She must have been sitting there for half an hour when the smile
vanished suddenly and the fingers fumbling with the silver bag grew
still. Her face assumed an expression of rigidity, the look of one who
has seen something in which he is not quite able to believe.
Moving toward her down the long vista of crystal and brocade curtains
came a man. He was a big man, tall, massive, handsome in a florid way.
He must have been in his middle fifties, although there was but little
gray in the thick black hair which he wore rather long in a fashion
calculated to attract the notice of passersby. He wore horn-rimmed
spectacles and a flowing black tie in striking contrast to the gray
neatness of his cutaway and checkered waistcoat. Unmistakably he was an
American. His manner carried the same freedom, the identical naive
simplicity which characterized the figure of the vigorous Ellen. He
possessed the same overflowing vitality. Even as Lily stood, silently,
with her back to the tragic spectacle of the square, the vitality
overflowed suddenly in a great explosive laugh and a slap on the back of
a friend he had encountered in the throng. Above the subdued murmur, the
sound of his booming voice reached her.
“Well, well, well!... And what are you doing in wicked Paris? Come to
fix up the peace, I suppose!”
The answer of the stranger was not audible. The pair withdrew from the
path of the procession and talked for a moment. The conversation was
punctuated from time to time by the sudden bursts of laughter from the
man in the checkered waistcoat.
In her corner Lily leaned forward a little in order to see more clearly
the figure which had fascinated her. Presently he turned, bade his
friend good-by and moved away again, coming directly down the vista
toward Lily. He walked with a swinging stride, and as he approached his
large face beamed with satisfaction. He turned his head from side to
side with a patronizing air, an air which to Lily must have been
startlingly familiar. Even twenty years could not have dissipated the
memory of it. It was this which identified him beyond all doubt. He
beamed to right and to left. His whole figure betrayed an enormous
self-satisfaction. It was impossible any longer to doubt. The man was
the Governor. His success was written upon a face now grown heavy and
dark.
When he had advanced to within a few paces of Lily’s corner, she rose
and moved toward him. Only once did she hesitate and then at the very
moment he passed by her. Putting out her hand in a furtive movement, she
withdrew it hastily. He passed and was on his way to disappearing once
more in the throng. For a second she leaned against the wall and then,
as if she could no longer resist the temptation, she moved quickly
forward and touched his shoulder.
“Henry,” she said softly and waited.
The Governor turned and for an instant his face was clouded by a look of
bewilderment. Then slowly, almost breathlessly, he recovered himself.
The beaming look vanished completely, replaced by an expression of the
greatest gravity.
“Lily ...!” he said. “Lily Shane.... For the love of God!”
She drew him aside out of the path of the procession.
“Then you remember me?” she said with a faint, amused smile. “Twenty
years is not such a long time.”
Again he looked at her. “Lily.... Lily Shane!” he said. And he took her
hand and pressed it with a savage, startled warmth.
“I knew you,” she said. “I knew you at once.... There are some things
about a person which never change ... little things which _are_ the
person ... not much ... a gesture perhaps.... You were unmistakable.”
And when he had recovered a little from his astonishment, he managed to
say, “It’s the last place I’d expect to see you.”
Lily laughed at him, in a fashion which must have destroyed suddenly the
wall of twenty years. It was a fashion of laughing which belonged to her
alone. It was provocative, faintly mocking. Willie Harrison knew it
well. “I’ve lived in Paris for the last twenty years,” she retorted with
an amused grimace, “and I’m still here. I will be until I die.”
Spontaneity does not come easily to a conversation between persons
reunited unexpectedly after twenty years; and it was plain that the
circumstances surrounding the separation contributed nothing to the
facility of the conversation. Lily appeared to have forgotten, or at
least to have disregarded the night following the garden party at
Cypress Hill. Her manner was that of an old friend, nothing more,
nothing less. If she knew any shame, she concealed it admirably. Plainly
it was not so easy for her companion. The sudden pallor which had
attacked his florid face gave place to a blushing scarlet. He was like a
little boy caught in a shameful act.
“You haven’t changed much,” she said as if to clear the way, “I mean you
yourself have not changed ... not your figure.”
He laughed. “I’m fatter ... much fatter.”
It was true.
