The room was already dark. The high roofs opposite cut off what little
remained of the December daylight. The girl drew her chair nearer the
window, and choosing a large needle, threaded it, knotting the thread
over her fingers. Then she smoothed the baby garment across her knees,
and bending, bit off the thread and drew the smaller needle from where
it rested in the hem. When she had brushed away the stray threads and
bits of lace, she laid it again over her knees caressingly. Then she
slipped the threaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a
button, but as the button spun down the thread, her hand faltered, the
thread snapped, and the button rolled across the floor. She raised
her head. Her eyes were fixed on a strip of waning light above the
chimneys. From somewhere in the city came sounds like the distant
beating of drums, and beyond, far beyond, a vague muttering, now
growing, swelling, rumbling in the distance like the pounding of surf
upon the rocks, now like the surf again, receding, growling, menacing.
The cold had become intense, a bitter piercing cold which strained and
snapped at joist and beam and turned the slush of yesterday to flint.
From the street below every sound broke sharp and metallic—the clatter
of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare sound of a human voice.
The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold as with a pall. To
breathe was painful, to move an effort.
In the desolate sky there was something that wearied, in the brooding
clouds, something that saddened. It penetrated the freezing city cut
by the freezing river, the splendid city with its towers and domes,
its quays and bridges and its thousand spires. It entered the squares,
it seized the avenues and the palaces, stole across bridges and crept
among the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter, grey under the grey of
the December sky. Sadness, utter sadness. A fine icy sleet was falling,
powdering the pavement with a tiny crystalline dust. It sifted against
the window-panes and drifted in heaps along the sill. The light at
the window had nearly failed, and the girl bent low over her work.
Presently she raised her head, brushing the curls from her eyes.
“Jack?”
“Dearest?”
“Don’t forget to clean your palette.”
He said, “All right,” and picking up the palette, sat down upon the
floor in front of the stove. His head and shoulders were in the shadow,
but the firelight fell across his knees and glimmered red on the
blade of the palette-knife. Full in the firelight beside him stood a
colour-box. On the lid was carved,
+-------------------------+
| J. TRENT. |
| École des Beaux Arts. |
| 1870. |
+-------------------------+
This inscription was ornamented with an American and a French flag.
The sleet blew against the window-panes, covering them with stars and
diamonds, then, melting from the warmer air within, ran down and froze
again in fern-like traceries.
A dog whined and the patter of small paws sounded on the zinc behind
the stove.
“Jack, dear, do you think Hercules is hungry?”
The patter of paws was redoubled behind the stove.
“He’s whining,” she continued nervously, “and if it isn’t because he’s
hungry it is because—”
Her voice faltered. A loud humming filled the air, the windows vibrated.
“Oh, Jack,” she cried, “another—” but her voice was drowned in the
scream of a shell tearing through the clouds overhead.
“That is the nearest yet,” she murmured.
“Oh, no,” he answered cheerfully, “it probably fell way over by
Montmartre,” and as she did not answer, he said again with exaggerated
unconcern, “They wouldn’t take the trouble to fire at the Latin
Quarter; anyway they haven’t a battery that can hurt it.”
After a while she spoke up brightly: “Jack, dear, when are you going to
take me to see Monsieur West’s statues?”
“I will bet,” he said, throwing down his palette and walking over to
the window beside her, “that Colette has been here to-day.”
“Why?” she asked, opening her eyes very wide. Then, “Oh, it’s too
bad!—really, men are tiresome when they think they know everything!
And I warn you that if Monsieur West is vain enough to imagine that
Colette—”
From the north another shell came whistling and quavering through the
sky, passing above them with long-drawn screech which left the windows
singing.
“That,” he blurted out, “was too near for comfort.”
They were silent for a while, then he spoke again gaily: “Go on,
Sylvia, and wither poor West;” but she only sighed, “Oh, dear, I can
never seem to get used to the shells.”
He sat down on the arm of the chair beside her.
Her scissors fell jingling to the floor; she tossed the unfinished
frock after them, and putting both arms about his neck drew him down
into her lap.
“Don’t go out to-night, Jack.”
He kissed her uplifted face; “You know I must; don’t make it hard for
me.”
“But when I hear the shells and—and know you are out in the city—”
“But they all fall in Montmartre—”
“They may all fall in the Beaux Arts; you said yourself that two struck
the Quai d’Orsay—”
“Mere accident—”
“Jack, have pity on me! Take me with you!”
“And who will there be to get dinner?”
She rose and flung herself on the bed.
“Oh, I can’t get used to it, and I know you must go, but I beg you not
to be late to dinner. If you knew what I suffer! I—I—cannot help it,
and you must be patient with me, dear.”
He said, “It is as safe there as it is in our own house.”
She watched him fill for her the alcohol lamp, and when he had lighted
it and had taken his hat to go, she jumped up and clung to him in
silence. After a moment he said: “Now, Sylvia, remember my courage
is sustained by yours. Come, I must go!” She did not move, and he
repeated: “I must go.” Then she stepped back and he thought she was
going to speak and waited, but she only looked at him, and, a little
impatiently, he kissed her again, saying: “Don’t worry, dearest.”
When he had reached the last flight of stairs on his way to the street
a woman hobbled out of the house-keeper’s lodge waving a letter and
calling: “Monsieur Jack! Monsieur Jack! this was left by Monsieur
Fallowby!”
