But the moment remains. They compress into it the desires of a

lifetime. After years of proud individualism they have learned that

they are atoms, cogs, helpless, the sport of iron and steel and powder

and the ambitions and stupidities of men whose lives are never risked.

Very well, turn the ego loose to find what it can. If all they have

learned from civilization is as useless in this shrieking hell, as

impotent as the dumb resentment of the clod, they can at least be

animals.

To talk of the ennobling influences of war is one of the lies of the

conventionalized mind anxious to avoid the truths of life and to

extract good from all evil--worthy but unintelligent. How can men in

the trenches, foul with dirt and vermin, stench forever in their

nostrils, callous to death and suffering, wallowing like pigs in a

trough, compulsorily obscene, be ennobled? Courage is the commonest

attribute of man, a universal gift of Nature that he may exist in a

world bristling with dangers to frail human life; never to be

commended, only to be remarked when absent. If men lose it in the city,

the sedentary life, they recover it quickly in the camp. The

exceptions, the congenital cowards, slink out of war on any pretext,

but if drafted are likely to acquit themselves decently unless

neurotic. The cases of cowardice in active warfare are extremely rare;

a mechanical chattering of teeth, or shaking of limbs, but practically

never a refusal to obey the command to advance. But it is this very

courage which breeds callousness, and, combined with bestial

conditions, inevitably brutalizes.

When good people (far, oh far, from the zones of danger) can no longer

in the face of accumulating evidence, cling to their sentimental theory

that war ennobles, they take refuge in the vague but plausible

substitute that at least it makes the good better and the bad worse.

Possibly, but it is to be remembered that there is bad in the best even

where there is no good in the worst.

Indubitably it leaves its indelible mark in a collection of hideous

memories, on the just and the unjust, alike; as it is more difficult

(Nature having made human nature in an ironical mood) to recall the

pleasant moments of life than the poignantly unpleasant, so is it far

more difficult to recall the moments of exaltation, of that intense

spiritual desire which visits the high and low alike, to give their all

for the safety of their country and the honor of their flag. Moreover,

the sublime indifference in the face of certain death often has its

origin in a still deeper necessity to relieve the insufferable strain

on scarified nerves, and forever. As for the much vaunted recrudescence

of the religious spirit which is one of the recurring phenomena of war,

it is merely an instinct of the subtle mind, in its subtlest depths

called soul, to indulge in the cowardice of dependence since the body

must know no fear.

If men who have been temperate and moral all their lives, or at the

worst indulging in moderation, spend their leaves of absence from the

front like swine, it is not a reaction from the monotony of trench

life, or from the nerve-racking din of war, but merely an extension of

the fearful stimulation of a purely carnal existence, even where the

directing mind is ever on the alert.

The aggressors of war should be pilloried in life and in history. Men

must defend their country if attacked; to do less would be to sink

lower than the beasts that defend their lairs; and for that reason all

pacifists, and conscientious objectors, are abject, mean, and shabby.

In times of national danger no man has a right to indulge his own

conscience; it merges, if he be a normal courageous man, into the

national conscience. But that very fact lowers the deliberate seekers

of war so far below the high plane of civilization as we know it, that

they should be blotted out of existence.

III

As regards women Alexina was not likely to remain shocked for long at

any erratic manifestations of temperament. Pride and fastidiousness and

the steel armor fused by circumstances had protected her heretofore

from any divagations of her own; nor had crystallized temptation ever

approached her.

But her education had been liberal. Several of her intimate friends and

more that she associated with daily made what she euphemistically

termed a cult of men. The naïve deliberate immorality of young things

not only in the best society but in all walks of life is far more

prevalent than the good people of this world will ever believe. Those

with much to lose seldom lose it; the instinct of self-protection

envelops them as a mantle; although in small towns, where concealments

are less simple, the majority of scandals are not about married women

as in a less sophisticated era, but about girls.

Alexina had possessed numerous confidences, helped more than once to

throw dust, amiably replaced the post. She had never approved, but she

was philosophical. She took life as she found it; although the fact

stood out that Aileen, who was indifferent to men, remained always her

favorite friend.

An individualist, she felt it no part of her philosophy to criticize

the acts of women with different desires, weaknesses, temptations,

equipment from her own; all other things being equal. That was the

point. These girls who made use of their most secret and personal

possession as they saw fit were as well-bred as herself, honorable in

all their dealings with one another and with society at large,

generous, tolerant, exquisite in their habits, often highly intelligent

and studious. Sex was an incident.

With the peccadillos of married women who were wives she had little

tolerance as they were a breach of faith, a deliberate violation of

contract, and indecent to boot. She was quite aware that Sibyl for all

her posturings, and avidness for sex admiration, and "acting oriental"

as the phrase went, was entirely devoted to Frank. Such of her married

friends as had severed all but the nominal and public bond with their

legal husbands, she placed in the same category as girls as far as her

personal attitude toward them went.

IV

Therefore not only did she understand these young women driven by the

horrid stimulus of war; women (or girls) heretofore sheltered,

virtuous, romantic, sentimental, now merely filled with the lust of

life. They were, like herself, devoted and meticulous nurses, brave,

high-minded, tender; practically all, if not from the upper, at least

from the educated ranks of life. But they lived under the daily shadow

of death. Even when safe from the shells of the big guns, the murderous

aircraft paid them daily visits, singling out hospitals with diabolical

precision. They were in daily contact with young torn human bodies from

which had gone forever the purpose for which one generation precedes

another. Life was horror. Blood and death and shattered bodies were

their daily portion. No matter how brave, they heard death scream in

every shell. The world beyond existed as a mirage. No wonder they

became primeval.

Alexina had met Alice Thorndyke in one of these hospitals and observed

her with some curiosity. But Alice was, to use her own vernacular, the

best little bourgeoise of them all. She had had her fling. Men repelled

her. She never meant to marry, even for substance. When the war was

over she should live the completely independent life. Nobody would care

what economic liberties a woman took in the new era. The war had

liberalized the most conservative old bunch of relatives a girl was

ever inflicted with.

V

As Alexina sat huddled in her warm coat--the periwinkle blue to which

she was still faithful--her dark fine hair, hanging about her, a mantle

in itself, she recalled those days when she, too, had vibrated to that

savage lust for life; those days of concentrated egoism, of deep and

powerful passions whose existence she had only dimly begun to suspect

after she dismissed her husband.

What had held her back? She had had a no more fastidious inheritance

than most of those women, a no more cultivated intelligence, nor proud

instinct of selection, nor ingrained habit of self-control.

She had put it down at first to fastidiousness, possibly a still

lurking desire to be able to give all to one man; that hope of the

complete mating which no woman relinquishes until toothless, certainly

not in the mere zone of death.

She had concluded that it was neither of these, or at least that they

had but played a part, and alone would never have won. It was a furious

mental revolt at the terrific power of the body, the mind, frightened

and cornered, determined to dominate; a fierce delight in the battle

raging behind her serene and smiling mask to the accompaniment of that

vulgar blare of war where mind over matter was as powerless in the

death throe as incantations during an eruption of Vesuvius.

This internal silent warfare between her long reed-like body as little

sensible to fatigue as if made of flexible steel and her extremely cold

proud chaste-looking head had grown to be of such absorbing interest

that the knowledge of its cessation was almost a shock. It was after a

prolonged experience in a hospital where they were short of nurses and

rest was almost unknown and the inroads upon her vitality so severe and

menacing that she was finally ordered to Paris to rest, and there found

a complete change of habit in an oeuvre founded by the equally

exhausted but always valiant Olive de Morsigny, that she suddenly

realized that somewhere sometime the battle had finished and mind and

body were acting in complete harmony.

VI

To-night she wondered if her imagination, turned loose, stimulated, had

not missed the whole point. There had been no man who had made the

direct irresistible appeal. No concrete temptation.... She had after

all been a degree too civilized ... or ... romantic idealism?

There had been little to stimulate and excite since she had settled

down to office work in the summer of nineteen-sixteen. Her nerves,

always strong, had become too case-hardened to be affected by avions or

the immense uncertainties of Big Bertha; although the light on the

horizon at night during the last German Drive and the bellow of the

guns had shaken her with a sort of reminiscent excitement.

But for the most part she had felt frozen, torpid, a cog in the vast

military machine of France, dedicating herself like hundreds of other

women to the succor of men she never saw. That extraordinary abominable

experience at the front was overlaid, almost forgotten. And such news

as one had in Paris was quite enough to exercise the mind.... There had

been the downfall of the Russian dynasty ... the still more sinister

downfall of the true revolutionists ... the Bolshevik monster

projecting its murderous shadow over all Europe, exposing the

instability of the entire social structure....

VII

Was it? Could such an experience ever be forgotten? The grass might

grow over the dead on the battlefields, but the corruption fed the

wheat, and the peogle of France ate the bread. This uninvited thought

had intruded itself the first time she had driven by the Marne

battlefields and seen the numberless crosses in the rich abundant

fields.

She smiled, a small, secret, ruthless smile.... That was her residue:

ruthlessness. She may have left behind her in the turbulent war-zone

the savage elementary lust for living at any cost, but she had

ineradicably learned the value of life, its brevity at best, the still

more tragic brevity of youth; she had a store of hideous memories which

could only be submerged first in the performance of duty if duty were

imperative; then, duty discharged and finished, in the one thing that

during its brief time gave life any meaning, made this earthly sojourn

bearable. If she met the man she wanted she would have him if she had

to fight for him tooth and nail.

It was four o 'clock. She went to bed.

CHAPTER IV

I

The next day Alexina found herself suddenly free of office duty, A very

handsome and wealthy American woman who had not been able to visit her

beloved Paris since the beginning of the World's War, and finding the

State Department obdurate to the whims of pretty women, had induced

Mrs. Ballinger Groome, on one of whose committees she had worked

faithfully, to ask her sister-in-law to inform the Department of State

that her services at the oeuvre in Paris were indispensable.

Alexina had passed the letter on to the President, Madame de Morsigny,

and forgotten the incident. Olive wrote the necessary letter promptly.

Not only did she believe that the time had come for Alexina to rest,

but she longed for a fresh access of energy in the office that would in

a measure relieve herself. Moreover, Mrs. Wallack was wealthy and had

many wealthy friends. That meant more money for the oeuvre, always in

need of money. Olive had given large sums herself, but the president of

a charity is yet to be found who will not permit its constant demands

to be relieved by the generous public. Mrs. Wallack had not only

promised a substantial donation at once, but a monthly contribution.

This had not been named, but Madame de Morsigny meant that it should be

something more than nominal. She could do so much for Mrs. Wallack

socially, now that it was possible to entertain again, that she felt

reasonably confident of rousing the enthusiasm of any ambitious New

Yorker. Moreover, Olive had a very insinuating way with her.

II

Mrs. Wallack presented herself at the imposing headquarters of the

oeuvre, radiant, fresh, energetic, beautifully dressed. The war had

interested her and commanded her sympathies to some purpose, but

nothing short of personal affliction could subdue that inexhaustible

vitality, and she seemed to bring into the dark and solemn rooms

something of the atmospheric gayety and sunshine of a land that had

done much but suffered little.

By no one was she received with more warmth of welcome than by Alexina.

The sudden release made her realize sharply her lowered vitality.

Moreover, the semi-yearly income which had just arrived from California

was her own now and she could replenish her wardrobe and feel feminine

and irresponsible once more. The reaction was so violent that after

inducting Mrs. Wallack into the mysteries of her desk she remained in

bed, prostrate, for two days. Then, feeling several years younger, she

sallied forth in search of many things.