What had once been clearly a barrel-like chest was sunk to the low
estate of a stomach. “But you,” he continued, “You haven’t changed at
all. You’re as young as ever.”
“You still say the right thing, Henry. But it isn’t the truth. I use
rouge now.... I even dye my hair a little. We can’t pretend we’re not
growing old. It’s no use. It’s written.... It’s in our faces.”
The Governor thrust a hand into his pocket and fell to jingling a few
francs and a key ring. With the other hand he took out his watch.
“Couldn’t we find some place to sit?” he said. “We might talk for a
little while.” He coughed nervously. “I haven’t much time.”
At this she again laughed at him. Her laugh had not grown old. It
remained unchanged, still ringing with the same good humor.
“I’ve no intention of keeping you,” she said. “You may go whenever you
like.” For an instant she cast down her eyes. “When I saw you, I
couldn’t resist.... I had to speak to you. Nothing could have prevented
it. I felt, you see, as if I were possessed.”
And then she led him back to the corner by the tall window overlooking
the misty square. It had grown darker and the cold fog now veiled
completely the buildings on the far side of the river. There was only
the great square filled with cannon and helmets and shattered planes and
above the mass of trophies the rigid, eternal obelisk piercing the mist
like a sword.
There they settled themselves to talk, lost in a throng which paid no
heed to the middle-aged couple in the alcove. The Governor remained ill
at ease, sitting forward upon the edge of his chair as if prepared to
spring up and escape at the first opportunity. Lily, so calm, so placid,
appeared only to inspire him with confusion. It may have been that she
aroused a whole train of memories which he had succeeded in forgetting.
For a time, the conversation flowed along the most stiff and
conventional of channels. There were polite inquiries after each other’s
health. Lily told him of her mother’s death, of the fire at Cypress
Hill, of the fact that she had severed the last tie with the Town and
would never return to it.
“Never?” asked the Governor. “Never?”
“No. Why should I? It is not the same. I have nothing there to call me
back. My life is here now. I shall probably die here. The Town is
nothing to me.”
The Governor’s face lighted suddenly. He struck his thigh--a thigh which
had once been so handsome and now was flabby with fat--a sharp blow.
“No, it is not the same. You’ve no idea how it has grown. I was there
about six months ago. It’s twice as big as in the old days. You know,
it’s now one of the greatest steel towns in the world. You’ve a right to
be proud of it.”
But Lily said nothing. She was looking out of the tall window into the
white square.
“And Ellen,” the Governor continued, “I hear she has become famous.” He
laughed. “Who would have thought it? I remember her as a bad-tempered
little girl with pigtails. Of course I know nothing about music. It’s
not in my line. But they say she’s great.”
When she did not answer him, he regarded her silently for a time and
presently he coughed as if to attract her attention. At last he leaned
forward a little and said, “What are you thinking?”
For an instant, an unexpected note of tenderness entered his voice. He
peered at her closely, examining her soft white skin, the soft hair that
escaped from beneath her toque, the exquisite poise of her throat and
head. To this scrutiny Lily put an end by turning with a smile to say,
“Thinking? I was thinking that there is something hopelessly sad about
having no happy realities in the place where you spent your childhood.
You see, if I were to go back, I should find nothing. Cypress Hill
burned.... My Uncle Jacob’s farm buried under new houses, each one like
its neighbor, in ugly cheap rows ... the brook ruined by oil and filth.
Why, even the people aren’t the same. There’s no one I should like to
see except perhaps Willie Harrison, and it’s a long way to go just to
see one person. I was thinking that if I’d been born in France, I would
have had memories of a village and green country and pleasant stone
houses. The people would be the same always.... I couldn’t go back to
the Town now. I couldn’t.... I have memories of it. I wouldn’t want them
spoiled.” For an instant the tears appeared in her eyes. She leaned
toward him and touched his hand. “It’s not that I’m disloyal, Henry.
Don’t think that. It’s that I have nothing to be loyal to ... nothing
that I can cherish but memories. I couldn’t be happy there because
there’s nothing but noise and ugliness. I suppose that somewhere in
America there are towns full of realities that one could love, but they
aren’t in my part of the country. There’s nothing there.” There was a
little pause and she added, “It’s all happened so quickly. Think of
it--it’s all happened since I was a little girl.”
