Marian rushed in upon them at luncheon next day, glowing with
excitement, to announce that she would leave that night for New York on
her way to France.
"I'm going as a correspondent, of course. I never dreamed that I could
pull it off. But the United Press has come through with credentials.
Girls, when I get over there, stories or no stories, I'm going to do
something to help. I'm going to find a place where I'll be useful."
"Wait till to-morrow," said Dodo, quietly. "I'll go with you as far
as Washington." Smiling at their stunned faces, she explained, still
unruffled: "I've been thinking about it for some time. My assistants
can keep things going here till I can arrange to put in some one else.
I don't know whether this country's going into the war or not, but if
it does, I want to be in the heart of things. I'd be no good in France,
but I can do something in our own Department of Labor."
Two days later they were gone. Helen's own wistfulness was echoed in
Willetta's mournful exclamation: "Lucky dogs! What wouldn't I give! But
there's no use. The East is no place to bring up children, even if
I could afford to take a chance, with the infant to think about. Oh,
well, you girls'll come back twenty years from now to find me in the
same old grind."
"Never mind, Willie dear. I'll be right here the rest of my life,
too," said Helen, and for a moment Paul's name was on her lips. She
felt that speaking of him would be a defense against her own illogical
depression, and these girls would understand. It would not even occur
to them that legally she was still another man's wife. But Willetta's
"Oh, you! You're going to leave all the rest of us a million miles
behind!" silenced her.
"None of us have developed the way you have in this one year," said
Willetta. "If you knew what I hear everywhere about your work!" Though
she knew in her heart that she would never be a great writer, praise
for her work always gave Helen a throb of deep delight.
Two weeks later she sat in Mr. Hayden's office listening to a
suggestion that left her breathless.
"Why don't you go to the Orient?" Mr. Hayden's eyes, usually faintly
humorous, were quite serious. "There's a big field there right now. The
undercurrents in Shanghai, Japan's place in the war, the developments
in Mesopotamia or Russia. France is done to death already. Every one's
writing from there. But the East is still almost untouched. There's a
big opportunity there for some one."
"Do you think I could handle it?"
"Of course you could. It's a matter of being on the ground and
reporting. All it needs is the ability to see things clearly and tell
them graphically. You have that. It would take money, of course. I
don't know how you're fixed for that."
She thought quickly, her pulses leaping.
"With these last two checks--and I have a little coming in from
deferred land commissions--I'd have not quite a thousand dollars."
"Hm--well, it's not much, of course. It would be something of a gamble.
If you want to try it, we'll give you transportation and letters and
take a story a month. And I don't think you'd have any difficulty
finding other markets in the East."
For a moment she tried to consider the question coolly, while pictures
of Chinese pagodas, paper-walled houses of Japan, Siberian prairies,
raced dizzily before her eyes. Then, with a shock of self-accusation,
she remembered.
"I couldn't go. Other arrangements."
"Don't decide too quickly. Think it over. There's a great opportunity
there, and I believe you could handle it. It would make you, as a
magazine writer. If you make up your mind to go, let me know right
away? There's a boat on the twentieth. If you sailed on that, it would
give us time to announce the series for the winter, when our renewals
are coming in."
"I'll think about it," she promised. "But I'm quite sure I can't go."
She walked quickly down the windy street toward Market. The whirling
dust-eddies over the cobbles, the blown scraps of paper, the flapping
of her skirts, seemed part of the miserable confusion in her own mind.
How could she have forgotten Paul even for a moment? She had been
heartless, head-strong, foolish to stay on in San Francisco, trifling
so with the most precious thing in her life. Paul had been superhumanly
patient and kind and unselfish to let her do it. She had never loved
him more deeply than at that moment when with a dim sense of fleeing
to him for refuge she hurried toward a telephone. Her voice trembled
unmanageably when at last his came thin and faint across the wires. She
had to speak twice to make him hear.
"Paul? Oh, Paul! It's Helen.--No, nothing's the matter. Only--I want
to see you. Listen--I want to get away--Can you hear me? I say, I
want to come down there for a while. Would your mother have room
for me?--Right away. I could take the next train.--No, nothing,
only I want to see you." The joy in his voice hurt her. "Why, don't
you know I've always wanted that? You dear!--To-morrow morning,
then.--I'll be glad, too,--so glad! Of course.--Truly, honest and
true.--Foolish!--Good-by--till to-morrow."