III

There is no such antidote to the migraines of the woman soul as

clothes. Their only rival is travel and there are cases where they know

none. Sometimes women remember to pity men, that have no such happy

playground.

Alexina for all her ramifications, some of them too deep, had a light

and feminine side. During the following fortnight she gave it full

rein; she was absorbed, almost happy. She spent quite recklessly and

after the years of economy and self-denial this alone gave her an

intense satisfaction. In addition to her income forwarded by Judge

Lawton, who had charge of her affairs, her brother Ballinger, who was

as fond of her as of his own children, and very proud of her--she had

received two decorations--sent her a large check with the mandate to

spend it on herself.

IV

Even so, she was not always in the shops and the dressmakers' ateliers.

She found much amusement in strolling up and down the arcades of the

Rue de Rivoli, watching the odd throngs at which Paris herself seemed,

to bend her head and stare.

Some poet had called Paris the mistress of Europe. She looked like an

old trollop. She was dirty and dreary, unpainted and unwashed. The rain

was almost incessant and the shop windows were soon denuded of the few

attractive novelties scrambled together to meet the sudden demand after

the long drought.

But under the long arcades the curious sauntering throngs were

sheltered from the rain and found all things in Paris novel. Men in the

American khaki, from generals to striplings, were there by the hundred;

endless streams of young women in the uniform of the Red Cross, the

Y.M.C.A., the Salvation Army; British and American nurses; members of

the fashionable oeuvres artlessly watching this novel phase of Paris;

the beautiful violet uniform of Le Bien-Être du Blessé; girls with worn

faces and relaxed bodies fresh from the front, hundreds of them,

arriving daily in camions and cars, thanking heaven for the sudden

cessation of work, sleeping heaven knew where. The American women of

the Commission, and others who, like Mrs. Wallack, had invented a

plausible excuse to get to Paris and looked almost anachronistic in

their smart gowns, their fresh faces, their bright, curious, glancing

eyes.

There were also officers in the uniform of Britain, and Alexina

regarded them frankly, with no effort to deceive herself. The spirit of

adventure was awake in her, now that the dark mood had passed, or

slept. She hoped to meet the man of the embassy again, whether he were

Gathbroke or another. She had liked his eyes.

She had met many charming and interesting men during the last two and a

half years at Olive de Morsigny's table, especially when André,

convalescent, was at home. But their eyes had said nothing to her

whatever, if not for the want of trying. Alexina's imagination, torpid

for many months, ran riot. This man might disappoint her, might have

nothing in him for her, but she refused for more than a moment to

contemplate anything so flat. Something must come of that adventure,

that vital intensely personal moment when their eyes had met above

flames so tiny the wonder was they could see anything but a white blur

on the dark. She was as sure of meeting him again as that she trod on

air after she had ordered a new gown or brought an inordinately

becoming hat. She had forgotten Mortimer's existence.

CHAPTER V

I

One day at the Hotel Crillon she thought she had found him.

She had passed the portals of that fortress with some delay, for the

American Commission protected itself as if it dwelt under the shadow of

imminent assassination and theft; whereas it was merely exclusive. The

sentries at the door demanded her permit, and passed her in with

intense suspicion to the inner guard. This was composed of three polite

but very young lieutenants in smart new uniforms with no blight of war

on them, and flagrantly of the American aristocracy.

With these she had less trouble, for they recognized her social status

and accepted her explanation that she had been invited for tea with one

of the ladies of the Commission. Nevertheless, they knew their duty and

Alexina was followed up to the door of her hostess' suite by another

young guardian who watched her entrance through the sacred door as

carefully as if he suspected her of carrying a bomb in her muff.

II

The party numbered about thirty, and Alexina, after chatting with the

few she knew, was standing apart by a small table drinking a cup of tea

with three lumps of sugar in it and consuming cakes like a greedy

boarding-school girl home for the holidays, when she caught sight of a

man in the British khaki, a major by his insignia, a tall man, thin and

straight, standing with his back to her at the opposite end of the

room. He was talking to the host and a small group of men. She glimpsed

something like half of his profile when he turned from the host for a

moment. Like all men in khaki, when not pronounced brunettes, his

complexion and hair looked the same color as his uniform.

Nevertheless ... if she could only see his eyes ... he turned his full

profile ... she had never glanced at Gathbroke's profile; he had given

her no opportunity! ... Certainly she had not the faintest idea whether

the man of the embassy had had a snub nose or the thin straight feature

of this man who would have attracted her attention in any ease if only

because he did not carry his shoulders with the disillusioning

obliquity of the British Army ... why did he not turn round? Alexina

felt an impulse to throw her cup straight across the room at the back

of that well-shaped head.

Suddenly he shook hands with his host, nodded to the others and left

the room.

III

Alexina set her cup and saucer down on the table, forebore to interrupt

her hostess, who was known to talk steadily in order to avoid

questions, and walked quickly and deliberately out after him. It is a

primitive instinct in woman to chase the male; but civilization having

initiated her into the art of permitting him to chase her, Alexina was

merely bent upon giving this man his chance if the interest had been

mutual and existed beyond the moment.

One lift was descending as she reached the outer corridor and the other

was closed. She ran down the wide staircase as rapidly as a woman in

fashionable skirts may. There was no British uniform in the hall below.

IV

She stood for a quarter of an hour under the arcade before the Crillon

waiting for a taxi, staring out into the dreary mist of rain, at the

round soft blurs of light in the Place de la Concorde, but in no wise

depressed. What did it matter if she had not met him to-day? The

conviction that she should meet him before long was as strong as if she

were ever hopeful sixteen.... That was the real secret of her elation.

She felt very young and entirely carefree. She reflected that if she

had met Gathbroke, or whoever he might be, during the last three years

of the war she would have felt neither joy nor elation, however

interested she might have been. To love and dream and enjoy when men

were falling every minute, writhing in agony, gasping out their life,

would have seemed to her grossly unæsthetic if nothing worse. It was

not in the picture. The primal impulses she had experienced at the

front to that harsh music of Death's orchestra were natural enough; but

safe (comparatively!) in Paris, certainly quiet, the romance of love

would have been as incongruous and heartless as to go out to the great

hospital at Neuilly and tango through a ward of dying men.

But now! She had done her part. She could do no more. Men still must

die, but in every comfort, with every consolation. And there would be

no more recruits.

She was free. She was young, young, young again.

And at this moment her heart emptied itself of song and sank like lead

in her breast. She pressed her muff against her face to hide the sudden

grimace she was sure contorted it; there had been few moments in her

life when she had not been mistress of her features, but this was one

of them.

Gora Dwight was walking rapidly toward her.

CHAPTER VI

I

Gora did not see her sister-in-law for a moment and Alexina had time to

recover her poise and make sharp swift observations. She had not seen

Gora for four years, nor exchanged a line with her. She had almost

forgotten her. The changes were more striking than in herself, who had

been always slight. Gora's superb bust had disappeared; her face was

gaunt, throwing into prominence its width and the high cheek bones. Her

eyes were enormous in her thin brown face; to Alexina's excited

imagination they looked like polar seas under a gray sky brooding above

innumerable dead. There were lines about her handsome mouth, closer and

firmer than ever. How she must have worked, poor thing! What sights,

what suffering, what despair ... four long years of it. But she had

evidently had her discharge. She wore an extremely well-cut brown

tailored suit, good furs, and a small turban with a red wing.

What was she in Paris for? ... What ... what ...

II

Gora saw her and almost ran forward, that brilliant inner light that

had always been her chief attraction breaking through her cold face ...

sunlight sparkling on polar seas ... oh, yes, Gora had her charm!

"Alexina! It isn't possible! I was going to ask at the American Embassy

for your address. I only arrived last night."

Alexina had lowered her muff and her face expressed only the warmest

surprise and welcome. "Gora! It's too wonderful! But I suppose you

couldn't go home without seeing Paris?"

"Rather not! It's the first chance I've had, too. Where can we have a

talk?"

"It's too late for tea. Come out to my pension and spend the night.

Janet and Alice have gone to Nice for a few days' rest. You'll be

hideously uncomfortable--"

"Not any more than where I am--sharing a room with three others. Where

can I telephone? In here?"

"Good heavens, no. Take a liberty with a duke, but with the American

aristocracy, never. Come down to the Meurice. Perhaps we can find a cab

there. This seems to be hopeless. Everybody comes to the Crillon in a

private car or a military automobile. Taxis appear to avoid it."

III

It only took half an hour to get the telephone connection and another

to seize by force a taxi, which, however, deposited them at the Étoile.

The driver explained unamiably that he wanted his dinner; and a bribe,

unless unthinkable, would have been useless. In these days taxi drivers

made fifty francs a day in tips, and, as a Frenchman knows exactly what

he wants and calculates to a nicety when he has enough, valuing rest

and nutriment above even the delights of gouging foolish Americans,

Alexina knew that it would be useless to argue and did not even waste

energy in announcing her opinion of him for taking a fare under false

pretenses. There was no other cab in sight and they walked the rest of

the way. But both were inured to hardships and took their mishap

good-naturedly, trudging the long distance under their umbrellas.

IV

After a very bad dinner in an airless room as frugally lighted they

made themselves comfortable in Alexina's room over the oil stove she

had bought, and supplied through Olive's influence with the higher

powers. She took off her street clothes and put on a thick dressing

gown, giving her sister-in-law a quilted red wrapper of Janet's, which

threw some warmth into Gora's pale cheeks. She looked comfortable,

almost happy, as she smoked her cigarette in the arm-chair.

Alexina curled up on the bed.

"Now, Gora," she said brightly, "give an account of yourself."

Gora did not reply for a moment and Alexina examining her again came to

the conclusion that she had been spared some of the horrors of the

front. As a head nurse her responsibilities had been too heavy for

philanderings, and having the literary imagination rather than the

personal she had no doubt consigned it to a water-tight compartment and

converted herself into a machine.

"I don't know that I can talk about it," she said. "I feel much like

the men. It is too close. I am thankful that I Had the experience: not

only to have been of actual service, indispensable, as every good nurse

was, but to have been a part of that colossal drama. But I am even more

thankful that it is over and if I can possibly avoid it I'll never

nurse again."

"I suppose you have had no time to write?"

"I should think not! During the brief leaves of absence I spent most of

the time in bed. But I have an immense amount of material. I have no

idea how much fiction has been written about the war; there might have

been none, so far as I have had time to discover. I've barely read a

newspaper."

"The only reason I want to go back to America is to hear the news. I

see a New York newspaper once in a while, and it is plain they have it

all. We have next to none in Europe, in France at all events. Shall you

write your stories here or go back to California? That would give you

the necessary perspective, I should think."

Alexina's eyes were fixed upon an execrable print many inches above the

footboard, and Gora, glancing at her, reflected that she was as

beautiful as ever in spite of her loss of flesh and color. Any one

would be with eyes that were like stars when they looked at you and a

Murillo madonna's when she lifted them the fraction of an inch. Astute

as she was she had never penetrated below the surface of Alexina, nor

suspected the use she made of those pliable orbs. Alexina had such an

abundance of surface it occurred to few people that she might be both

subtle and deep.

"I ... don't know.... I rather fear losing the atmosphere ... the

immediate stimulation. Shall you go home, now that you are free?"

"I wonder. Could I stand it? I have longed for a rest--ached would be a

better word.... This last year has been full of both nervous strain and

desperate monotony. Nineteen-seventeen was bad enough in another way:

the internal defeatist campaign, the constant menace of mutiny, soviets

in the army, strikes in the munition towns,--all the rest of it.... But

could one stand California after such an experience? I know they have

done splendid work since we entered the war, but I know also that they

will immediately subside into exactly what they were before, settle

down with a long sigh of relief to enjoy life and forget that war ever

was. It could not be otherwise in that climate. With that abundance.