All this the Governor, it seemed, failed to understand. He looked at her
with a hopeless expression of bewilderment. But he said, “Yes, I
understand.” And again an awkward silence enveloped them.
At last Lily turned to him. “Tell me,” she said, “you’ve been
successful. Tell me about yourself.”
The Governor leaned back a little in his chair. “But you must have heard
all that,” he said with astonishment. “It’s been in the newspapers. If
you’re in politics you can’t keep out of the press.” The beaming look
returned to his eyes and with it the old manner of condescension.
“But you forget,” replied Lily. “I haven’t read American newspapers.
I’ve been away from America for a long time.”
“To be sure ... to be sure.” He coughed nervously. “There isn’t much to
tell. I’ve been elected senator now for five terms running. I guess I
can go on being elected as long as I live. I’ve gotten what I’ve set out
for.... I’m a success in my party. I helped to frame the tariff bill
that protected American industry and gave the Town a bigger boom than it
ever had before. Oh, I’ve done my share!... Perhaps more than my share!
We have a good life in Washington, my wife and I. She’s prominent, you
know. She’s chairman of the State Woman’s Republican Committee. Oh,
she’s very prominent ... a born leader and a splendid politician. You
should hear her make a speech.”
Lily listened with an air of profound interest. She was smiling again.
As Willie Harrison said, “It was impossible to know what Lily thought.
She was always smiling.”
The Governor was over-zealous; somehow it seemed that he protested too
much.
“Isn’t that fine?” she said. “You see, Henry, it has worked out as I
told you it would. I should have made you a wretched wife. I would have
been no good in politics.”
This, it seemed, made him nervous again. He sat forward on the edge of
his chair. It was clear that he became terrified when the conversation
turned too abruptly toward certain incidents of his youth. It was
impossible for him to talk simply and easily. Something kept intruding.
Lily may have guessed what it was, for she was a woman of experience in
such things. Her companion was merely uncomfortable. He stood up and
looked out into the misty square where the lights had begun to show
through the fog in little globes of indefinite yellow.
“Extraordinary,” he said, “the number of motors in the square.” He
turned toward her with a sudden enthusiasm. “There you have it! There’s
America for you ... motor upon motor! There are more motors with the
American High Commission than with any other two combined. We’re a rich
country, Lily. The war has made us powerful. We can rule the world and
do as we please. It’s ours from now on.... The future is ours if these
fools on the American commission don’t spoil everything.”
Lily smiled again. “Yes. It’s quite wonderful. We ought to be proud.”
“But you are, aren’t you?” he asked severely.
“Yes.”
“That’s one reason I came over here ... to put an end to this league of
nations nonsense. We won the war and now they’re trying to wriggle out.
There’s no reason we should be mixed up in their troubles.... There’s no
reason we should suffer for it. It’s none of our affair.”
He drew himself up until his stomach came near to regaining its old
place as a chest, His manner became pompous. It was the identical manner
Julia Shane had greeted with derision more than twenty years before in
the paneled dining-room at Cypress Hill. It was astounding how little
the years had softened him. They had, it seemed, brought him nothing of
gentleness, nothing of humor, nothing of wisdom ... only a certain
vulgar shrewdness.
“No,” he continued, shaking a finger at her, “I’ve no intention of
letting this nonsense pass. There’s no reason why we should help them
out of what they themselves created.”
Lily’s eyes grew large and bright. The smile, mysterious, faintly
mocking, persisted. “You’re wonderful, Henry,” she said. “I always knew
what you would be like. Do you remember? I told you once. You are just
like that ... just like my prediction.”
From her voice or her manner it was impossible to discover what she
meant by this cryptic statement. The Governor interpreted it in his own
fashion.
“Well,” he said, “I have no intention of seeing the American nation
being made a dupe just because we’re rich and prosperous and the others
have ruined themselves. My wife believes I am quite right. She too
expects to make a speaking tour.” He became enthusiastic again. “You
should hear her speak. She has an excellent voice, and great power.”
“Yes,” said Lily softly. “I would never be able to do all that. I would
have been such a failure....”
