i envy them.... but it couldn’t happen in america, could it? imagine this in cleveland or detroit. why, everybody would be put out by the management, or the police would be called in! and why?... i’m learning a lot since i came to france.... there’s something in the very air here. one could do things never dreamed of at home.... i don’t know what it is, but that’s the way i feel. maybe it is the freedom from restraint, maybe it’s the example, maybe it is that the war is so tremendous that nothing a single individual can do is of the least importance.... but the feeling is there. other girls have told me the same thing.”
“paris does get you,” said ken.
“things don’t seem to matter,” she said, thoughtfully. “it’s like being in a different world where none of the old rules hold good.... i can’t imagine myself talking like this or feeling like this. i couldn’t have a month ago.... i think,” she said, with a little laugh, “that i shall have to keep my head very level.”
ken was astonished. so the thing was getting maude knox, too! she saw a difference, felt a difference, felt the challenge of a difference! “it gets you.... it gets you,” he said, helplessly.
“sometimes i have a feeling that i’d like to throw up the whole show and live here forever—be a lotus-eater,” she said, with more seriousness. “if i were a man—”
“yes?”
she shrugged her shoulders. “what’s the use?... but i’ll say this—i’m never going to see things with the same eyes again. i think i’ll be able to understand that there are two sides to a story.”
this was the same maude knox he had known on the vessel crossing the ocean—a maude knox who quite typified his ideas of the nice american girl, the sheltered, protected, almost prudish creature of his experience! she had traveled far—and yet she was not less nice because she had seen more of the life that inhabits the planet, nor because she had acquired a certain tolerance for manners and customs that were impossible for herself. it seemed as if she were passing through much the same mental conflict as himself. perhaps it was not so pronounced with her because her experiences had not been so pronounced. but she seemed to have reached a surer conclusion than he. however, she had never had his mother. her inheritances were different, and her upbringing by her philosopher father had, perhaps, made it possible for her to progress more rapidly in understanding and clear seeing than himself.
“for instance,” she said, “if i had met you with that little french girl a month ago i should probably have cut you.... especially when you wore such a guilty look....”
“it wasn’t a guilty look. i—andree is a mighty nice girl. i introduced her to you, didn’t i?... well?”
her eyes twinkled. he could not decide whether it were derision or unbelief, and he felt very uncomfortable in consequence. “just because she’s french ...” he commenced.
“the young man doth protest too much,” she said. “but what i was going to say was that it didn’t seem to matter in the least. i suppose it ought to, but it didn’t.... she looked like such a nice, sweet little thing.”
“she is.”
“and that’s why the life here in paris is so bewildering. it upsets all one’s preconceived notions. it makes one wonder....”
“it does,” he said, emphatically.
“i presume i should be just as intolerant back home as i ever was.”
“it’s different back home.”
“extremely,” she said, dryly.
jacques turned suddenly to maude as the male dressmaker came in with his pink-cheeked companion of the other night. “you see her,” he said, as one about to make a statement of distinct interest to the one addressed. “she ees his girl—yes.... i theenk she look for anozzer boy. bicause thees dressmaker, he is ver’ selfish. he make mooch money, but he theenk only of himself. it ees so.... for example!... he make that yo’ng girl do so—how you say?” he went through the pantomime of shining his shoes. “that ees not pleasant. n’est-ce pas?... so i theenk she look about for anozzer boy....”
kendall felt his ears growing hot, and was on the point of committing an indiscretion when maude answered with a quaver of mirth in her voice, and not the least of the anger and shocked indignation kendall expected. “i should think she would....”
presently kendall called for the check and they went out, jacques insisting on shaking hands with both of them, and appearing to be on the point of kissing ken all over again.
“how shall we keep up the celebration?” ken asked when they were out on the dark, narrow street.
“let’s walk,” she said. “paris fascinates me at night. i love to stroll about, but usually i have to go in so early. are you too tired to walk up the champs élysées and possibly on to the bois de boulogne?”