That remoteness.... There seems no place out there for me. A decorator

after this! What funny little resources we thought out in those

days.... I do not see myself fitting in anywhere. Tom wants to buy

Ballinger House for Maria and I fancy I'll let him have it. I can't

keep it up unaided and I might as well sell as rent it. He and Judge

Lawton would invest the money and I should have quite a decent income.

As for Mortimer I never want to see him again. He has not done one

thing for this war--he is utterly contemptible--

"I've long since given up criticizing Mortimer. My father once sized

him up. He hasn't an ounce of brain. He'd like to be quite different,

but you can stretch Nature's equipment so far and no farther. He

stretched his until it suddenly snapped back and found itself shrunken

to less than half its natural size. Vale Mortimer. Let him rest. Why

don't you divorce him? No doubt he has found some one else--

"I couldn't divorce him on that count, for I told him repeatedly to

console himself. It wouldn't be playing the game. Of course there are

other grounds. It would be easy enough. But our family has a strong

aversion to divorce. And a unique record.... Not that that would stop

me if I found any one I really wanted to marry. Nothing would stop me,

in fact."

Gora glanced at her quickly, arrested by something in her voice. She

had already noticed that Alexina's limpid musical tones had deepened.

Just now they rang with something of the menace of a deep-toned bell.

"Have you found him?" she asked smiling. "If there are obstacles, so

much the more interesting. I don't fancy that romantic streak in your

nature which permitted you to idealize Mortimer has quite dried up.

Once romantic always romantic--I deduce from human nature as I have

studied it."

"Well ... I am rather afraid of romance. Certainly I'd never be blinded

again. A man might be nine parts demi-god and if I knew--and I should

know--that there was no companionship in him for me I wouldn't marry

him."

"That I believe." Alexina was once more regarding the print. Gora

wondered if sex would influence her at all.

"But have you met him? You were always an interesting child and you've

roused my curiosity."

"No ... yes ... I don't know ... later perhaps I'll tell you something.

But I'm far more interested in you. Have you been in France all this

time?"

"Oh, no. I was in Rouen for a year. Then I was in hospitals in England

until the German Drive began in. March when I was sent over again. Oh,

God! what sights! what sounds! what smells!" She huddled into her chair

and stared at the dull flame behind the little door of the stove.

"Oh, I know them all. Think of something else. Surely you met--but

literally--hundreds of officers, and some must have interested you. The

British officer at best is a superb creature--if he would only stand up

straight. I saw one at the Crillon to-day whose good American shoulders

made me stare at him quite rudely."

"Who was he?"

"Haven't the faintest idea. I only saw his back, anyway. Surely you

must have been more than passing interested in one or two."

"I am not susceptible. And nursing is not conducive to romance."

"But you never were romantic, Gora dear. And you are good-looking in

your odd way. And that was your great, chance."

"Well, I'm afraid I was too busy or too tired to take it. Now ...

perhaps ... but I'm afraid I don't inspire men with either romance or

passion. They like me and are grateful--that is, as grateful as an

Englishman can be; they take most things for granted."

"The French are so grateful, poor dears. I loved them all. After all

... Frenchmen...." Her voice grew dreamy.

Again Gora threw her an amused glance. "You must have met many of them

at your friend, Madame de Morsigny's, and under far more attractive

conditions than any man can hope for in a sick bed.... I can't imagine

any more appropriate destiny for you ... you should be Madame la

duchesse at the very least."

"Not money enough, and besides they've all grown so religious, or think

they have, they wouldn't stand for divorce. Anyhow it would be so hard

on 'The Family'! ... Still.... But why, Gora dear, do you depreciate

yourself? It seems to me that you are just the type that a certain sort

of man would appreciate--fall in love with. I've heard even American

men who play about in society comment on your looks, different as you

are from sport and fluff and come-hitherness; and you only need a few

months' rest to look like your old self. I should think that a highly

intelligent Englishman would find you irresistible, especially if you

had shown your womanly side when he had holes in him. I've always had

an idea that Englishmen weren't nearly as afraid of intellectual women

as American men are."

"That's true enough. But I doubt if there are any men more susceptible

to beauty, or quite as lustful after it, no matter how romantic they

may think they are feeling. I've talked to a good many of them in the

past four years, and for six months I was in charge of a convalescent

hospital in Kent. I think I've pretty thoroughly plumbed the

Englishman. They found me sympathetic all right, forgot their racial

shyness and inadvertently gave me much valuable material. But I saw no

indication that I made any sex appeal to them whatever."

"Not one? Not ever?"

Gora gave a slight withdrawing movement as if something sacred had been

touched. But she answered: "Oh ... some day I may have something to

tell you.... You said much the same thing to me a little while ago.

Tell me now."

Alexina turned over on her elbow to beat up her pillows. Then she

answered lightly but firmly: "Not unless you promise to do likewise.

Mine is such a little thing anyhow. I know by the expression of your

face--just now--that, yours is the real thing. Is he in Paris?"

"I'm ... not sure.... Yes, there is something ... the conditions are

very peculiar ... not at all what you think ... there is so much more

to it.... No, I don't think I can tell you."

A fortnight ago Alexina could have lifted her eyes and uttered

Gathbroke's name as if groping through a jungle of memories. But she

could no more force his name through her lips now than she could have

laid bare all that was in her tumultuous soul. It was, in fact, all she

could do to keep from screaming. For a moment her excitement was so

intense that she jumped from the bed and ran over and opened the window.

"This room gets intolerably stuffy. That is the worst of it--freeze or

stifle."

"Oh, I have been cold so long! Please don't leave it open. That's a

darling."

V

Alexina closed it with an amiable smile. "What would you do, Gora, if

you were really mad about a man? Have him at any cost? Annihilate

anything that stood in your way? Anybody, I mean."

An appalling light came into Gora's pale eyes as she turned them, at

first in some surprise, on her sister-in-law: "Yes, if I thought he

cared ... could be made to care if I had the chance ... if another

woman tried to get him away ... yes, I don't fancy I'd stop at

anything.... Even if I finally were forced to believe that he never

could care for me in that way, the only way that counts with men--at

first, anyway ... well, I believe I'd fight to the death just the same.

When you've waited for thirty-four years ... well, you know what you

want! Better die fighting than live on interminably for nothing ...

less than nothing.... I can't tell you any more. Please don't ask me."

"Of course not. I'll tell you my little story." And she gave a rapid

vivid account of the remarkable scene at the Embassy. She concluded

abruptly: "Do you think one could tell that a man's eyes were

hazel--the golden-brown hazel--across a pitch dark room above the flame

of a briquet?"

"Hazel?" Alexina was standing behind Gora. She saw her body stiffen.

"I could have vowed they were hazel. And that he was English. He also

reminded me of some one I must have met somewhere or other ... one

meets so many ... possibly it was only a fancy."

"You didn't see him after the lights went on again?"

"They didn't. Only candles. We were all too anxious to get away,

anyhow. I fancy the King was in a hurry to get the ambassador upstairs

and tell him what he thought of him--"

"Don't be flippant. You always did have a maddening habit of being

flippant at the wrong time. Haven't you seen him again anywhere?"

"I've walked the Rue de Rivoli and lunched at the Ritz looking for him;

but I've never had even a glimpse--unless that was his back I saw at

the Crillon to-day. If I saw his eyes I'd know in a minute."

"Why should you think it was his back?"

"Some men have expression in the back of their head. And I just had an

idea--fantastic, no doubt--that my particular Englishman stands up

straight."

"Yours?"

"Yes, I'm feeling quite too fearfully romantic. I'm sure he's looking

for me as hard as I am for him. And if I find him I'll keep him."

She saw Gora's long brown hands slowly clench until they looked like

steel. She glanced at her own slim white hands. They were quite as

strong if more ornamental. She yawned politely.

"I'm not so romantic as sleepy. I know that you must be dead after your

journey. They say it's more trouble to travel to Paris from London than

from New York. The girls won't be back for a week. You must get your

things to-morrow and come out here. I won't hear of your living in

Paris discomfort with three two empty rooms."

"That is good of you. Yes, I'll come. And perhaps your landlady, or

whatever they call them here, could put me up later. Now that I have

come to Paris I intend to see it. I believe some of the great galleries

and museums are to be reopened."

"André will arrange it if they're not. How you will enjoy it with your

sensitiveness to all the arts. Take this candle in ease the bulb is

burnt out. It usually is."

VI

Gora had risen. Her face wore an expression both puzzled and grim; but

she and Alexina as they said good-night looked full into each other's

eyes without faltering. And Alexina had never looked more ingenuous.

Perhaps that dim idea ... that she had thrown down a challenge ... had

come out in the open for a moment ... insolently? ... honestly? ... She

_must_ be completely fagged out after that abominable trip to have such

absurd fancies. She took her candle; and disposed herself in Janet's

bed, between four walls that gave her an unexpected and heavenly

privacy, with a deep sigh of gratitude, dismissing fantasies.

VII

During the next ten days Alexina kept as close to Gora as was possible

in the circumstances. She had made many engagements and not all of them

were social; there were still gowns to be fitted, committee meetings to

attend. Twice Gora appeared to have risen with the dawn, and she

vanished for the day. Nevertheless, it grew increasingly evident to

Alexina's alert and penetrating vision that Gora was neither peaceful

nor happy; therefore it was safe to assume that she had not found

Gathbroke. For some reason she had not inquired at the British Embassy.

Or a letter to its care had failed to reach him. Possibly he was

enjoying himself without formalities.

She took Gora twice to the Ritz to luncheon and on several afternoons

to tea. But it was a mob of Americans and members of the various

Commissions. A brilliant sight, but not in the least satisfactory. It

was quite patent from Gora's ever traveling eyes that she sought and

never found.

Therefore when Olive asked Alexina to go to one of the towns where the

oeuvre had a branch and attend to an important matter that Mrs. Wallack

was far too much of a novice to be entrusted with, she agreed at once.

She experienced a growing desire to get away by herself--away from

Paris--away from Gora. She wanted to think. What if Gora did meet him

first? She would be but the more certain to meet him herself. Moreover

... give Gora a sporting chance.

Janet and Alice had written from Nice that they might be detained for

some time. Gora unpacked her trunk and settled down in the pension with

that air of indestrucible patience that had always made her formidable.

She was not one of Life's favorites, but she had wrung prizes from that

unamiable deity more than once.

Alexina speculated. Gora had all the brains that Mortimer lacked and

commanding traits of character. She was so striking in appearance even

now that people often turned and stared at her. But unless she

possessed the potent spell of woman for man all her gifts would avail

her nothing in this tragic crisis of her life. Did she possess it I No

woman could answer. Certainly Alexina had never seen evidence of it

even in Gora's youth; although to be sure her opportunities had been

few. Still ... when a woman possesses the most subtle and powerful of

all the fascinations men are drawn to it, no matter how dark the sky or

high the barriers. Nothing is keener than the animal essence. Still ...

she had heard that some women developed it later than others. Alexina

feared nothing else.

She fancied that Gora took leave of her with a little indrawn sigh of

relief. It was with difficulty that she repressed her own.

CHAPTER VIII

I

"Can this be Lieutenant James Kirkpatrick?"

Kirkpatrick wheeled about and snatched off his cap.

"Mrs. Dwight, by all that's holy! I never expected any such luck as

this!"

