DINNER FOR TWO
I was prepared for fear, for distress, for pleading as I confronted
Miss Falconer; the one thing I hadn’t expected was that she should
seem pleased at the meeting, but she did. She flushed a little, smiled
brightly, and held out her gloved hand to me.
“Why, Mr. Bayne! I am so glad!” she exclaimed in frankly cordial tones.
The crass coolness of her tactics, with its implied rating of my
intelligence, was the very bracer I needed for a most unpleasant task. I
accepted her hand, bowed over it formally, and released it. Then I spoke
with the most impersonal courtesy in the world.
“And I,” I declared coolly, “am delighted, I assure you. It is great
luck meeting you like this; and I will not let you slip away. I suppose
that when we board the train they will serve us a meal of some sort.
Won’t you give me the pleasure of having you for my guest?”
The brightness had left her face as she sensed my attitude. She drew
back, regarding me in a rebuffed, bewildered way.
“Thank you, no. I am not hungry.”
By Jove, but she was an actress! I should have sworn I had hurt her if I
hadn’t known the truth.
“Don’t say that!” I protested. “Of course it is unconventional to dine
with a stranger; but then so is almost everything that is happening to
you and me. Think of those lord high executioners in there round the
table. See this platform with its guards and bayonets and guns. And then
remember our odd experiences on the _Re d’Italia_. Won’t you risk one
more informality and come and dine?”
She hesitated a moment, watching me steadily; then, with proud
reluctance, she walked beside me toward the train.
“You helped me once,” she said, her eyes averted now, “and I haven’t
forgotten. I don’t understand at all,--but I shall do as you say.”
The passengers were being herded aboard by eager, bustling officials.
I saw my baggage and the girl’s installed, disposed of the porters, and
guided my companion to the _wagon_ restaurant. The horn was sounding as
we entered, and at six-thirty promptly, just as I put Miss Falconer in
her chair, we pulled out of the snowy station of Modane.
As I studied the menu, the girl sat with lowered lashes, all things
about her, from her darkened eyes and high head to her pallor,
proclaiming her feeling of offense, her sense of hurt. She knew her
game, I admitted, and she had first-class weapons. Though she could not
weaken my resolution, she made my beginning hard.
“We are going to have a discouraging meal,” I gossiped
procrastinatingly. “But, since we are in France, it will be a little
less horrible than the usual dining-car. The wine is probably hopeless;
I suggest Evian or Vichy. These radishes look promising. Will you have
some?”
“No. I am not hungry,” she repeated briefly. “Won’t you please tell me
what you have to say?”
Though I didn’t in the least want them, I ate a few of the radishes just
to show that I was not abashed by her haughty, reproachful air. Other
passengers were strolling in. Here was Mr. John Van Blarcom, who, at the
sight of Miss Falconer and myself to all appearances cozily established
for a tete-a-tete meal, stopped in his tracks and fastened on me the
hard, appraising scrutiny that a policeman might turn on a hitherto
respectable acquaintance discovered in converse with some notorious
crook. For an instant he seemed disposed to buttonhole me and
remonstrate. Then he shrugged his stocky shoulders, the gesture
indicating that one can’t save a fool from his folly, and established
himself at a near-by table, from which coign of vantage he kept us under
steady watch.
Given such an audience, my outward mien must be impeccable.
“There is something,” I admitted cautiously, “that I want to say to you.
But I wish you would eat something first. People are watching us,” I
added beneath my breath as the soup appeared.
She took a sip under protest, and then replaced her spoon and sat with
fingers twisting her gloves and eyes fixed smolderingly on mine. I
shifted furtively in my seat. This was a charming experience. I was
being, from my point of view, almost quixotically generous; yet with one
glance she could make me feel like a bully and a brute.
“I am sure,” I stumbled, fumbling desperately with my serviette, “that
you came over without realizing what war conditions are. Strangers
aren’t wanted just now. Travel is dangerous for women. You may think me
all kinds of a presumptuous idiot,--I shan’t blame you,--but I am going
to urge you most strongly to go home.”
Whatever she had looked for, obviously it was not that.
“Mr. Bayne,” she exclaimed, regarding me wonderingly, “what do you
mean?”
“Just this, Miss Falconer,” I answered with almost Teutonic
ruthlessness. Confound it! I couldn’t sit here forever bullying her;
sheer desperation lent me strength. “The _Espagne_ sails from Bordeaux
on Saturday, I see by the Herald, and if I were you, I should most
certainly be on board. In fact, if you lose the chance, I am sure you’ll
regret it later. The French police authorities are--er--very inquisitive
about foreigners; and if you stop in France in these anxious times, I
think it likely that they may--well--”
She drew a quick, hard breath as I trailed off into silence. Her eyes,
darkened, horrified, were gazing full into mine.