“indeed not!” he said, and they started off with good american strides, dodging taxicabs that came charging down upon them out of the darkness with lights so dim as to be scarcely visible, and almost bumping into pedestrians who loomed up suddenly out of the blackness ahead. in a few moments they emerged upon the broader thoroughfares where visibility was higher, and presently were walking up the rue de rivoli toward the étoile.
kendall was feeling a new and different interest in maude knox. he had been attracted to her casually on the boat, for she had been very pleasant to look at, and a charming companion. but she had not impressed him other than with a mild pleasantness, calling forth a temporary friendliness. to-night he felt that he really liked her; that there was something to her. she had disclosed that there was a certain kinship between their mental processes and their reactions to the new life that surrounded them, but most of all she had shown herself adaptable and sensible. sensible covered a multitude of meanings for ken. his idea of girls was that they were creatures full of peculiar concealments and inhibitions who had a habit of looking at facts obliquely and interpreting them without frankness. somehow they never seemed exactly sincere to him, but rather as if they felt compelled to certain pretenses as a measure of self-protection. his impression was that american girls were always conscious of the necessity for protecting themselves, and this destroyed comradeship and good understanding.... it was his notion that they were constantly on their guard against a danger which they rather feared did not exist....
but to-night maude knox seemed very different from all this; she seemed frank and fearless. she had seen more than her sisters back home, and it had not shocked her especially. she was capable of entering into the spirit of the life—at least theoretically—and she treated him, kendall, as an equal and a friend rather than as a male to be kept in his place lest he pounce upon her with dire consequences.... he liked it. he liked the way she talked, and he liked the air with which she carried herself.
half an hour later they were seated on uncomfortable iron chairs beside the avenue du bois de boulogne, watching a string of american ambulances whiz by from the hospital beyond, on their way to one of the stations to meet a train bearing wounded from the front.
“it makes one realize that we’re in it,” maude said, gravely. “it hardly seems possible that those ambulances will be back in an hour filled with american boys—wounded in france by the germans. there’s something unreal about it.... to think that those boys have crossed the ocean to be wounded and mutilated over here!... i wonder if they are sending any of the wounded home.”
“i don’t know.”
“the folks won’t realize this war till they see boys on crutches....”
before them the promenaders straggled, dim forms in the dusk, only to be distinguished when they passed within reach of the arm. there were parties of three or four girls of the working-class hurrying home with packages under their arms; there were other parties who dawdled and laughed and jostled one another and giggled—young shop or factory girls out to enjoy the evening. there were young men and young women who walked very close to each other, sometimes holding hands. there were single young men and young men in pairs out for walk and adventure. there were officers of all armies and a sprinkling of american doughboys ready for whatever might happen, often three or four of them with a single girl, all jolly and laughing and having the most enjoyable sort of time trying to make themselves understood to one another. at a little distance two neat-looking girls were seriously giving a french lesson to a group of american soldiers.... it was such a company of strollers and dawdlers as the concerns of the world had never brought together before, drawn from all habitable quarters of the globe because the hun, in his ruthless ambition, had thought to spread his kultur over the face of the planet....
there were long lapses in the conversation, for both maude and kendall found a gripping interest in the passers-by.
“just think,” said maude, presently, “almost every girl we see has lost a father or a brother or a sweetheart or a husband. almost every one.... a waitress in our hotel told me this morning that eleven men of her family were dead.”
“yes,” he said.
“but somehow the thing that—that frightens me most is not to think of the women who have lost fathers and brothers, or even husbands.... it is the girls who have lost sweethearts. it is the thought of the boys who are dead and who were to have been the husbands of these girls.... think of the hundreds of them who have lost husbands whom, perhaps, they have never met ... whom they can never meet.... it’s awful to think of a million girls who have got to be old maids! they don’t want to be, but they’ve got to be.... war has taken from them the husbands they never had.”
“i’ve thought of that,” he said.
“it means these girls have lost more than life—they have had killed for them the possibility of living.... they can never have homes and families.... the future is nothing but a stretch of years for them—lonesome years without happiness and without sorrow.”
