Kendall had paid little attention to Andree’s assertion that she had
seen Maude Knox in Paris, yet on Monday he received a _petit bleu_ from
her informing him that she was again at the Hôtel Wagram and would be
delighted to have him call that evening if he were free. At his first
reading of the note Maude Knox seemed to him an intrusion. Somehow be
rather resented her existence because, subconsciously, he knew that
association with her was going to be disquieting. It would give rise to
argument within himself and to speculations upon the future which he
would have liked to avoid. He was satisfied and as happy as he had ever
been in his life—and Maude was a complication. If Maude Knox had been
less important in his life he would have welcomed her more heartily.
However, as he thought more and more of her presence, he found himself
desiring greatly to see her. There was something sympathetic and
dependable about her, something that he could understand and approve.
She was American, thoroughly American. Yes, by all means, he wished to
see her, but he would hold himself in restraint. They should not become
at all personal, and he would watch the conversation carefully to see
that it did not turn any unexpected corners or wander down lanes ending
in disagreeable obstacles to be cleared.
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be decent to her,” he told himself,
speciously. “She’s probably lonesome, and we are both Americans....” He
remembered the hour or so he had spent with her in Montreuil, and how he
had come away from her in a state of perplexity, wondering if it were
possible for a man to love two women at the same time.... “It isn’t
that,” he told himself. “I love Andree and nobody but Andree ... but
that’s no reason I shouldn’t see Maude. Anyhow, she’ll be here only a
day or so....”
The truth of the matter was that, without realizing it, Kendall did not
trust himself. He was afraid that a thing might happen which he was in a
queer sort of way half willing should happen—that he might fall in love
with Maude Knox or that he might realize in her presence that he
actually was in love with her. It was a singular position. Undoubtedly
he loved Andree—but how? That he did not ask himself. He loved her, he
had a sort of reverence for her, and he had besides a real friendship
for her, but—He would inevitably have reached that _but_ if he had
allowed himself to analyze his love for her.... A man may have one child
and love it with a love which he fancies is boundless and exclusive. He
may believe that every fraction of the love he has to give belongs to
that child, and he may resent the coming of a second child and look upon
it as an interloper. But very shortly he finds himself loving the
new-comer not one whit less than the first-born.... If love can become
miraculous in this manner—inexhaustible like the loaves and fishes—with
respect to children, cannot it be the same with respect to women?
Kendall had seen the first develop in the case of a friend, had heard
the friend speak in confidence before the coming of his second child,
and had observed him after the passage of a few weeks. He took it as the
basis of an argument and, using it as a stepping-stone, reached a
conclusion which was disturbing ... but not lacking in a certain
allurement.... And what of countries where there are plural marriages?
How in the case of a man lawfully possessed of more than one wife? Does
such a man love all, or only one, or none?...
It was in this uncertain frame of mind that he went to the Wagram and
called Maude Knox’s room on the rather difficult house telephone.
“Captain Ware!...” said her voice. “I hardly expected you, but it’s good
of you to have come. I’ll be right down.”
She appeared presently, not in her uniform, but in such a dress as she
might have worn at home in America when going out for the evening with a
young gentleman.
“What are you doing in Paris?” he demanded. “I thought you were busy
being the queen of the doughboys.”
“The division’s being moved, I don’t know where, and I was sent in to
wait for orders. Some of our men marched on the Fourth.”
“I suppose it seems good to get back into the world again.”
“Anybody can be in Paris,” she said. “I’ve been having the time of my
life—and, really, I think I was some good. I believe I was. The men
liked to have me there.”
“Naturally.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Do I understand that you are taking me to
dinner?”
“You do. Where shall it be?”
“Anywhere, so long as there is food I don’t have to cook myself.... I’ve
been living on things out of cans—except when the officers’ mess had
something particularly good and sent some over.”
“It hasn’t hurt you a bit.... You look mighty well.” He was thinking
that she did look very well, indeed. Not exactly beautiful, but
satisfyingly good-looking—the way he liked to see a girl look. A fellow
might be proud to be seen with her. She showed class....
“How about the Continental?” he asked.
“I’d like it. I’ve never eaten there.”