“You wouldn’t tell them about me! You couldn’t be so cruel!” The words
came almost fiercely, yet with a sound like a stifled sob.
By its sheer preposterousness the speech left me dumb a moment, and then
gave me back the self-possession I had been clutching at throughout
the meal. For the first time since entering I sat erect and squared my
shoulders. I even confronted her with a rather glittering smile.
“I am very sorry,” I said, with a cool stare, “if I appear so; but I am
consideration itself compared with the people you would meet in Paris,
say. That’s the very point I’m making--that you can’t travel now
in comfort. I’m simply trying to spare you future contretemps, Miss
Falconer; such as I had on the _Re d’Italia_, you may recall.”
She leaned impulsively across the table.
“Oh, Mr. Bayne, I knew it! You are angry about that wretched extra, and
you have a right to be. Of course you thought it cowardly of me--yes,
and ungrateful--to stand there without a word and let those officers
question you. Mr. Bayne, if the worst had come to the worst, I should
have spoken, I should, indeed; but I had to wait. I had to give myself
every chance. It meant so much, so much! You had nothing to hide
from them. You were certain to win through. And then, you seemed so
undisturbed, so unruffled, so able to take care of yourself; I knew you
were not afraid. It was different with me. If they began to suspect, if
they learned who I was, I could never have entered France. This route
through Italy was my one hope! I am so sorry. But still--”
Hitherto she had been appealing; but now she defied frankly. That tint
of hers, like nothing but a wild rose, drove away her pallor; her gray
eyes flamed.
“But still,” she flashed at me, “you won’t inform on me just for that?
I asked you to help me; you were free to refuse--and you agreed! Because
it inconvenienced you a little, are you going to turn police agent?” Her
red lips twisted proudly, scornfully. “I don’t believe it, Mr. Bayne!”
I laughed shortly. She was indeed an artist.
“I wasn’t thinking of that particular episode--” I began.
“But you did resent it. I saw it when you first joined me. And I was
so glad to see you--to have the chance of thanking you!” she broke in,
smoldering still.
“No, I didn’t resent it. I didn’t even blame you. If I blamed any one,
Miss Falconer, it would certainly be myself. I’ve concluded I ought
not to go about without a keeper. My gullibility must have amused you
tremendously.” I laughed.
“I never thought you gullible,” she denied, suddenly wistful. “I thought
you very generous and very chivalrous, Mr. Bayne.”
This was carrying mockery too far.
“I am afraid,” I said meaningly, “that the authorities at Gibraltar
would take a less flattering view. For instance, if those Englishmen
learned that I had refrained from telling them of our meeting at the St.
Ives, I should hear from them, I fancy.”
Again her eyes were widening. What attractive eyes she had!
“The St. Ives?” she repeated wonderingly. “Why should that interest
them? What do you mean?” Then, suddenly, she bent forward, propped
her elbows on the table, and amazed me with a slow, astonished,
comprehending smile. “I see!” she murmured, studying me intently. “You
thought that I screened the man who hid those papers, that I crossed the
ocean on--similar business, perhaps even that on this side I was to take
the documents from your trunk?”
“Naturally,” I rejoined stiffly. “And I congratulate you. It was a
brilliant piece of work; though, as its victim, I fail to see it in the
rosiest light.”
“I understand,” she went on, still smiling faintly. “You thought I
was--well--Look over yonder.”
Her glance, seeking the opposite wall unostentatiously, directed my
attention to a black-lettered, conspicuously posted sign:
BE SILENT!
BE MISTRUSTFUL!
THE EARS OF THE ENEMY ARE LISTENING!
Thus it shouted its warning, like the thousands of its kind that are
scattered about the trains, the boats, the railroad stations, and all
the public places of France.
“You thought I was the ears of the enemy, didn’t you?” the girl was
asking. “You thought I was a German agent. I might have guessed! Well,
in that case it was kind of you not to hand me over to the Modane
gendarmes. I ought to thank you. But I wasn’t so suspicious when they
searched your trunk and found the papers--I simply felt that they must
be crazy to think you could be a spy.”
I achieved a shrug of my shoulders, a polite air of incredulity; but, to
tell the truth, I was a little less skeptical than I appeared. There was
something in her manner that by no means suggested pretense. And she
had said a true word about the occurrences on the _Re d’Italia_. If
appearances meant facts, I myself had been proved guilty up to the hilt.