They shook hands warmly in the deserted square which had been a

shambles during the first battle of the Marne, and in the days of Cæsar

and Attila, of Napoleon the Great and Napoleon the Little. To-day it

was as gray and peaceful, its houses as aloof and haughty as if war had

never been. It was a false impression, however, for it was the

paralysis of war it expressed, not even the normal peace of a dull

provincial town.

"I've often wondered about you," said Alexina. "But I've been working

with the French Army and had no way of finding out. You don't look as

if you had been wounded."

"Nary scratch, and in the thick of it. My, but it's good to sec you

again." He stared at her, his face flushed and his breath short. Then

he asked abruptly: "When do you think we're goin' home?"

Alexina laughed merrily. "That is the first question every officer or

private I have met since the Armistice has asked me. I should feel

greatly flattered, but I fancy the question, being always on the top of

your minds, simply babbles off."

"You bet. But--Jimminy! I'm glad to see you. You're lookin' thin,

though. Been workin', too, I'll bet."

"Oh, yes--and all your old class has worked; most of them over here.

Mrs. Cheever couldn't come, as her husband is in the army. But she's

worked hard in California."

"I believe you. The women have come up to the scratch, no doubt of

that. Although some of them! Good Lord! This isn't my usual language

when speaking of them. But if some came over to do just about as they

damn please, the others strike the balance, and on the whole I think

more of women than I did."

"That's good news. But you mustn't blame them too severely. I mean

those that really came over with a single purpose and were not proof

against the forcing house of war. As for the others ... well, a good

many followed their men over, others came after excitement, others, as

you say, to do as they pleased, with no questions asked--possibly! I

shouldn't take enough interest in them to criticize them if they hadn't

used the war-relief organizations, from the Red Cross down to the

smallest oeuvre, as a pretext to get over, and then calmly throw us

down--the oeuvres, I mean. Mine was 'done' several times. But let us be

good healthy optimists such as our country loves and remind ourselves

that the worthy outnumber the unworthy--and that the really bad would

have gone the same way sooner or later."

"It goes. Optimism for me for ever more once I get out of France."

II

They had crossed the square and were walking down a narrow crooked

street as gray as if the dust of ages were in its old walls. Alexina

looked at him curiously. He had never had what might be called a soft

and tender countenance, but now it looked like cast-iron covered with

red rust, and his eyes were more like bits of the same metal, blackened

and polished, than ever. His youth had gone. There were deep vertical

lines in his face. His mouth was cynical. His bullet head, shaved until

only a cap of black stiff hair remained on top, and presumably safe

from assault, by no means added to the general attractiveness of his

style. He was straighter, more compact, than before, however, and his

uniform at least did not have the truly abominable cut of the private.

"What do you think of war as war?" she asked.

"Sherman for me. Not that I didn't enjoy sticking Germans with the best

of 'em when my blood was up. But the rest of it--God Almighty!"

They stopped before a solid double door in a high wall. "Will you come

and take tea with me this afternoon? I am staying here for a few days.

I'm afraid I can't offer you sugar, or cakes--"

"I'll bring the sugar along. I'm in barracks just outside and solid

with, the commissary."

"Heavens, what a windfall! You'll be sure to come?"

"Won't I, just? Expect me at four-thirty." He lifted his cap from his

comical head, then sainted, swung on his heel and marched off, swinging

both arms from the shoulders and looking a fine martial figure of a man.

"But still the same old Kirkpatrick," thought Alexina. "I wonder if he

will go Bolshevik?"

III

Her ring was answered by the old woman who toot care of the house and

Alexina entered the wild garden. There was an acre of it, but it had

been so long uncared for that it looked like a jungle caught between

four high gray walls. It was the property of one of the French members

of the oeuvre and was used as a storehouse for hospital supplies and as

headquarters for Alexina when business brought her to this part of the

Marne valley. She had been here several times during the siege of

Verdun in nineteen-sixteen when her bed had quivered all night, and

once a big gun had been trained on the city and a shell had fallen near

the headquarters of the staff. Last night she had lain awake wondering

if she did not miss the sound of the distant guns, as she had in Passy

where there was no noisy traffic to take their place. There is a

certain amount of morbidity in all highly strung imaginative minds, and

although she had developed no love for Big Bertha nor for the sound of

high firing guns attacking avions in the middle of the night, there had

been something in that steady boom of cannon whose glare stained the

horizon that had thrilled and excited her.

IV

On the right of the main hall of the house was the room she used as an

office; the dining-room was opposite; the salon ran the whole length at

the back. This was quite a beautiful room furnished in the style of the

last Bourbons, and its long windows opened upon a stone terrace leading

down into what was still a picturesque garden in spite of its neglect.

There were three fine oaks, and the chestnut trees along the wall shut

off the town from even the upper windows.

The oeuvre always managed to keep a load of wood in the cave and to-day

the concierge had raised the temperature of the salon to sixty-five

degrees Fahrenheit Alexina cleared a table and told the woman to set it

for tea, then went upstairs to change her dress. As she had made her

trip in one of the automobiles belonging to the oeuvre she had been

able to bring her little stove, and her bedroom was also warm.

She had also brought one of her new gowns, knowing that she should

receive visits from several French officers, and she concluded to put

it on for Kirkpatrick. He was worth the delicate compliment; moreover

it almost obliterated the ravages of war, for it was of periwinkle blue

velvet edged with fur about the high square of the neck and at the

wrists of the long sleeves: in these days it was wise to revert to the

fashions of the centuries when palaces and houses alike were cold and

gowns were made for comfort as well as fashion. To complete the

proportions it had a train and the sleeves were slightly puffed.

Alexina was quite aware that she "looked like a picture" in it.

She still wore her hair brushed softly back and coiled low at the base

of her beautiful curved head. Her pearls were the only jewels she had

brought to France and she always wore them. She sighed as she looked at

the vision in the mirror. For Kirkpatrick! But she was used to the

irony of life.

CHAPTER IX

I

He arrived promptly at half-past four and in his capacious hands were

three packages which arrested her eyes at once. He presented them one

by one.

"Sugar. Loaf of white bread. Candy--I'm also solid with one of the

doctors."

"I feel like pinching myself. White bread!--I've only tasted it twice

in two years-both times at the Crillon. And candy--not a sight of it

for more than that. I don't like the heavy French chocolates, which

were all one could get when one could get anything. I shall eat at

least half and take the other half back to Gora."

"Miss Dwight? She's done good work, I'll bet. Just in her line.

Somehow, I don't see you--What did you do?"

He watched her hungrily as she made the tea, sitting in a gilt and

brocaded chair, whose high tarnished back seemed to frame her dark head.

"Oh, Lord!" he sighed.

"What is it?"

"Don't ask me. What've you been doing? Yes, I'll drink tea to please

you."

"I nursed at first--as an auxiliary, of course--what is the matter?"

"Can't bear to think of it. I hope you've not been doin' that for four

years!"

"Oh, no. I've been at work with a war-relief organization in Paris most

of the time. That was too monotonous to talk about, and, thank heaven,

this will probably end my connection with it. I am much more interested

to know how the war has affected you. Are you still a socialist?"

"Ain't I!"

"Not going Bolshevik, I hope."

"Not so's you'd notice it. I want changes all right and more'n ever,

but I've had enough of blood and fury and mix-ups without copying them

murdering skally-wags. That's all they are. Just out for loot and

revenge and not sense enough to know that to-morrow there'll be no

loot, and revenge'll come from the opposite direction. I may have been

in hell but my head's screwed on in the same place."

"I wondered ... I've heard so many stories about the grievances of the

soldiers."

"Every last one of 'em got a grievance. Hate their officers, and often

reason enough. Hate the discipline. Hate the food. Hate the neglect in

hospital when the flu is raging. Hate gettin' no letters, and as like

as not no pay and no tobacco. Hate bein' gouged by the French like they

were by the good Americans when they were in camp on the other side.

Hate every last thing a man just naturally would hate when he is livin'

in a filthy trench, or even camp, and homesick in the bargain.... But

as for mass-dissatisfaction--not a bit of it. Loyal as they make 'em.

Laugh at Bolshevik propaganda just like they laughed at Hun propaganda.

They just naturally seem to hate every other race, allied or enemy, and

that makes them so all-fired American they're fit to bust. Of course

there's plenty of skallywags--caught in the draft--and just waitin' to

get home and turn loose on the community. But in the good old style:

burglars, highwaymen, yeggs. Not a new frill. Europe hasn't a thing on

the good old American criminal brand. They fought well, too. Any man

does who's a man at all. But Lord! they'll cut loose when they get

back. Every wild bad trait they was born with multiplied by one hundred

and fifty ... before I go any further I want to warn you that I'm

liable to break out into bad language any minute. It gets to be a kind

of habit in the army to swear every other word like."

"Don't mind me," said Alexina dryly. "After I was put out of my hotel I

managed to get a room in one of the hotels on the Rue de Rivoli for two

nights before I found my pension in Passy. The walls were thin. The

room next to mine was occupied by two American officers and the one

beyond by two more. They talked back and forth with apparently no

thought of the possibility of being overheard. Such language! And not

only swear words--although one of these to two of any. Such adventures

as they related! Such frankness! Such plain undiluted Anglo-Saxon!

Fancy a girl with all her illusions fresh, and worshiping some heroic

figure in khaki, listening to such a revelation of the nether side of

man's life!"

"Men are hogs, all right. I don't like the idea of your having heard

such things." Kirkpatrick scowled heavily.

"Nor did I. But I had no cotton to put in my ears. I couldn't sleep in

the street. Nor could I ask them to keep quiet and admit I had heard

them."

"Well, I guess you can forget anything you have a mind to. You couldn't

look like you do--a kind of princess out of a fairy tale and an angel

mixed, if you couldn't."

"A black-haired angel! And all the princesses of legend had golden

hair."

"Well, that's just another way you're different." He changed the

subject abruptly. "What you goin' to do now!"

"I wish I knew."

"Goin' back to California?"

"If I knew I would tell you. But I don't. You see.... Well, I shall not

live with Mr. Dwight again. We had been really separated a long while

before I left--and then he has done nothing for the war. That is only

one reason. What should I do there? I had thought of going into

business before I left. But I shall have a good income, and what right

have I to go into business and use my large connection to get customers

away from those that need the money for their actual bread?"

"Not the ghost of an excuse. Farce, I call it. As long as the present

system lasts women of your class better be ornamental and satisfied

with that than take the bread out of mouths that need it."

"I could not settle down to the old life. It isn't that I'm in love

with work. For that matter I'm only too grateful to be able to rest.

But I must fill in, some way. Possibly I could do that better in France

or England, where vita! subjects are always being discussed--and

happening!--where I would not only be interested but possibly useful in

many ways. I should feel rather a brute, knowing the conditions of

Europe as I do, to go back and settle down on the smiling abundance of

California. And bored to death."

"Then you think you'll stay? ... You'd be wasted there--at

present--sure enough."

"Sometimes I think I'll buy this house. I could for a song. Heavens!

_How_ I have longed for solitude in the last four years! I could have

it here with my books, and go to Paris as often as I wished. It would

be an ideal life. I could afford a car, and to make this house very

livable. And that garden ... between those gray high walls ... in there

... that would...."

She had forgotten Kirkpatrick and was staring through the long windows

at the dripping trees and the riot of green. "There is something about

the old world ... in its byways like this ... not in its hateful

capitals...."

"Do you mean there's something you want to forget? That this place

would be consolin' like?"

She met Kirkpatrick's sharp dilated eyes with smiling composure. "This

war, and much that has happened--incidental to it; yes."

