AT THE CAFÉ L'ATHÉNÉE
The Café L'Athénée was in a narrow back street and consisted of a
ground floor apartment of moderate size, and a number of small rooms,
most of which were already crowded with diners. There were no
smooth-faced _maîtres d'hôtel_ to conduct new arrivals to a table, no
lift to the upper rooms, no palm-lined stairways, or any of the modern
appurtenances of restaurant life. Kendricks, taking the lead as an
habitué, pushed his way up to the first floor, pushed his way past the
hurrying and perspiring waiters, who did not even stop to answer
questions, and finally pounced upon a table which was just being
vacated by three other people. The two men sat down before the débris
and waited patiently for its removal.
"Don't turn your nose up yet," Kendricks begged. "Wait till you've
tasted the spaghetti. And don't look at the tablecloth as though it
would bite you. They'll put a clean napkin over it directly and you'll
forget all about those stains. This is where one takes off the kid
gloves and deals with the realities of eating and drinking. I am
inclined to think sometimes, Julien, as a humble admirer from a long
way off, that you've worn those kid gloves a little too long."
Julien looked across at his friend. Kendricks was still smoking his
pipe and he was evidently in earnest. It was obvious, too, that he had
more to say.
"You know," he continued, loudly summoning a waiter and pointing to the
table before them, "you know, Julien, I have always had this feeling
about you. I think that life has been made a trifle too easy for you.
You have slipped with so little effort into the polished places. You
never had to take your coat and waistcoat off and try a
rough-and-tumble struggle with life. No man is the worse for it.
Prosperity and smooth-traveling along the easy ways, even though they
come to one as the reward of brainwork, lead to a certain flabbiness in
life, lead to many moments when you have to stop and ask whether things
are worth while, lead sometimes, I think, to that curious neuroticism
from which clever, successful people suffer as well as the butterflies
of fashion. You are up against it now, Julien, real and hard. You don't
feel that you've got a day to live that you care a snap of the fingers
about. You look at what you think are the pieces of your life and you
imagine yourself a gaunt spectator of what has been, gazing down at
them, and you've quite made up your mind that it isn't a bit of good
trying to collect the fragments. Such d----d nonsense, Julien! You may
have made a jolly hash of things as a Cabinet Minister, but that isn't
any reason why you shouldn't make a success of life as a man. Look
here, Carlo," he added, addressing the waiter, "the table d'hôte
dinner--everything, and serve it hot. Bring us fresh butter with our
spaghetti, and a flask of chianti."
"Si, signor!" the man replied, gazing for a moment in wonder at this
shock-headed individual who spoke his own language so perfectly.
Kendricks laid down the menu and glanced across the table at Julien's
face with its slightly weary smile.
"Of course, I know how you're feeling now," he went on,--"rotten!--so
would any one. Try and forget it, try and forget yourself. Look about
you. What do these people do for a living, do you think? They weren't
born with a title. There's no one in this room who went to Eton and
Oxford, played cricket for their university, and lolled their way into
life as you did. Look at them all. The thin chap in the corner is a
barber, got a small shop of his own now. I go there sometimes for a
shave. He lived on thirteen shillings a week for six years, while he
saved the money to start for himself. It was touch and go with him
afterwards. In three months he'd nearly lost the lot. He'd married a
little wife who stood behind the counter and had worked almost as hard
as he, but somehow or other the customers wouldn't come. Then she had a
baby, was laid up for a time, he had to engage some one to take her
place, and at that time he had about fifteen shillings left in the
world. I used to be shaved there every day then. I knew all about it. I
used to hear him, when he thought no one was listening, go and call a
cheerful word up the stairs--'Shop full of customers!' 'Sold another
bottle of hair restorer!' or something of that sort. Then some one lent
him a fiver, and, by Jove, he turned the corner! He's doing well now.
That's his wife--the plump little woman who's straightening his tie.
They come here every Wednesday night and they can afford it. Yet he was
up against it badly once, Julien. That's right, look at him, be
interested. He's a common-looking little beast, isn't he?--but he's got
a stout heart."