“Mr. Bayne,” she was saying soberly, “I should like you to believe
me--please! I am an American, and I have had cause lately to hate the
Germans; all my bonds are with our own country and with France. There is
some one very dear to me to whom this war has worked a cruel injustice.
I have come to try to help that person; and for certain reasons--I can’t
explain them--I had to come in secret or not at all. But I have done
nothing wrong, nothing dishonorable. And so”--again her eyes challenged
me--“I shall not sail from Bordeaux on the _Espagne_ on Saturday; and
you shall choose for yourself whether you will speak of me to the French
police.”
It was not much of an argument, regarded dispassionately; yet it shook
me. With sudden craftiness I resolved to trap her if I could.
“I ought to tell them on the mere chance that they would send you home,”
I grumbled irritably. “You have no business here, you know, helping
people and being suspected and pursued and outrageously annoyed by
fools like me. Yes, and by other fools--and worse,” I added with feigned
sulphurousness, indicated Van Blarcom. “Miss Falconer, would you mind
glancing at the third man on the right--the dark man who is staring at
us--and telling me whether or not you ever saw him before you sailed?”
“I am sure I never did,” she declared, knitting puzzled brows; “and yet
on the _Re d’Italia_ he insisted that we had met. It frightened me a
little. I wondered whether or not he suspected something. And every time
I see him he watches me in that same way.”
I was thawing, despite myself.
“There’s one other thing,” I ventured, “if you won’t think me too
impertinent: Did you ever hear of a man named Franz von Blenheim?”
“No,” she said blankly; “I never did. Who is he?”
No birds out of that covert! If this was acting it was marvelous; there
had not been the slightest flicker of confusion in her face.
“Oh, he isn’t anybody of importance--just a man,” I evaded. “Look here,
Miss Falconer, you’ll have to forgive me if you can. You shall stay in
Paris, and I’ll be as silent as the grave concerning you; but I’d like
to do more than that. Won’t you let me come and call? Really, you
know, I’m not such a duffer as you have cause to think me. After we got
acquainted you might be willing to trust me with this business, whatever
it is. And then, if it’s not too desperate, I have friends who could be
of help to you.” Such was the sop I threw to conscience, the bargain
I struck between sober reason and the instinct that made me trust her
against all odds. My theories must have been moonshine. Everything was
all right, probably. But for the sake of prudence I ought to keep track
of her. Besides, I wanted to.
Gratitude and consternation, a most becoming mixture, were in her eyes.
She drew back a little.
“Oh, thank you, but that’s impossible,” she said uncertainly. “I have
friends, too; but they can’t help me. Nobody can.”
“Well,” I admitted sadly, “I know the rudiments of manners. I can
recognize a conge, but consider me a persistent boor. Come, Miss
Falconer, why mayn’t I call? Because we are strangers? If that’s it, you
can assure yourself at the embassy that I am perfectly respectable; and
you see I don’t eat with my knife or tuck my napkin under my chin or
spill my soup.”
Again that warm flush.
“Mr. Bayne!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Did I need an introduction to
speak to you on the ship, to ask unreasonable favors of you, to make
people think you a spy? If you are going to imagine such absurd things,
I shall have to--”
“To consent? I hoped you might see it that way.”
“Of course,” she pondered aloud, “I may find good news waiting. If I do,
it will change everything. I could see you once, at least, and let you
know. I really owe you that, I think, when you’ve been so kind to me.”
“Yes,” I agreed bitterly, with a pang of conscience, “I’ve been very
kind--particularly to-night!”
“Well, perhaps to-night you were just a little difficult.” She was
smiling, but I didn’t mind; I rather liked her mockery now. “Still, even
when you thought the worst of me, Mr. Bayne, you kept my secret. And--do
you really wish to come to see me?”
“I most emphatically do.”
She drew a card from her beaded bag, rummaged vainly for a pencil, ended
by accepting mine, and scribbled a brief address.
“Then,” she commanded, handing me the bit of pasteboard, “come to this
number at noon to-morrow and ask for me. And now, since I’m not to go to
prison, Mr. Bayne, I believe I am hungry. This is war bread, I suppose;
but it tastes delicious. And isn’t the saltless butter nice?”
“And here are the chicken and the salad arriving!” I exclaimed
hopefully. “And there never was a French cook yet, however unspeakable
otherwise, who failed at those.”
What had come to pass I could not have told; but we were eating
celestial viands, and my black butterflies having fled away, a swarm of
their gorgeous-tinted kindred were fluttering radiantly over Miss Esme
Falconer’s plate and mine.