They passed out of the hotel and strolled up the rue de Rivoli to the
rue Royale, and then dodged careless taxi-cabs to cross the broad avenue
which stretched with an air of pride to the face of the Madeleine. Two
or three American officers were loitering about the entrance to the
Continental, and Ken experienced a sense of satisfaction as he became
conscious of their surreptitious stares of admiration at his
companion.... They traversed the court and entered the big dining-room
which stretched along the rue de Rivoli and through whose windows one
may look out upon the Place de la Concorde and across the river to the
Palais Legislatif. The occupants of the room were mostly
Americans—officers, officials of the Red Cross, and women of that
organization and the Y. M. C. A.
“What have you been doing? Tell me all the news,” Maude said, as they
seated themselves at a table close to the windows.
“I?... Working as usual, and there isn’t any news. Never come to the war
if you want news of the war. I knew a lot more about it when I was back
in Detroit than I do in Paris.”
“Our division was full of rumors of a big American offensive.”
“And Paris is full of rumors of a big German offensive. It was to have
started on the fourth of July, but now it has been postponed to the
fourteenth—Bastille Day.... You can hear anything.”
“I think something is going to happen. The Blue Devils are up the other
side of Meaux. I’ve seen them. Everybody tells me their presence is a
sign that something is going to happen.”
“Frankly, I don’t believe it. If anything comes I think it will be a
German attack. I don’t look for the Allies to do much before spring—”
“When our aeroplanes get here?” she interjected. “My! but our boys have
grumbled about aeroplanes. It makes them irritable to see German planes
buzzing around.”
“Don’t blame them. There are rumors about aeroplanes, too. A _poilu_
asked me the other day if it was true that we had twenty thousand of
them over here.”
The conversation was following a matter-of-fact, commonplace, impersonal
lane—just such a way as Ken had determined it should follow. Yet he was
dissatisfied with it. He felt that it lacked something, and that,
consequently, Maude and himself were not getting the most out of each
other’s company. He had resolved not to talk about himself nor about
Maude nor about the sentiments they inspired in each other, but he found
himself wanting to do so. The staple, as well as the most absorbing,
topic for any young person is himself. It becomes doubly absorbing if
two young persons can join and discuss _themselves_ and their reactions
to each other.... Maude seemed a trifle bored, he thought. Then,
suddenly and with a touch of impatience, she said:
“What has been happening to _you_?... And that pretty little girl? What
was her name?”
She, too, seemed to desire to alter the character of the conversation.
Nothing had been happening to him—at least that he could tell her about.
He insisted that life had been a dull affair of work and sleep for him.
“Nonsense! I’m interested.... Oh, I remember her name—it was Andree.
Tell me about Andree.”
“She’s a mighty nice little girl. I see her every now and then.”
“Every now and then,” she mocked. “When did you see her last?”
“Yesterday.”
“And before that?”
“I was away for a few days.”
“But you saw her the night before you went away?”
“Yes.”
“And if I hadn’t interfered you’d have seen her to-night.”
“No—we had no engagement for to-night.”
She laughed. “You’re not especially subtle. Are you really in love with
this girl?... Do tell me all about her. I know I’m prying and
curious—but—Oh, I’m just curious about her.”
“I—there’s nothing to tell.”
“There must be. How is she different from us American girls? She seemed
very attractive—and sweet.”
“She says the difference between French and American girls is that you
don’t know how to dress your feet,” he said, with an uneasy laugh. It
rather pleased him that Maude looked blank an instant and then made an
evident effort to look at her footgear. “Do you want to go to the Casino
or some other place to-night?”
“Not until I’ve found out more about your friend. You know I liked her
looks very much.... Why can’t I meet her? She wouldn’t be jealous, would
she? You did introduce her, you know. Can’t we have a little party—the
three of us?”
“No,” he said, with flat finality in his voice.
“Why?”
He did not want to reply, did not know what to reply. The reason that he
did not even want to put into definite thought was that Maude ought not
to meet Andree—because Andree was to him what she was.... Maude was an
American girl, a compatriot living under the laws of the Medes and the
Persians, and it would not be proper for her to associate with Andree.
“Why?” she repeated. “You said she was _nice_.” She accented the _nice_.
“If you don’t let me meet her I shall think she isn’t nice at all—and a
great many other things.”