"You could forget it easier in California."

"I should forget too much."

"It's awful to think of you not comin' back, though I understand well

enough. Europe suits you all right. But ... but...."

He rose abruptly almost overturning his fragile chair.

"Good-by, and as I guess it _is_ good-by I'll tell you something I

wouldn't if there was any chance of my seein' you like I used to. It's

this: If I'm more of a socialist than ever it's because of _you_! If my

class hatred's blacker than ever _you're_ the cause! _You'd_ have made

me a socialist if I wasn't one before. _Jesus Christ_! When I think

what I might have had if we'd all been born alike! Had the same

chances! If you hadn't been born at the top and I down at the bottom

... common ... not even educated except by myself after I was too old

to get what a boy gets that goes to school long enough. I wouldn't mind

bein' born ugly. There's plenty of men at the top that's ugly enough,

God knows. But just one generation with money irons out the commonness.

That's it! I'm common! Common! Common. _Democracy_! Oh, God!"

He caught up his cap and rushed out of the room,

Alexina ran after him and caught him at the garden door. Like all

beautiful women who have listened to many declarations of love (or

avoided them) she was inclined to be cruel to men that roused no

response in her. But she felt only pity for Kirkpatrick.

She had intended merely to insist upon shaking hands with him, but when

she saw his contorted face she slipped her arm round his neck and

kissed him warmly on the cheek.

Then she pushed him gently through the door and locked it.

CHAPTER X

I

Alexina had finished giving tea to two officers, a surgeon and a

médecin major, and, enchanted almost as much by the sugar and the white

bread as by their hostess, refreshingly beautiful and elegant in her

velvet gown of pervenche blue, they had lingered until nearly six. As

the concierge had gone out on an errand of her own Alexina had opened

the garden door for them, and after they disappeared she stood looking

at the street, which always fascinated her.

It was very narrow and crooked and gray. Her house was the only one

with a garden in front; the others rose perpendicularly from the narrow

pavement, tall and close and rather imposing. Each was heavily

shuttered, the shutters as gray as the walls. The town had been

evacuated during the first Battle of the Marne and only the poor had

returned. The well-to-do provincials in this street had had homes

elsewhere, perhaps a flat in Paris; or they had established themselves

in the south.

The street had an intensely secretive air, brooding, waiting. Soon all

these houses would be reopened, the dull calm life of a provincial town

would flow again, the only difference being that the women who went in

and out of those narrow doors and down this long and twisted street

would wear black; but for the most part they would sit in their gardens

behind, secluded from every eye, as indifferent to their neighbors as

of old, with that ingrained unchangeable bourgeois suspicion and

exclusiveness; and the façades, the street itself, would look little

less secretive than now.

II

Nowhere could she find such seclusion if she wished for it. This house

was the only one in the street that belonged to a member of the

noblesse, and the bourgeoisie had as little "use" for the noblesse as

the noblesse for the bourgeoisie.

For the moment Alexina felt that the house was hers, and the street

itself. She was literally its only inhabitant. As she stood looking up

and down its misty grayness she felt more peaceful than she had felt

for many days. There were certain fierce terrible emotions that she

never wanted to feel again, and one of them was ruthlessness. She had

done much good in the past four years; she had been, for the most part,

high-minded, self-sacrificing, indifferent to the petty things of life,

even to discomfort, and it had given her a sense of elevation--when she

had had time to think about it. It was only certain extraordinary

circumstances that brought other qualities as inherent as life itself

surging to the top. It was demoralizing even to fight them, for that

involved recognition. Better that she protect herself from their

assaults. True, she was young, but she had had her fill of drama. All

her old cravings, never satisfied in the old days of peace without and

insurgence within, had been surfeited by this close personal contact

with the greatest drama in history.

Why return to Paris at all? Why not settle down here at once, live a

life of thought and study, and give abundant help where help was

needed? There were villages within a few miles where the inhabitants

were living in the ruins. (The Germans in their first retreat had been

too hard pressed to linger long enough to set fire to this large town

and they had not been able to reach it during their second drive.)

That had been a last flicker of romance at the embassy ... a last

resurgence of the evil the war had done her, as she sat in her cold

room ... a last blaze of sheer femininity when she discovered that Gora

had come to Paris in search of Gathbroke....

She felt as if she had escaped from a bottomless pit.... Assuredly she

had the will and the character to make herself now into whatever she

chose to be ... let Gora have him if she could find him and keep

him.... Better that than hating herself for the rest of her life ...

love, far from being ennobling, seemed to her the most demoralizing of

the passions ... there had been something ennobling, expanding,

soul-stirring in hating the brutal mediæval race that had devastated

France ... but in the reaction from her fierce registered vow to snatch

a man from a forlorn unhappy woman no matter what her claims and have

him for her own, she had shrunk from this new revelation of her depths

in horror.... One could not live with that....

III

A man in khaki was walking quickly down the long crooked street. As he

approached she saw the red on his collar. He was a British officer. In

another moment she was shaking hands with Gathbroke.

She was far more composed than he, although she felt as if the world

had turned over, and there was a roar in her ears like the sound of

distant guns. She had a vague impression that the war had begun again.

"You are the last person I should have expected to meet here. There is

no British--"

"I came here to see you. I got your address from Madaine de Morsigny. I

saw her last night at a reception and recognized her. She was at that

ball in San Francisco. I introduced myself at once and asked her if you

were in Paris. I was sure it was you ... that night...."

"Will you come in!"

He followed her into the salon, softly lit by candles. She felt that

fate for once had been kind. It was difficult to imagine surroundings

or conditions in which she would look lovelier, be seen to greater

advantage. But her hands were cold.

"It is too late for tea but perhaps you will share my frugal supper."

"If it won't inconvenience you too much. Thanks."

She sat down in the wide brocaded chair with its tarnished back. He

stood looking at her for a moment, then took a turn up and down the

long room.

Certainly she could not object to him to-day on the score of youth and

freshness. His hair had lost its brightness. His face was very brown

and thin and the lines if not deep were visible even in the candle

light. His nose and mouth had the hard determination that life, more

especially life in war time, develops; it was no casual trick of Nature

with him. His eyes were still the same bright golden hazel, but their

expression was keen and alert, and commanding. She fancied they could

look as hard as those features more susceptible to modeling.

IV

"Smoke if you like."

"Thanks. I don't want to smoke."

Finally when Alexina was gripping the arms of the chair he began to

speak.

"I feel rather an ass. I hardly know how to begin. I'm no longer

twenty-three. I've lived several lifetimes since this war began, and

made up my mind twice that I was going out. I should feel ninety.

Somehow I don't feel vastly different from that day when I grabbed you

like a brute because I wanted you more than anything on earth....

"I don't pretend that I've thought of you ever since. I've forgotten

you for years at a time. But there have been moments when you have

simply projected yourself into me and been closer than any mortal has

ever been. You were there!

"I felt there was some meaning in those sudden secret wonderful visits

of your soul to mine--I hate to say what sounds like sentimental

rotting, but that exactly expresses it. They belonged to some other

plane of consciousness. It takes war to shift a man over the border if

only for a moment. It kept me--lately--from ... never mind that now.

When I saw your eyes above that tiny yellow flame ... it wasn't only

that your eyes are not to be matched anywhere ... it seemed to me that

I saw myself in them, They came as dose as that! Laugh if you like."

He stood defiantly in front of her.

"God! You look as if you never had had an emotion, never could have

one. But you had once, if only for a moment!"

"I have never had one since--for any one, that is. I hear the

concierge. I'll tell her to set a place for you."

V

She left the room and he stared after her. Her words had been full of

meaning but her voice had been even and cold.

She returned and asked: "Are you in any way committed to Gora Dwight?"

"No ... yes ... that is ... why do you ask me that?"

"Are you engaged to her?"

"I am not. But I came very close--that is, of course if she would have

had me. She nursed me after I was wounded and gassed. She was a

wonderful nurse and there was something almost romantic in meeting her

again ... as if she had come straight out of the past. We had an

extraordinary experience as you know. I was not in the least drawn to

her at that time. You filled, possessed me."

He hesitated. But it was a barrier he had not anticipated and it must

go down. Moreover, it was evident that she wouldn't talk, and he was

too excited for silence on his own part.

"She was there ... when a man is weakest ... when he values tenderness

above all things ... when he does little thinking on either the past or

the future.

"She has a queer odd kind of fascination too, and any man must admire a

woman so clever and capable and altogether fine. Several times I almost

proposed to her. But there is no privacy in wards. I was sent back to

England and went to my brother's house in Hertfordshire. It was then

that you began to haunt me. She had rejuvenated that California period

in my mind--resuscitated it ... but both express what I am trying to

say. We had often talked about California and the fire. She alluded to

you, casually, of course, more than once; but as I looked back I

gathered that your marriage had been a mistake and that you had known

it for a long time.

"She did not come to England until four months later, and then she was

in charge of a hospital. I took her out occasionally--she was very much

confined. I liked her as much as ever. But _I didn't want her_. It

seemed tragic. There was one chance in a million that I should ever

meet you again. Once I deliberately drew her on to talk of you and

asked why you did not divorce your husband. She commented satirically

upon the intense conservatism of your family and of your own inflexible

pride. She added that you were the only beautiful woman she had ever

known who seemed to be quite indifferent to men--sexless, she meant!

But no woman knows anything about other women. I knew better!

"As I said it was rather tragic. To be haunted by a chimera! I liked

her so much. Admired her. Who wouldn't? If she had been able to take me

home, to remain with me, there is no doubt in the world that I should

have married her if she would have had me.... I prefer now to believe

that she wouldn't. Why should she, with a great career in front of her?

"No doubt I should have loved her--with what little love I had to give.

But those months had taught me that I could do without her, although I

enjoyed her letters. Even so ...

"It was after she came to London that I felt I had to talk to some one

and I went down, to the country to see Lady Vick-Elton Gwynne's mother.

She had founded a hospital and run it, and was resting, worn out. She

is a hard nut, empty, withered, arid. Nothing left in her but noblesse

oblige. But there is little she doesn't know. She was smoking a black

cigar that would have knocked me down and looked like an old sibyl. I

told her the whole story--all of it, that is that was not too sacred.

She puffed such, a cloud of smoke that I could see nothing but her

hard, bright, wise, old eyes. 'Go after her,' she said. 'Find her.

Divorce her. Marry her. That's where you men have the advantage. You

can stalk straight out into the open and demand what you want point

blank. No scheming, plotting, deceit, being one thing and pretending

another, in other words ice when you are fire. Beastly rôle, woman's--'

I interrupted to remind her that it was twelve years since I had seen

you; that you had thrown me down as hard as a man ever got it and

married another man. There was no more reason to believe that I could

win you now. Then she asked me what I had come to see her and bore her

to death for when she was trying to rest. 'If you want a thing go for

it and get it, or if you can't get it at least find out that you can't.

Also see her again and find out whether you want her or not, instead of

mooning like a silly ass.'

"The upshot was I made tip my mind to go to California as soon as I

could obtain my discharge. It never occurred to me that you were in

Paris. Then I was sent to Paris with the Commission. I have certain

expert knowledge.... For some reason I didn't tell Miss Dwight.... I

wrote her a hurried note saying that I was obliged to go to Paris for a

few weeks.

"The night after I arrived I saw you at the Embassy. That finished it.

If I hadn't been sent back to England for some papers--twice--I'd have

found you before this."

CHAPTER XI

I

The concierge announced supper. Alexina had brought food with her and

the little meal was good if not abundant. The dining-room was very

dreary, although warmed by the petrol stove. It was a long dark room,

paneled to the ceiling, and the two candles on the table did little

more to define their lineaments to each other than the flames of

briquet and match.