"I think," Julien said, "that I could guess the name of the man who
lent him the fiver."
"You'd be a mug if you couldn't," Kendricks retorted. "It's doing that
sort of thing that helps you to smile sometimes when the knocks come. I
tell you, Julien, some of the people--these small shopkeepers,
especially--do have the devil of a fight to get their ounce of pleasure
out of life. Nothing's made easy for them. They don't know anything
about that big west-end world, with pleasures tuned up to the latest
pitch, where you do even your work with every luxury at hand to make it
easy. There's a little chap there--an Italian. See him? He's sitting by
the side of the old man with the gray beard. That man's his father.
They both landed over here with scarcely a copper. The young fellow
worked like a slave--sixteen shillings a week I think he was getting,
and he kept the old man on it. Then he lost his job, couldn't get
another. The old man had to go to the workhouse, the young man slept on
the Embankment, ate free soup, picked up scraps, lived on the garbage
heap of life. He pulled himself together, though, got another job,
improved it, saved a few shillings, drove up in a cab and took the old
man out. Look at them now. He's got a little tailor's shop not a
hundred yards from here, and somehow or other one or two people on the
stage--they're a good-hearted lot--have taken him up He gets lots of
work and brings the old man here now and then for a treat. How are you,
Pietro?" he called across the room. "When are you going to send me that
coat along?"
The young man grinned.
"Too many orders to make you that coat, sir," he declared.
Kendricks smiled.
"No one can deny that I need a new coat," he said. "I told Pietro when
things were slack that he could make me one, but he gets lots of orders
now. See the little girl in the corner? She's going out--no, she's
going to stay here; they've found her room at that table. I suppose
you'd turn your nose up at her because she has a lot too much powder on
her cheeks, and you don't like that lace collar around her neck. It
isn't clean, I know, and the make-up on her face is clumsy. Must be
uncomfortable, too, but she's done her best. She's been dancing at the
_Hippodrome_ this afternoon, probably rehearsing afterwards. She's got
an hour now before she goes back to the evening performance. She's
taking the eighteenpenny dinner, you see. She'll get a glass of chianti
free with it. I am in luck to-night. I can tell you about nearly all
these people. Her name is Bessie Hazell--Sarah Ann Jinks, very likely,
but that's what she calls herself, anyway. She married an acrobat two
years ago and they started doing quite well. Then he got a cough, had
to give up work, the doctors all shook their heads at him, wanted to
tell him it was consumption. Bless you, she wouldn't listen to it! She
got him down to Bournemouth somehow and they patched him up. He came
back and started again, caught cold, and had another bad spell. Still,
she wouldn't have it that there was anything serious the matter with
him! He'd be all right, she said, if it weren't for the climate, and
every night she danced, mind--danced twice a day. She's quite clever,
they say--might have done well if she'd only herself to think of and
could spare a little of her money for lessons. Not she! She sent him to
Davos, paid for it somehow. He's back again now. He can't go on the
stage, but he's got a light job somewhere. I don't know that he's
earning anything particular. They've got a baby to keep, but they do it
all right between them. She isn't pleasant to look at, is she? What's
that matter? She's a bit of real life, anyhow."
"Why didn't you bring me here before, Kendricks?" Julien asked.
The man leaned back and laughed.
"Ask yourself that question, not me," he replied. "You--Sir Julien
Portel, caricatured as the best-dressed man in the House of Commons,
member of the most fashionable clubs, brilliant debater, successful
politician, future Prime Minister, and all that sort of twaddle. You
were living too far up in the clouds, my friend, to come down here. You
see, I am not offering you much sympathy, Julien. I don't think you
need it. You were soaring up to the skies just because of your gifts
and your position and your opportunities. You are down now. Well,
you're thundering sorry for yourself. I don't know that I'm sorry for
you. I'll tell you in ten years' time. By Jove, here's your
sandy-headed little friend!"