“She is nice,” he said, sullenly. “She’s good.... You wouldn’t
understand her. I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody who was as good as
Andree—really good.... But ...”
“I think I understand,” she said, slowly. “It was really what I wanted
to know.” She frowned a trifle and became thoughtful. Then: “You know I
said before that—that I didn’t blame these girls.... It’s the war—and
their men being killed—and—Well, there’s something in the air.... I
don’t suppose I shall ever understand them, or be able to see as they
see—but I’m—well, I have a lot of sympathy.... A great many of us are
going to look at things more broadly when we get home to America. We had
never come into contact with other standards and other ways of trying
for happiness.... I know I’m talking in a muddle, but I hope you
understand. What I mean is that I wouldn’t object to meeting Andree....”
“In Paris,” said Ken.
“In Paris? What do you mean?”
“Would you be willing to meet her in New York or Cleveland or Chicago?”
She wrinkled her brows. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
“Here she would be just one of the sights of France—an experience. Well,
I’m not going to have her on exhibition, like Notre Dame.”
“It isn’t that. It isn’t curiosity.... Really, I don’t know just what it
is, but I want to be acquainted with her. I think it is so I can find
out if it is really true that she—that she can live as she does and
still be—_nice_.”
“I tell you she is nice.”
“But you are in love with her? Aren’t you in love with her? Somehow that
makes a difference. It would seem sordid and inexcusable if you
weren’t.”
“I am very fond of her.”
“Do you _love her_?”
“Yes,” he said, desperately.
She was just picking up her fork. At his words it dropped and her lips
compressed, but he did not notice. Perhaps he would have attached no
significance to these signals if he had noticed, because he was fully
occupied in thinking about himself. He had never taken time to consider
Maude Knox’s possible feelings toward himself, although he had more than
once tried in an inconclusive way to assay his own sentiments toward
Maude. Not that he was exceptionally selfish or self-centered. He was
only at that stage in his relations with Maude when he was trying to
make out what those relations might develop into. Until a young man is
fairly sure he wants a young woman very much he does not start to worry
about whether she will want him.
And Maude ... she had advanced a trifle farther than Ken, perhaps. Ken
had attracted her from the first, and, peculiarly enough, the rather
open mystery of his affair with Andree had made him a more striking
figure, if not more desirable. It had accented him.... She had never
confessed to herself that she wanted to establish proprietary rights in
Ken, but she did realize that he was of some importance to her. He was
the one individual in Paris that she had been anxious to see. When she
had been ordered to Paris her first thought had been that she would see
Ken. These things were only indicative. They proved nothing to her....
But when she heard Ken baldly admit that he loved Andree she was close
to proof. Undoubtedly it had been a shock and an unpleasant shock. Ken
was more important to her than she had supposed. She was glad that the
waiter appeared at that moment with the _viande_, for it gave her an
excuse for silence and attention to her plate.
She wondered if this feeling were jealousy.... Then she repeated to
herself, “He loves this girl,” and refused to believe it, and then was
doubtful, and then was afraid.... Other aspects of the affair did not
present themselves to her then—only the fact that this man, who might
have been, whom she wanted to be, something to her, was in love with
another woman, an alien, a Frenchwoman. Then she asserted to herself,
“It’s only an affair....” There was some comfort and promise in this.
She looked up suddenly. “What are you going to do, Ken?” she asked. “Are
you going to marry her?”
He stammered, hesitated. This was very disquieting. She had no right to
ask such a question. “I—I’ve never thought about marriage—in connection
with Andree,” he said. He was almost honest in his statement. They two
had been living in the present, had eaten of the lotus, and the future
was only a vague time that might have to be faced when it arrived. He
had been living in a world which was not a world of reality. It had been
a species of imaginary world into which practical matters like marriage
do not obtrude.
“You don’t think of—of settling in France? I hear some of the men say
they want to.”
“No.” He was certain of that. America was his home, and the homing
instinct was strong in him. He was a citizen of the United States, and
it seemed unnatural and impossible for him to give up that citizenship.
To do so appeared to him to be in the same category as divorcing a wife,
a thing which seemed incredible to him. But to leave America
permanently, to become a citizen of some other country, seemed more
impossible than divorce. It was simply an act so absurd as to be beyond
consideration. This was not patriotism, but a habit of mind. He was an
American, and it was a natural impossibility to become anything
else—that was it.