The concierge served and they talked of the Peace Conference and of the

general pessimism that prevailed. Same old diplomacy. Same old

diplomatists. Same old ambitions. Same old European policies. An

idealist had about as much chance with those astute conventionalized

brains dyed in the diplomatic wiles and methods of the centuries as an

unarmed man on foot with a pack of wolves.... At the moment all the

other Commissions were cursing Italy.... She might be the stumbling

block to ultimate peace.... As for the League of Nations, as well ask

for the millenium at once. Human, nature probably inspired the creed:

"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," etc. "What we

want" (this, Gathbroke), "is an alliance between Great Britain, and the

United States. They could rule the world. Let the rest of everlastingly

snarling Europe go hang." Elton Gwynne would work for that. He had

already obtained his discharge and returned to America. He, Gathbroke,

'd work for it too. So would anybody else in the two countries that had

any sense and no personal fish to fry.

II

When they returned to the salon he smoked. Alexina was thankful that it

was cigarettes. Mortimer had made her hate cigars. If, like most

Englishmen, he loved his pipe, he had the tact to keep it in his pocket.

It was she who reopened the subject that filled him.

"I feel sorry for Gora. Her life has been a tragedy in a way. Of course

she has had her successes, her compensations. But it isn't quite

everything to be the best of nurses, and I don't know that even writing

could fill a woman's life. Not unless she'd had the other thing first.

I am afraid she'll never be very popular anyhow. There are only small

groups here and there in America than can stand intellect in

fiction.... It seems to me that she would make a great wife. I mean

that. It is a great rôle and she could fill it greatly. I don't know,

of course, whether she cares for you or not. I am not in her

confidence. She is staying at my pension in Passy and I saw her

constantly for ten days before I came here, but she did not mention

your name.... If she does she's the sort that would never marry any one

else and her life would be spoilt. I don't mean to say she would give

up, but she would just keep going. That seems to me the greatest

tragedy of all....

"No! Why should there be any of this conventional subterfuge. I believe

that she does care for you. I believed so long ago. I was jealous of

her. I don't mean, to say that I was in love with you. I--perhaps

forced myself not to be. It seemed too silly. Too utterly hopeless....

Besides I knew even then the danger of letting myself go ... of the

unbridled imagination. Probably love is all imagination anyhow. French

marriages would seem to prove it. But we--your race and mine--have

fallen into a sublime sort of error, and we'll no more reason ourselves

out of it than out of the sex tyranny itself.... I don't see how I

could be happy with the eternal knowledge that Gora was miserable--that

she would be happy if I had remained in California...."

"I have just told you that I should have gone to California as soon as

I was free."

III

The air between them quivered and their eyes were almost one. But he

remained smoking in his chair and continued:

"I marry you or no one. A man well and a man ill are two different

beings. In illness sex is dormant. When a man is well he wants a woman

or he doesn't want her. It may be neither his fault nor hers. But if

she hasn't the sex pull for him, doesn't make a powerful insistent

demand upon his passion, there is nothing to build on. I haven't come

out alive from that shrieking hell to be satisfied with second-class

emotions. I lay one night under three dead bodies, not one over

twenty-five. I knew them all. Each was deeply in love with a woman....

Well, I knew the value of life that night if I never did before. And

life was given to us, when we can hold on to it, for the highest

happiness of which we are individually capable, no matter what else we

are forced to put up with. Happiness at the highest pitch, not

makeshifts.... The horrors, the obstacles, the very demons in our own

characters were second thoughts on the part of Life either to satisfy

her own spite or to throw her highest purpose into stronger relief.

I'll have the highest or nothing."

"But that is not everything. There must be other things to make it

lasting. Gora would make a great companion."

"Not half so great--to me--as you would and you know it. I hope you

will understand that I dislike extremely to speak of Miss Dwight at

all. If you had not brought her name into it I never should have done

so. But now I feel I must have a complete understanding with you at any

cost."

He dropped his cigarette on the table. He left his chair swiftly and

snatched her from her own. His face was dark and he was trembling even

more than she was.

"I'll have you ... have you...."

She nodded.

CHAPTER XII

I

Gora entered her room at the pension, mechanically lit the oil stove

that Alexina had procured for her, threw her hat on the bed, sat down

in the low chair and thrust her hands info the thick coils of hair

piled as always on top of her head. As she did so she caught sight of

herself in the mirror and wondered absurdly why she should have kept

all her hair and lost so much of her face. She looked more top-heavy

than ever. Her face was a small oblong, her eyes out of all proportion.

She thought herself hideous.

She had heard two hours before that Gathbroke was in Paris attached to

the British Commission. She had met an old acquaintance, a San

Francisco newspaper man, who had taken her to lunch and spoken of him

casually. Gathbroke had good-naturedly given him an Interview when

other members of the Commission had been inaccessible.

Gathbroke had told her nothing of a definite object when he wrote her

that he was off for Paris. Nor had he mentioned it in the note he had

written her after his arrival. This had been merely to tell her that he

was feeling as well as he ever had felt in his life and was enjoying

himself. Polite admonition not to tire herself out. He was always hers

gratefully and her devoted friend.

He had written the note at the Rite Hotel, but when, assuming this was

his address, she had called him up on her arrival, she had received the

information that he was not stopping there, nor had been.

Gora was very proud. But she was also very much in love; and she had

been in love with Gathbroke for twelve years. For the greater part of

that time she had believed it to be hopeless, but it had always been

with her, a sad but not too painful undertone in her busy life. It had

kept her from even a passing interest in another man. She had even felt

a Somewhat ironic gratitude to him and his indifference, for all the

forces of her nature, deprived of their natural outlet, went into her

literary work, informing it with an arresting and a magnetic vitality.

She had believed herself to be without hope, but in the remote feminine

fastnesses of her nature she had hoped, even dreamed--when she had the

time. That was not often. Her life, except when at her desk with her

literary faculty turned loose, had been practical to excess.

She would have offered her services in any case to one of the warring

allies, no doubt of that; the tremendous adventure would have appealed

to her quite aside from the natural desire to place her high

accomplishment as a nurse at the disposal of tortured men. Nevertheless

she was quite aware that she went to the British Army with the distinct

hope of meeting Gathbroke again; quite as, under the cloak of travel,

she would have gone to England long since had she not been swindled by

Mortimer.

Until she found him insensible, apparently at the point of death, after

the terrible disaster of March, nineteen-eighteen, she had only heard

of him once: when she read in the _Times_ he had been awarded the D.S.O.

She knew then where he was and maneuvered to get back to France. She

found him sooner than she had dared to hope. And she believed that she

had saved his life. Not only by her accomplished nursing. Her powerful

will had thrown out its grappling irons about his escaping ego and

dragged it back and held it in its exhausted tenement.

He had believed that also. He had an engaging spontaneity of nature and

he had felt and shown her a lively gratitude. He was restless and

frankly unhappy when she was out of his sight. He had a charming way of

Baying charming things to a woman and he said them to her. But he was

also as full of ironic humor as in his letters and "ragged" her. And he

talked to her eagerly when he was better and she had gone with him to a

hospital far back of the lines. There were intervals when they could

talk, and the other men would listen ... and had taken things for

granted.

So had she. He had not made love to her. There was no privacy.

Moreover, she guessed that his keen sense of the ridiculous would not

permit him to make love to any woman when helpless under her hands.

But how could there be other than one finale to such a story as theirs?

What was fiction but the reflection of life? if she had written a story

with these obvious materials there could have been but one logical

ending--unless, in a sudden spasm of reaction against romance, she had

killed him off.

But he would live; and not be strong enough to return to the front for

mouths ... the war _must_ be over by then.... As for romance, well, she

was in the romantic mood. It was a right of youth that she had missed,

but a woman may be quite as romantic at thirty-four as at eighteen, if

she has sealed her fountain instead of splashing it dry when she was

too young to know its preciousness. Once before she had surrendered to

romance, fleetingly: during the week that followed the night she had

sat on Calvary with Gathbroke and watched a sea of flames.

The mood descended upon her, possessed her. She had other patients.

There were the same old horrors, the same heart-rending duties; but the

mood stayed with her. And after he left, for England. She knew there

could, be but one ending. Her imagination had surrendered to tradition.

Moreover, she was tired of hard work. She wanted to settle down in a

home. She wanted children. She must always write, of course. Writing

was as natural to her as breathing. And she had already proved that a

woman could do two things equally well.

II

She never thought of trying to follow him back to England, to shirk the

increasing terrible duties behind the reorganized but harassed armies.

The wounded seemed to drop through the hospital roof like flies.

Nevertheless when she was abruptly transferred to London she went

without protest! It was then that she began to have misgivings. She was

given charge of a large hospital just outside of London and her duties

were constant and confining. But she managed to go out to lunch with

him twice and once to dine; after which they drove back to the hospital

in a slow and battered old hansom.

She returned a few weeks before the Armistice. She had not seen him for

four months. He was well and expecting to be sent back to the front any

day. At present they were making use of him in London.

If anything he appeared to admire her more than ever, to be more

solicitous for her health. He lamented personally her exacting duties.

But it was the almost exuberant friendliness of one man for another,

for a comrade, a good fellow; although he often paid her quick little

diagnostic compliments. If she hadn't loved him she would have enjoyed

his companionship. He had read and thought and lived. Before the war he

had been in active public life. He had far greater plans for the future.

He had been almost entirely impersonal. It had maddened her. Even the

night they had driven through the dark streets of London out to her

hospital, although he had talked more or less about himself, even

encouraged her to talk about herself, there had not been one instant of

correlation.

But she had made excuses as women do, in self-defense. He assumed that

he might easily go back to the front just in time to get himself

killed, although the end of the war was in sight.... Her utter lack of

experience with men in any sex relation had made her stiff, even in her

letters; afraid of "giving herself away." She had no coquetry. If she

had, pride would have forbidden her to use it. Her ideals were

intensely old-fashioned. She wanted to be pursued, won. The man must do

it all. Her writings had never been in the least romantic. Well, she

was, if romance meant having certain fixed ideals.

One thing puzzled her. When she wrote she manipulated her men and women

in their mutual relations with a master-hand. But she had not the least

idea how to manage her own affair. What was genius? A rotten spot in

the brain, a displacement of particles that operated independently of

personality, of the inherited ego? Possession? Ancestors come to life

for an hour in the subliminal depths? But what did she care for genius

anyhow!

One thing she would have been willing to do as her part, aside from

meeting him mentally at all points and showing a brisk frank pleasure

in his society: give him every chance to woo and win her, to find her

more and more indispensable to his happiness. But she was no woman of

leisure. She could not receive him in charming toilettes in an equally

seductive room. She had nothing for evening wear but an old black satin

gown. After her arrival in London she had found time to buy a smart

enough tailored coat and skirt, and a hat, but nothing more.

And after the Armistice was declared she only saw him once.

Then came his abrupt departure for Paris. His noncommittal note. Even

then she refused to despair. It would be an utterly impossible end to

such a story ... after twelve years ... not for a moment would she

accept that.

III

She applied for her discharge. During her long stay in the British

service she had made influential friends. She had also made a high

record not only for ability but for an untiring fidelity. Her vacations

had been few and brief. She obtained her discharge and went to Paris.

Her pride would permit her to telephone. What more natural? Nothing

would have surprised him more than if she had not. She had little doubt

of his falling into the habit of daily companionship. He knew Paris and

she did not. He would have seen her daily in London if she had been

free.