The man, with the girl upon his arm, had entered the room and had taken
seats at a table in the corner, for which, apparently, they had been
waiting. Julien looked at them curiously.
"Why," he exclaimed suddenly, leaning across the table, "I remember him
now! He's at the shop--I mean he's an Intelligence man."
Kendricks nodded.
"Just the sort of inconspicuous-looking person who could go anywhere
without being noticed."
"I recollect him quite well," Julien continued. "It's not in my
department, of course, but I remember being told he was a very useful
little beggar."
"I should say, without a doubt," Kendricks declared, "that he was at
present working hard for the safety and welfare of the British Empire.
If you've suddenly recognized the man, I'll tell you who the girl is.
She's a manicurist at the Milan."
Julien looked round and watched them for a moment curiously. Again he
noticed that his interest in the young man was at least reciprocated.
"The fellow has recognized me, of course," he said. "You know,
Kendricks, I remember two or three years ago a most amazing item of
news was brought to us--one that made a real difference, too--through a
manicurist."
"Shouldn't be a bit surprised," Kendricks replied.
"Things drop out in the most unexpected places, as you'd find out if
you'd been a journalist."
"She was sent for into the room of some princess--at Claridge's, I
think it was, or one of the west-end hotels--and while she was there a
man came from one of the inner rooms and said a few words in Russian.
The girl had been in St. Petersburg and understood. It made quite a
difference. I remember the story."
"Might have been the same man and the same manicurist," Kendricks
remarked.
Julien shook his head.
"There was trouble about the manicurist," he said, "and she had to
leave the country. She's in South Africa now."
"I can't say that I like the appearance of the fellow," Kendricks
declared. "Don't funk the soup, Julien--it's better than it looks. He's
a slimy-looking sort of chap. I have a theory that the modern sort of
Secret Service agent ought to be a person like myself--breezy and
obvious. Julien, if that girl doesn't stop gazing at you sideways,
you'll be in trouble with your late employee."
Julien looked across at the opposite table. The girl, as he had noticed
before, was stealing frequent glances at him. For some reason or other,
she seemed anxious to attract his attention.
"Quite a conquest!" Kendricks murmured. "Drink some more of that
chianti, man, and bring some color to your cheeks. There's a charming
little manicurist wants to flirt with you. What teeth and what a
smile!"
"Considering that she has been listening to my history for the last
quarter of an hour, I imagine that her interest is of a less
sentimental nature," Julien said. "I have probably been pointed out to
her as the biggest fool in Christendom."
"Not you," Kendricks declared. "I assure you that I am a critic in such
matters. She looks when the young man who is with her is engaged upon
his dinner, or speaking to the waiter. I am not positive, even, that
she wants to flirt, Julien. I think she wants to say something to you."
Julien laughed.
"What shall I do? Present myself? Bah!" he added, almost fiercely. "I
wish the girl would keep her black eyes to herself. I want to tell you
this, Kendricks. You've talked some splendid common sense to me without
going out of your way to do it. I am not going to whine, now or at any
other time, but as long as I live I never want anything more to do with
a woman. That sounds about the most futile and empty-headed thing a man
can say--I know that. But there it is. I tell you the very thought of
them makes me shudder. They're like pampered, highly-groomed animals,
with their mouths open for the tit-bits of life. They have to be fed
with whatever food it may be they crave for, and that's the end of it."
Kendricks motioned with his head across the room to where the little
woman with the blackened eyebrows was eating her dinner.
"What about that?" he asked.
"I don't know anything about that sort," Julien admitted. "What you
told me sounded like one of the things you read of in newspapers and
never believe. I don't believe it. Mind you, I don't say it's false,
but I don't believe it because I have never spoken to the woman whom I
could imagine capable of such unselfishness. If I patch up the pieces
again, Kendricks," he added, and his face was suddenly very dark and
very set--the face of an older man, "whatever cement I use, it won't be
the cement of love or any sentiment whatsoever connected with women."
Kendricks nodded.