“She’s here with me now ... in Paris,” continued the Governor. “She’d
never been abroad. I thought she would enjoy the sights, too, so I
brought her along.”
“Is she here to-day?” asked Lily. Again the Governor betrayed signs of
an overwhelming confusion.
“Yes,” he said, “Yes.” And suddenly became silent.
For a moment Lily watched him as if the sight of his confusion provided
her with some secret amusement. At length she said, “I’d like to see
her. I don’t ask to meet her, of course. That would be questionable
taste. Besides, why should we meet? We could mean nothing to each
other.”
“No, perhaps not.”
Again he began staring out of the window. Lily glanced at the watch on
her wrist.
“I shall be forced to leave soon myself,” she said. “My husband will be
waiting for me.”
With a start her companion turned from the window toward her.
“So you’re married,” he said. “And you never told me.”
“You never asked me about myself. I didn’t think you were interested in
what my life had been.”
He thrust out a great hand. “I must congratulate you!” he said with an
overflowing enthusiasm. “I must congratulate you! I knew you’d marry
some day. How long has it been?” The news appeared to furnish him with a
genuine delight. Perhaps he felt more secure now, less frightened of
Lily.
She shook hands with him quietly.
“Not for long.... Since three months.”
“And what is his name?”
“De Cyon ... René de Cyon. He is in the new ministry.... You see I
married a politician after all.”
She laughed again in that same mysterious, half-mocking half-cynical
fashion. It was impossible to penetrate the barrier of her composure.
She was invulnerable. One could not hazard the faintest guess at what
she was thinking.
“That is why I am here to-day.” And then for the space of an instant she
betrayed herself. “Think of it,” she said. “What a long way from
Cypress Hill to being the wife of a French cabinet minister. We’ve both
traveled a long way since we last met, Henry. A great deal has happened
to both of us. On my side, I wouldn’t change a thing. There are lives
and lives, of course. Some like one sort and some another. I know you’ve
been thinking what a lot I’ve missed by not marrying you.” He moved as
if to interrupt her. “Oh, I know you didn’t say so openly. It’s good of
you to be so generous ... to want me to have shared it.” She cast down
her eyes suddenly and her voice grew more gentle although it still
carried that same devilish note of raillery. “I appreciate all that....
But I wouldn’t have changed anything. I wouldn’t have married you
anyway.”
Again the Governor coughed and looked out of the window.
“We all come to it sooner or later,” he said. “It’s a good thing to be
married.”
“Yes ... a lonely old age isn’t pleasant.”
And here a deadlock arose once more in the conversation.
The crowd had begun to thin a little. Down the long vista of rooms it
was possible now to distinguish a figure here and there in the throng.
Outside the darkness had descended, veiling completely the white square.
There was nothing now but the faint globes of light and the dim shooting
rays of the passing motors.
The Governor turned suddenly and opened his mouth to speak. Then he
closed it again sharply. It was clear that he had intended to say
something and had lost his courage. He spoke at last, evading clearly
what he had intended to say.
“Tell me.... Where’s Irene?”
“She’s buried.... She’s been buried these eleven years.”
The Governor frowned.
“I’d no idea,” he stammered. “I wouldn’t have asked if I had known.” He
was sinking deeper in his confusion. There was something almost pitiful
in his manner, so empty now of pompousness, so devoid of complacency.
Lily smiled. “Oh, she’s not dead. She’s a nun. She’s in the Carmelite
convent at Lisieux ... I meant that she was buried so far as life is
concerned. She’s lost to the world. She never leaves the convent, you
know. It’s part of her vow. She’s buried there ... alive! It’s a living
death.” All at once she cast down her eyes and shuddered. “Perhaps she
is dead.... When one’s faith is killed one is not alive any more. You
see, I killed her faith in this world. That’s all I meant. She’s really
buried, ... alive, you understand.”
The Governor made a low whistling sound. “I’m not surprised.”
As if she did not hear him, Lily said, “I used to think that it was
possible to live by one’s self, alone ... without touching the lives of
others. It isn’t possible, is it? Life is far too complicated.”
The Governor flushed slowly. He turned the speech nervously once more to
Irene. “You don’t forget how she acted on the night....” Suddenly he
choked. It was too late now and he finished the speech, inarticulately.
“On the night of the garden party!”