Something, no doubt of that, held him back. He was discouraged ... or

not sure of himself.... She had assumed as a matter of course that he

was at the Ritz. When she found that he was not, had not been, she

realized that he had omitted to give her an address.

That might have been mere carelessness.... But to find him in Paris!

She had not visualized such swarms of people. She might almost have

passed him on the street and not seen him. But not for a moment did she

waver from her purpose. She held passionately to the belief that were

they together day after day, hours on end....

Unbelievable.

IV

She had telephoned an hour ago to the hotel where he was staying with

other members of the British Commission and been told that he was out

of town, but might return any moment.

There was nothing to do but write him a note and wait. She was not

equal to the humiliation of telephoning a third time. She wrote it at

the hotel where her English friends were staying and sent it by

messenger, having heard of the idiosyncracies of the Paris post.

Hastings, her newspaper friend, had been altogether a bird of ill omen.

He had told her that the American market was glutted with "war stuff."

The public was sick of it. Some of the magazines were advertising that

they would read no more of it. She had told him that her material was

magnificent and he had replied: "Can it. Maybe a year or two from

now--five, more likely. I'm told over here that the war fiction we've

had wished on us by the ton resembles the real thing just about as much

as maneuvers look like the first Battle of the Marne, say, when the

Germans didn't know where they were at; went out quail hunting and

struck a jungle full of tigers.... Why not? When most of 'em were

written by men of middle age snug beside a library fire with mattresses

on the roof--in America not even a Zeppelin to warm up their blood. But

that doesn't matter. The public took it all as gospel. Ate it up. Now

it is fed up and wants something else."

What irony!

And what a future if he--but that she would not face.

CHAPTER XII

I

She heard Janet Maynard, who had returned alone the day before from

Nice, enter the next, room. She kept very still; she had no desire for

conversation. But Janet tapped on her door in a moment and entered

looking very important.

"I've something to tell you," she announced. "You'd never guess in a

thousand years. Don't get up. 111 sit on the bed-used to any old place.

Only too thankful it isn't a box, or to sit down at all. Try one of

mine? Don't you feel well?"

"I've a rotten headache."

"Oh ... mind my smoking?"

"Not a bit. What did you have to tell me?"

"Well, 'way back in ancient times, B.W., nineteen hundred and six, a

young Englishman named Gathbroke came to California after his sister,

who was ill." She was blowing rings and did not see Gora's face. When

she leveled her eyes Gora was unbuttoning her gaiters. "It seems she

died some time during the fire and he had a perfectly horrid experience

getting the body out to the cemetery. But that has nothing to do with

the story. He met Olive and the rest of us--_and Alexina_--the night of

the Hofer ball. I had forgotten the whole thing until Olive reminded me

that we had joked Alex afterward about the way she had bowled him over.

His eyes simply followed her, but Mortimer gave him no chance.

"Then. I remembered something else. Isabel Gwynne once told me that her

husband was sure Gathbroke had proposed to Alex one day when he took

him down to Eincona. He was in a simply awful state of nerves

afterward. John thought he was going out of his mind. Now, here's the

point. Night before last Olive was at a ball and who should come up to

her and introduce himself but Gathbroke. He's changed a lot but she

recognized him. Well, he hardly waited to finish the usual amenities

before he asked her plump out if Alex was in Paris, said he was

positive he had seen her at that embassy ball where all the lights went

out and they expected a riot. He turned white when he did it, but he

was as direct as chain lightning. He wanted her address. Of course he

got it. Olive was thrilled. It's safe to assume that he's with Alex at

the present moment. At any rate Olive called him up this morning

intending to ask him to dinner, and was told he was out of town. Now,

isn't that romance for you?"

"Rather."

"Twelve years! Fancy a man being faithful all that time. Hadn't got

what he wanted, that's probably why. Have you ever heard Alex speak of

him? Think she'll divorce Mortimer?"

"I asked her the other night why she didn't. She said it was against

the traditions of the family. But--I recall--she said--it seemed to me

there was a curious sort of meaning in her voice--that if she wanted to

marry a man nothing would stop her."

"And it wouldn't. Nothing would stop Alexina if anything started her.

The trouble always was to start her. She's indolent and unsusceptible

and fastidious. But deep and intense--Lord! Mark my words, she saw him

at the Embassy. If she did and the thing's mutual she'll give poor old

Maria such a shock that the war will look like ten cents."

"Possibly."

"You look really ill, Gora. No wonder you have headaches with that

hair. It's magnificent--but! Go to bed and I'll send up your dinner.

Got any aspirin?"

"Yes, thanks."

"Au 'voir."

CHAPTER XIII

I

The day was fine and Alexina took advantage of the brief interval of

grace and went for a walk. Gathbroke was in Paris but might come out

any moment. She wore a coat and skirt of heavy white English tweed with

a silk blouse of periwinkle blue. The same soft shade lined her black

velvet hat.

She had a number of notes changed at the bank and struck out for one of

the ruined villages. She was in a mood to distribute happiness, and

only silver coin could carry a ray of light into the dark stupefied

recesses of those miserable wretches living in the ruins of homes

haunted by memories of their dead.

She felt a very torch of happiness herself. Her body and her brain

glowed with it. The currents of her blood seemed to have changed their

pace and their essence. The elixir of life was in them. She felt less

woman than goddess.

She knew now why she had been born, why she had waited. As long as this

terrible war had to be she was thankful for her intimate contact with

the very martyrdom of suffering; never else could she have known to the

full the value of life and youth and health and the power to be

triumphantly happy in love. She would have liked to wave a wand and

make all the world happy, but as this was as little possible as to

remake human nature itself she soared into an ether of her own to revel

in her astounding good fortune.

II

The village she approached was picturesque in its ruin for it climbed

the side of a hill, and although the Germans had set fire deliberately

to every house the shells for the most part remained. Along the low

ridge was a row of brick walls in various stages of gaunt and jagged

transfiguration. They looked less the victims of fire than of

earthquake.

The narrow ascending street was filled with rubble. She picked her way

and peered into the ruins. At first she saw no one; the place seemed to

be deserted. Then some one moved in a dark cellar, and as she stood at

the top of the short flight of steps a very old woman came forward into

the light. There were two children at her heels.

Alexina suddenly felt very awkward. She had always thought the mere

handing out of money the most detestable part of charity. But there was

nothing here to buy. That was obvious.

The old woman however relieved her embarrassment. She extended a skinny

hand. The poor of France are not loquacious, but like all their

compatriots they know what they want, and no doubt feel that life is

simplified when they are in a position to ask for it.

Alexina gratefully handed her a coin and hurried on. Her next

experience was as simple but more delicate. A younger woman had fitted

up a corner of her ruin with a petticoat for roof and a plank supported

by two piles of brick for counter and had laid in a supply of the post

cards that pictured with terrible fidelity the ruins of her village.

Alexina bought the entire stock, "to scatter broadcast in the United

States," and promised to send her friends for more; assuring the woman

that when the tourists came to France once more these ruined villages

would be magnets for gold.

She managed to get rid of her coins without much difficulty, although

comparatively few of the village's inhabitants had returned, and these

by stealth. Many of them had trekked far! Others were still detained at

the hostels in Paris and other cities where they could be looked after

without too much trouble.

Several had set up housekeeping in the cellars in a fashion not unlike

that of their cave dwelling ancestors, and a few had found a piece of

roof above ground to huddle under when it rained. Some talked to her

pleasantly, some were surly, others unutterably sad. None refused her

largesse, and she was amused to look back and see a little procession

making for the town, no doubt with intent to purchase.

In one side street less choked with rubbish small boys were playing at

war. But for the most part the children looked very sober. They had

been spared the horrors of occupation but they had suffered privations

and been surrounded by grief and despair.

III

When she had exhausted her supplies she took refuge in the church. It

was at the end of the long street on the ridge and after she had rested

she could leave the village by its farther end, and by making a long

détour avoid the painful necessity of refusing alms.

There was no roof on the church; otherwise it would have been the

general refuge. Part of it including the steeple was some distance away

and looked as if it had been blown off. The rest had gone down with one

of the walls. It was a charred unlovely ruin. Saints and virgins

sometimes defied the worst that war could do, but all had succumbed

here. The paneless windows in the walls that still remained

precariously erect framed pictures of a quiet and lovely landscape. The

stone walls were intact about the farms in which moved a few old men

and women in faded cotton frocks that looked like soft pastels. The

oaks were majestic and serene. The hills were lavender in the distance.

But the farm houses were in ruins and so was a château on a hill.

Alexina could see its black gaping walls through the grove of chestnut

trees withered by the fire.

She wandered about looking for a seat however humble but could find

nothing more inviting than piles of brick and twisted iron. She noticed

an open place in the floor and went over to it and peered down. There

was a flight of steps ending in cimmerian darkness. Doubtless the

vaults of the great families of the neighborhood were down there. She

wondered if the spite of the Huns had driven them to demolish the very

bones of the race they were unable to conquer.

IV

Suddenly she stiffened. A chill ran up her spine. She had an

overwhelming sense of impending danger and stepped swiftly away from

the edge of the aperture; then turned about, and faced Gora Dwight.

CHAPTER XIV

I

"Oh," she said calmly, although her nerves still shuddered. "You must

walk like a fairy. I didn't hear you."

"One must pick one's way through rubbish."

"Ghastly ruin, isn't it?"

"Life is ghastly."

Alexina made no reply lest she deny this assertion out of the wonder of

her own experience. She guessed what Gora had come for and that she was

feeling as elemental as she looked. She herself had recovered from that

sudden access of horror but she moved still further from, that black

and waiting hole.

"Are you going to marry Gathbroke?"

The gauntlet was down and Alexina felt a sharp sense of relief. She was

in no mood for the subtle evasion and she had not the least inclination

to turn up her eyes. She made up her mind however to save Gora's pride

as far as possible.

"Yes," she said.

"You dare say that to me?"

Alexina raised her low curved eyebrows. She seldom raised them but when

she did she looked like all her grandmothers.

"Dare? Did you expect me to lie? Is that what you wish?"

Gora clutched her muff hard against her throat. (Alexina wondered if

she had a pistol in it.) Her eyes looked over it pale and terrible.

Alexina had the advantage of her in apparent calm, but there was no

sign of confusion in those wide baleful irises with their infinitesimal

pupils.

"You knew that I loved him. That I had loved him for twelve years."

"I _knew_ nothing of the sort. You had his picture on your mantel and

you corresponded with him off and on but you never gave me a hint that

you loved him. Twelve years! Good heaven! A friendship extending over

such a period was conceivable; natural enough. But a romance! When such

an idea did cross my mind I dismissed it as fantastic. You always

seemed to me the embodiment of common sense."

"There is no such thing. It is true--that I hardly believed it

then--admitted it. But I knew we should meet again. He never had

married. It looked like destiny when I did meet him. I nursed him--"

She paused and her eyes grew sharp and watchful, Alexina's face showed

no understanding and she went on, still watching.

"I nursed him back to life. Through a part of his convalescence. A

woman _knows_ certain things. He almost loved me then. If we could have

been alone he would have found out--asked me to marry him. We should be

married to-day. If I could have seen him constantly in London it would

have been the same." She burst out violently: "I believe you wrote to

him to come to Paris."

"My dear Gora! Keep your imagination for your fiction. I had forgotten

his existence until I saw him, for a few seconds, at a reception. Don't

forget that he came to Paris under orders from his Government."

"But you recognized him that night. You came down here to meet him, to

get away from me."