"It's my belief," he began, then he stopped short. "Julien," he
continued kindly, "you're nothing but a big baby. You think you've
moved in the big places. So you have, in a way. But there was a hideous
mistake about your life. You've never had to build. No one can climb
who doesn't build first. These ready-made ladders don't count. Now," he
added, dropping his voice and glancing quickly across the room, "you
will have an opportunity to put into force your new and magnificent
principles of misogyny. Our little sandy-headed friend has been
summoned from the room. I saw the _commissionaire_ come up and whisper
in his ear. Mademoiselle is writing a note. A hundred to one it is to
you!"
Julien frowned. He, too, turned his head, and he met the girl's eyes.
She was looking at him curiously. It was not the look of the woman who
invites so much as the look of the woman who appeals for an
understanding, who has something to say. She smiled ever so faintly and
touched with her finger the scrap of paper which she thrust into the
waiter's hand. Then she bent once more over her plate. The man came
across to Julien.
"For you, monsieur," he announced, and laid it by the side of Julien's
plate.
"Read it," Kendricks whispered across the table, for he had been quick
to see his companion's first impulse.
"Why should I?" Julien said coldly. "I have no desire to have anything
to do with that young person. What can she have to say to me?"
"Nevertheless, read it," Kendricks repeated.
Julien unrolled the scrap of paper with reluctant fingers. There were
only a few words written there in hasty pencil:
Monsieur, there is a friend of mine whom you must see. Call at number
17, Avenue de St. Paul and ask for Madame Christophor. Do not attempt
to speak to me. This is for your good.
Julien's fingers were upon the note to destroy it, but again Kendricks
stopped him.
"Julien," he insisted, "don't be an idiot. The little girl knows who
you are. She can't imagine that you are in the humor just now for
flirtations. Put the note in your pocket and call. One can't tell. Your
life has been so artificial that you've probably left off believing in
any adventures outside story-books. My life leads me into different
places and I never neglect an opportunity like that."
"A sister manicurist, I expect," Julien replied scornfully; "a palmist,
or some creature of that sort."
Kendricks hammered upon the table for the waiter.
"One takes one's chances," he agreed, "but I do not think that the
little girl over there would send you upon a fool's errand. There are
other things in life, you know, Julien. You carry in your head
political secrets which would be worth a great deal. There may be
danger in that call."
Julien looked at him with faintly curling lip.
"Tell me exactly what you mean?" he asked.
Kendricks shrugged his shoulders. The waiter had arrived and he gave
him a vociferous order.
"Listen," he said, "I could hand you out a hundred surmises and each
one of them ought to be sufficient to induce you to keep that
appointment. You leave here--shall we say under a cloud?--presumably
disgusted with life, with the Government which gives you no second
chance, with your country which discards you. And you have been
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Can't you conceive that
this woman on whom you are to call might make suggestions to you which
would at least be amusing? Don't look so incredulous, Julien. Remember
you've lived in the stilted places. I haven't. I believe in the
underground world. You must know for yourself that a great deal of the
truth leaks up through the gratings."
"That is true enough," Julien admitted, "but somehow or other--"
"Let it go at that," Kendricks interrupted. "Promise me that you will
call at that address."
Julien laughed.
"Yes, I'll call!" he promised.
"Then look across at the little girl and nod," Kendricks suggested.
"She's watching you all the time anxiously. The man hasn't come back
yet."
Julien turned his head half unwillingly. The girl was leaning across
the table, her eyes fixed steadfastly upon his. Her lips were parted,
her eyebrows were slightly raised, as though in question. She had been
holding a menu before her face to shield her from the casual observer,
but the moment Julien turned his head she lowered it. He inclined his
head slowly. A curious expression of relief took the place of that
appearance of strained anxiety. Her face became natural once more. She
laid down the menu and took a sip of wine from her glass. Kendricks
looked across at Julien and raised his glass to his lips.
"We will drink, my dear Julien," he said, "to your visit to Madame
Christophor, and what may come of it!"