“i suppose it is as hard to be deprived of sorrow as it is of happiness,” said kendall, slowly.
she paused before replying. “yes,” she said, “i can understand that—if the sorrow is brought because you love. sorrow is a necessary experience of life. emerson’s essay on compensation is all about that....” she paused again and then broke out with a vehemence foreign to her. “i don’t blame them—i don’t blame them a bit. everybody is entitled to live and to have the experiences of life. i never thought i should feel this way, but it is so.... if you can have a life full of living you are entitled to snatch your little moments of happiness—just as these french girls are doing. it is their right, because it is the best life has to offer them.... it isn’t france alone—it might happen in america. suppose half the girls at home were deprived of the possibility of marriage.... it’s awful.”
the little moments of happiness! kendall’s mind seized on that phrase and held it.... it was the essence of the whole matter. these women, shut out from the banquet of life, were seizing hungrily the crumbs of happiness that were brushed from the table.
in the pause that followed an american soldier and a french girl sat down in the chairs at the right of maude and kendall and talked jerkily, half in french, half in english. they tried so hard to talk to each other, because each was lonesome.... and then, as kendall and maude eavesdropped shamelessly, the siren sounded—-the gothas were coming!
people started to their feet and began scurrying away to seek for shelter, but maude and kendall did not move, nor did the boy and girl next them. presently kendall heard the boy ask, “ain’t you afraid of the bombs, mademoiselle?”
“non.... non....” she shrugged her shoulders and then said, in a hopeless voice, a pitiful voice: “i have not the fear, because what does it matter?... there is nothing in life for me. if i am kill—pouf!... so.... there is an end, and it will be well....”
kendall felt maude’s fingers on his arm, felt their sudden pressure. “there,” she whispered. “there it is.... she knows. they all know.... who has a right to say they sha’n’t have their little moments?...”
kendall stood up. it seemed as if movement were necessary, any sort of movement, of physical action. this sudden, close contact with terrible reality had seared through to his consciousness with a terrible, burning depression.... the thing was unbearable.... and this, he thought, is what war means!...
“come,” he said, almost roughly.
she arose obediently and they walked rapidly toward the étoile.
“we have fifteen minutes,” he said. “if we walk fast we can almost make your hotel.”
as they walked the now almost deserted streets, deserted except for stragglers and for taxicabs which went scurrying about as they always do, not oblivious to bomb raids, but in defiance of them, they saw huge, mysterious bodies arising from the shrubbery, great grub-shapes that appeared from nowhere and mounted high into the heavens—the sausage balloons which in time of raid stretch in interminable line across the sky down the path of the avenue du bois de boulogne and the champs élysées and the jardin des tuileries. they were so silent, so mysterious, such ghostly-gray blots against the sky!
they reached the place de la concorde before the first gun of the barrage sounded, and in a moment were safely under the arches of the buildings that face the rue de rivoli.... and then the storm broke in all its fury.
kendall waited for maude’s reactions. it was a sort of test. there was danger, real danger, even under those huge stone arches—if a bomb should strike directly above them or in the street without. he wanted to see how she would behave in presence of danger.
she satisfied him. she exhibited, not fear, but curiosity and a childlike interest, as if it were some sort of spectacle, and she were disappointed at not having a better seat. it was impossible to keep her back from the curb, for she insisted on standing in the very mouth of the arch to see all that was to be seen.... she had courage as well as frankness and understanding. his admiration for her grew amazingly.
in an hour the raid was over and they continued their way to the h?tel wagram.
“good night,” she said, extending her hand and giving him a pressure of real friendship. “i’ve enjoyed this evening—more than any other since i’ve been here.”
“it has been bully,” he said. “i feel as if i were just getting acquainted with you.... it’s hard luck you’re going so soon—but you’ll be back.”
she laughed. “you won’t be lonesome,” she said, gaily. “there’s that cunning little french girl of yours—who doesn’t seem to have any last name.... mademoiselle andree.” she laughed again. “what is her last name? you know it isn’t usual to introduce strangers by their given names, as you did.”
he laughed ruefully. “i’m darned if i know,” he said. “i always forget to ask her.” it was a reply that would have been impossible for him to make to maude knox six hours before.
her face grew serious and she touched his arm with her fingers lightly. “she had a sweet face,” maude said. “don’t be unkind to her.... now good night. to-morrow i’ll be where i can hear the guns.”
“good night,” he said, and turned away.
he was repeating to himself what maude had said: “don’t be unkind to her.... don’t be unkind to her.” what was he to do? how was he to deal with that quaint little person who appeared out of mystery to assume such an important place in his life?... was not merely knowing her being unkind to her?... or was he giving her her little moment of happiness?...