“Then, if you married her, you would take her home?”
“Let’s not talk about it,” he said, uncomfortably, for this opened up a
field of disagreeable apprehensions that he did not want to undertake.
“We’re talking too much about me. Let’s talk about something else.”
“But I want to talk about you.... I’m afraid—afraid you’re getting into
an entanglement that will be—a bad thing for you.... If you do marry
this girl and take her home, what will your people say? How will your
friends receive her?... Because the story would leak out. It would be
sure to leak out. People know about you. Your chum knows, and others
know....”
“Andree is good,” he said, “and it doesn’t make any difference what
people think.”
“Not in Paris. But in America it would make a lot of difference.... She
would be whispered about and talked about—and people might—might refuse
to receive her.”
He was angry now. “People are rotten and narrow. Andree is better than
all of them put together. What do I care for what they say or think?”
“You would care a great deal—and so would she. She would soon find out
what people were thinking. Here she may be able to go along and believe
that she is not doing anything wrong. Mind, I don’t say she is bad. I’m
almost able to sympathize with her. If I weren’t your friend, if I
didn’t know you, and this were all happening to a stranger, I’m sure I
should be able to understand and not to blame her.... As it is, I’m
truly sorry for her.... But I do know you, and that makes it seem
different. Things are always different when they strike close to
home....”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, she would find herself in a different world, a world that lives
in a different way, and that world would make her feel as if she had
done wrong, and she would be very unhappy....”
“I don’t believe it. Not if I were with her.”
“But you—when you get home _you_ will think differently about this....
You wouldn’t marry an American girl who had—done as Andree has done....
Would you?”
He thought briefly. “No,” he said, honestly.
“So, if you married her, you would begin to think about that some
day.... You would.... And you would wonder what she had done before she
met you—if—if you had been the only man she ever loved. Don’t you
see?...”
“I don’t see. I know her. You don’t know her at all. You don’t know how
sweet and gentle and decent she is. You don’t know how she thinks....
She is wonderful....” He was loyal, at least, and she could not help
being glad of it. Loyalty was a quality she especially admired.
“She may be all of that, Ken, but it wouldn’t matter. Other people
wouldn’t know it and wouldn’t believe it.... Your mother ...”
His mother!... He knew what his mother would think and what his mother
would do. If he took Andree home his mother would be suspicious of her
because she was French. Then, if the story should leak out, or a hint of
it should be sent to do its slinking work, his mother would hate
Andree—no less. She would make it her business to eliminate Andree and
to render her life unendurable.
With unconscious strategy he made a counterattack. “And you,” he said,
“would you marry a man who had—had that sort of an experience?”
She looked up at him suddenly to determine if there were anything
personal in this question, but could not make up her mind.
“I—I don’t know.... I—I’ve never imagined—”
“Of course not.... But you might have to imagine it. Suppose you were in
love with a man—suppose you were in love with me”—she concealed a gasp
at his clumsiness—“would you marry me?”
She tried to protect herself, and said, with a forced laugh, “Am I to
consider this as a proposal?”
He disregarded her flippancy. “I suppose I shall marry some day, and if
it isn’t Andree—if it is some American girl like you—what will she
think? I want to know. You have asked me a lot of questions, and that
sort of gives me the right to ask you this one: Would you marry me?”
“I can’t answer—now. I don’t know.... I don’t think so.... I should have
to think....”
He regarded her. Mentally he paid her the compliment of thinking that
she was a splendid type. He could not help thinking that she was just
such a girl as he would like to marry and to live with always. She
exerted an attraction that drew him toward her strongly.... A wife! She
would be a splendid wife, a wife that his mother would receive joyfully,
about whom there could not be the slightest question.... He wondered if
she liked him at all—and that was a sign and a portent. Suddenly the
answer to her question became of large importance to him. He leaned over
the table and looked into her eyes—and saw her cheeks color under his
gaze.
“I wish you would think,” he said, slowly, “and tell me what you think—”
Then he added something he had not at all intended to say: “And tell me
if it is possible for a man to love two girls at the same time....”