"Far from coming here to meet him I had given up all hope of ever

seeing him again. He found out my address and followed me. You also

seem to forget that you never mentioned his name to me in Paris. How

was I to know that you were still interested in him?"

"That first night ... you guessed it ... you threw down a sort of

challenge. Deny that if you can!"

"No! I'll not deny it. I wanted him as badly as you did if with less

reason. Nevertheless ... believe it or not as you like ... I came down

here as much to leave the field clear to you as for my own peace of

mind. I think ... I fancy ... I decided to leave the matter on the

knees of the gods."

"Do you mean to tell me that if I had met him while we were together in

Paris, and you knew the truth, that you would not have tried to win him

away from me?"

"I wonder! I have asked myself that question several times. I like to

think that I should have been noble, and withdrawn. But I am not at all

sure.... Yes, I do believe I should, not from noble unselfishness, oh,

not by a long sight, but from pride--if I saw that he was really in

love with you. I'd never descend to scheming and plotting and pitting

my fascinations against another woman--"

"Oh, damn your aristocratic highfalutin pride. I suppose you mean that

I have no such pride, having no inherited right to it. Perhaps not or I

wouldn't be here to-day. At least I wouldn't be talking to you," she

added, her voice hoarse with significance.

Once more Alexina eyed the muff. "Did you come here to kill me?"

"Yes, I did. No, I haven't a pistol. I couldn't get one. I trusted to

opportunity. When I saw you standing at the edge of that hole I thought

I had it."

Alexina found it impossible to repress a shiver but in spite of those

dreadful eyes she felt no recurrence of fear.

"What good would that have done you? Murderesses get short shrift in

France. There is none of that sickening sentimentalism here that we are

cursed with in our country."

"Murders are not always found out. If you were at the bottom of that

hole it would be long before you were found and there is no reason why

I should be suspected. I didn't come through the village. I didn't even

inquire at your house. I saw you leave it and followed at a distance.

If I'd pushed you down there I'd have followed and killed you if you

were not dead already."

Alexina wondered if she intended to rush her. But she was sure of her

own strength. If one of them went down that hole it would not be she.

Nevertheless she was beginning to feel sorry for Gora. She had never

sensed, not during the most poignant of her contacts with the war, such

stark naked misery in any woman's soul. Its futile diabolism but

accentuated its appeal.

"Well, you missed your chance," she said coldly. Gora was in no mood to

receive sympathy! "And if you hadn't and escaped detection I don't

fancy you would have enjoyed carrying round with you for the next

thirty or forty years the memory of a cowardly murder. Too bad we

aren't men so that we could have it out in a fair fight. My ancestors

were all duellists. No doubt yours were too," she added politely.

"Perhaps you are right." For the first time there was a slight

hesitation in Gora's raucous tones. But she added in a swift access of

anger: "I suppose you mean that your code is higher than mine. That you

are incapable of killing from behind."

"Good heavens! I hope so! ... Still ... I will confess I have had my

black moods. It is possible that I might have let loose my own devil

if--if--things had turned out differently."

"Oh, no, you wouldn't! Not when it came to the point. You would have

elevated your aristocratic nose and walked off." She uttered this

dictum with a certain air of personal pride although her face was

convulsed with hate.

"Gora, you are really making an ass of yourself. If you had taken more

time to think it over you wouldn't have followed me up with any such

melodramatic intention as murder. Good God! Haven't you seen enough of

murder in the past four years? I could readily fancy you going in for

some sort of revenge but I should have expected something more

original--"

"Murder's natural enough when you've seen nothing else as long as I

have. And as for human life--how much value do you suppose I place on

it after four years of war? I had almost reached the point where death

seemed more natural than life."

"Oh, yes ... but later.... There are tremendous reactions after war.

Settled down once more in our smiling land my ghost would be an

extremely unpleasant companion. You see, Gora, you are just now in that

abnormal state of mind known as inhibition. But, unfortunately,

perhaps, in spite of the fact that you have proved yourself to be

possessed of a violence of disposition--that I rather admire--you were

not cut out to be the permanent villain. You have great qualities. And

for thirty-four years of your life you have been a sane and reasonable

member of society. For four of those years you have been an angel of

mercy.... Oh, no. If you had killed me you would have killed yourself

later. You couldn't live with Gathbroke for you couldn't live with

yourself. Silly old tradition perhaps, but we are made up of

traditions.... That was one reason I left Paris, gave up trying to find

him.... I knew that I could have him. But I also knew that you had had

some sort of recent experience with him, that you had come to Paris to

find him, that possibly if left with a clear field you could win him. I

knew--Oh, yes, I knew!--that he would know instantly he was mine if we

met. But ... well, I too have to live with myself. It might be that he

was committed to you, that if he married you, you would both be happy

enough. When he did come nothing would have tempted me to accept him if

I had still believed--"

"Did he tell you? Tell you how close he came? Tell you that I was in

love with him?"

"My dear Gora, I fancy that if he were capable of that you would not be

capable of loving him. I certainly should not." There was a slight

movement in her throat as if she were swallowing the rest of the truth

whole. She had adhered to it where she could but Gora's face must be

saved. "Your name was not mentioned. I asked him no questions about his

past. I am not the heroine of a novel, old style. He told me that he

loved me, that he had never loved any other woman, never asked any

other woman to marry him. That was enough for me. I had no place in my

mind for you or any one else. Perhaps you don't know--how could

you--that years ago, when he was in California, he asked me to marry

him."

"Calf love! If you had not been here now--"

"He would have gone to California as soon as he could get away. He had

made up his mind to that before he came to Paris."

"What!"

Gora's arms dropped to her sides and she stared at the floor. Then she

laughed, "O God, what irony! I talked of you more or Jess as was

natural ... and he remembered ... we had recalled the past vividly

enough.... Why couldn't one of those instincts in which we are

supposed to be prolific have warned me?.... Much fiction is like life!

... Any heroine I could have created would have had it ... had more

sense.... I have botched the thing from beginning to end."

She raised her head and stared at Alexina with somber eyes; the insane

light had died out of them. They took in every detail of that enhanced

beauty, of that inner flame, white hot, that made Alexina glow like a

transparent lamp.

She also recalled that she had watched her pack her bags ... that

pervenche velvet gown ... Alexina had described the quaint old

salon.... Her imagination, flashed out that first interview with

Gathbroke with a tormenting conjuring of detail....

"Yon are one of the favorites of life," she admitted in her bitter

despair. "You have been given everything--"

"I drew Mortimer," Alexina reminded her.

"True. But you dusted him out of your life with an ease and a

thoroughness that has never been surpassed. Think what you might have

drawn. No, you are lucky, lucky! The prixes of life are for your sort.

I am one of the overlooked or the deliberately neglected. Not a fairy

stood at my cradle. All things have come to you unsought. Beauty.

Birth. Position. Sufficient wealth. Power over men and women. An

enchanting personality. All the social graces. You have had ups and

downs merely because after all you are a mortal; and as a matter of

contrast--to heighten your powers of appreciation. No doubt the worst

is over for you. I have had to take life by the throat and wring out of

her what little I have. That is what makes life so hopeless, so

terrible. No genius for social reform will ever eliminate the

inequality of personality, of the inner inheritance. Nature meant for

her own sport that a few should live and the rest should die while

still alive."

"Gora, I don't want to sound like the well-meaning friends who tell a

mother when she loses her child that it is better off, but I can't help

reminding you that a very large and able-bodied fairy presided at your

cradle. You have a great gift that I'd give my two eyes for; and you

know perfectly well--or you will soon--that you will get over this and

forget that Gathbroke ever existed, while you are creating men to suit

yourself." Her incisive mind drove straight to the truth. "You will

write better than ever. Possibly the reason that you have not reached

the great public is because your work lacks humanity, sympathy. You

never lived before. You were all intellect. Now you have had a terrific

upheaval and you seem to have experienced about everything, including

the impulse to murder. Most writers would appear to live uneventful

lives judging from their extremely dull biographies. But they must have

had the most tremendous inner adventures and soul-racking

experiences--the big ones--or they couldn't have written as they

did.... This must be the more true in regard to women."

Gora continued to stare at her. The words sank in. Her clear intellect

appreciated the truth of them but they afforded her no consolation. All

emotion had died out of her. She felt beaten, helpless.

She was obliged to look up as she watched Alexina's subtly transfigured

face, fascinated. It made her feel even her physical insignificance;

the more as she had lost the flesh that had given her short stature a

certain majesty.

"Oh, life is unjust, unjust." She no longer spoke with bitterness,

merely as one forced to state an inescapable fact. "Injustice! The root

of all misfortune."

"Life is a hard school but where she has strong characters to work on

she turns out masterpieces. You will be one of them, Gora. And I fancy

that women born with great gifts were meant to stand alone and to be

trained in that hard school. It is only when women of your sort have a

passing attack of the love germ that they imagine they could go through

life as a half instead of a whole. When you are in the full tide of

your powers with the public for a lover I fancy you will look back upon

this episode with gratitude, if you remember it at all."

"Perhaps. But that, is a long way off! I have just been told that the

order of fiction with which my mind is packed at present is not wanted.

It has been contemptuously rejected by the American public as 'war

stuff.'"

"Good heaven! That _is_ a misfortune!"

For a moment Alexina was aghast. Here was the real tragedy. She almost

prayed for inspiration, for it lay with her to readjust Gora to life.

To no one else would Gora ever give her confidence.

"I don't believe for a moment," she said, "that the intelligent public

will ever reject a great novel or story dealing with the war. The

masterly treatment of any subject, the new point of view, the swift

compelling breathless drama that is your peculiar gift, must triumph

over any mood of the moment. Moreover, when you are back in California

you will see these last four years in a tremendous perspective. And no

contrast under heaven could be so great. You probably won't hear the

war mentioned once a month. No doubt much that crowds your mind now

will cease to interest the productive tract of your brain and you will

write a book with the war as a mere background for your new and

infinitely more complete knowledge of human psychology. No novel of any

consequence for years to come will be written without some relationship

to the war. Stories long enough to be printed in book form perhaps, but

not the novel: which is a memoir of contemporary life in the form of

fiction. No writer with as great a gift as yours could have anything

but a great destiny. Go back to California and bang your typewriter and

find it out for yourself."

For the first time something like a smile flitted over Gora's drawn

face. "Perhaps. I hope you are right. I don't think I could ever really

lose faith in that star." She was thinking: Oh, yes! I'll go back to

California as quickly as I can get there--as a wounded animal crawls

back to its lair.

She would have encircled the globe three times to get to it. _Her

state_. To her it was what family and friends and home and children

were to another. It was literally the only friend she had in the world.

She would have flown to it if she could, sure of its beneficence.

"I shall go as soon as I can get passage," she said. "And you?"

"I must go too unless I can get a divorce here. I shall know that in a

few days."

"Well, we travel on different steamers if you do go! I shall stop off

at Truckee and go to Lake Tahoe. It will be a long while before I go to

any place that reminds me of you. I no longer want to kill you but I

want to forget you. Good-by."

CHAPTER XV

When she reached the foot of the hill she turned and looked back.

Alexina was standing in one of the jagged window casements of the

church. The bright warm sun was overhead in a cloudless sky. Its liquid

careless rays flooded the ruin. Alexina's tall white figure, the soft

blue of her hat forming a halo about her face, was bathed in its light;

a radiant vision in that shattered town whose very stones cried out

against the injustice of life.

Alexina, who was feeling like anything but a madonna in a stained glass

window, waved a questing hand.

"The fortunate of earth!" thought Gora.

She set her lips grimly and walked across the valley with a steady

stride. At least she could be one of the strong.

THE END