He took the letter, and leaning on the threshold of the lodge, read it:
“Dear Jack,
“I believe Braith is dead broke and I’m sure Fallowby is. Braith
swears he isn’t, and Fallowby swears he is, so you can draw your
own conclusions. I’ve got a scheme for a dinner, and if it works, I
will let you fellows in.
“Yours faithfully,
“West.
“P.S.—Fallowby has shaken Hartman and his gang, thank the Lord!
There is something rotten there,—or it may be he’s only a miser.
“P.P.S.—I’m more desperately in love than ever, but I’m sure she
does not care a straw for me.”
“All right,” said Trent, with a smile, to the concierge; “but tell me,
how is Papa Cottard?”
The old woman shook her head and pointed to the curtained bed in the
lodge.
“Père Cottard!” he cried cheerily, “how goes the wound to-day?”
He walked over to the bed and drew the curtains. An old man was lying
among the tumbled sheets.
“Better?” smiled Trent.
“Better,” repeated the man wearily; and, after a pause, “Have you any
news, Monsieur Jack?”
“I haven’t been out to-day. I will bring you any rumour I may hear,
though goodness knows I’ve got enough of rumours,” he muttered to
himself. Then aloud: “Cheer up; you’re looking better.”
“And the sortie?”
“Oh, the sortie, that’s for this week. General Trochu sent orders last
night.”
“It will be terrible.”
“It will be sickening,” thought Trent as he went not into the street
and turned the corner toward the rue de Seine; “slaughter, slaughter,
phew! I’m glad I’m not going.”
The street was almost deserted. A few women muffled in tattered
military capes crept along the frozen pavement, and a wretchedly clad
gamin hovered over the sewer-hole on the corner of the Boulevard. A
rope around his waist held his rags together. From the rope hung a rat,
still warm and bleeding.
“There’s another in there,” he yelled at Trent; “I hit him but he got
away.”
Trent crossed the street and asked: “How much?”
“Two francs for a quarter of a fat one; that’s what they give at the
St. Germain Market.”
A violent fit of coughing interrupted him, but he wiped his face with
the palm of his hand and looked cunningly at Trent.
“Last week you could buy a rat for six francs, but,” and here he swore
vilely, “the rats have quit the rue de Seine and they kill them now
over by the new hospital. I’ll let you have this for seven francs; I
can sell it for ten in the Isle St. Louis.”
“You lie,” said Trent, “and let me tell you that if you try to swindle
anybody in this quarter the people will make short work of you and your
rats.”
He stood a moment eyeing the gamin, who pretended to snivel. Then
he tossed him a franc, laughing. The child caught it, and thrusting
it into his mouth wheeled about to the sewer-hole. For a second he
crouched, motionless, alert, his eyes on the bars of the drain, then
leaping forward he hurled a stone into the gutter, and Trent left him
to finish a fierce grey rat that writhed squealing at the mouth of the
sewer.
“Suppose Braith should come to that,” he thought; “poor little chap;”
and hurrying, he turned in the dirty passage des Beaux Arts and entered
the third house to the left.
“Monsieur is at home,” quavered the old concierge.
Home? A garret absolutely bare, save for the iron bedstead in the
corner and the iron basin and pitcher on the floor.
West appeared at the door, winking with much mystery, and motioned
Trent to enter. Braith, who was painting in bed to keep warm, looked
up, laughed, and shook hands.
“Any news?”
The perfunctory question was answered as usual by: “Nothing but the
cannon.”
Trent sat down on the bed.
“Where on earth did you get that?” he demanded, pointing to a
half-finished chicken nestling in a wash-basin.
West grinned.
“Are you millionaires, you two? Out with it.”
Braith, looking a little ashamed, began, “Oh, it’s one of West’s
exploits,” but was cut short by West, who said he would tell the story
himself.
“You see, before the siege, I had a letter of introduction to a
‘_type_’ here, a fat banker, German-American variety. You know the
species, I see. Well, of course I forgot to present the letter, but
this morning, judging it to be a favourable opportunity, I called on
him.
“The villain lives in comfort;—fires, my boy!—fires in the
ante-rooms! The Buttons finally condescends to carry my letter and
card up, leaving me standing in the hallway, which I did not like,
so I entered the first room I saw and nearly fainted at the sight of
a banquet on a table by the fire. Down comes Buttons, very insolent.
No, oh, no, his master, ‘is not at home, and in fact is too busy to
receive letters of introduction just now; the siege, and many business
difficulties—’
“I deliver a kick to Buttons, pick up this chicken from the table, toss
my card on to the empty plate, and addressing Buttons as a species of
Prussian pig, march out with the honours of war.”
Trent shook his head.
“I forgot to say that Hartman often dines there, and I draw my own
conclusions,” continued West. “Now about this chicken, half of it is
for Braith and myself, and half for Colette, but of course you will
help me eat my part because I’m not hungry.”
“Neither am I,” began Braith, but Trent, with a smile at the pinched
faces before him, shook his head saying, “What nonsense! You know I’m
never hungry!”
West hesitated, reddened, and then slicing off Braith’s portion, but
not eating any himself, said good-night, and hurried away to number 470
rue Serpente, where lived a pretty girl named Colette, orphan after
Sedan, and Heaven alone knew where she got the roses in her cheeks, for
the siege came hard on the poor.
“That chicken will delight her, but I really believe she’s in love with
West,” said Trent. Then walking over to the bed: “See here, old man, no
dodging, you know, how much have you left?”
The other hesitated and flushed.
“Come, old chap,” insisted Trent.
Braith drew a purse from beneath his bolster, and handed it to his
friend with a simplicity that touched him.
“Seven sons,” he counted; “you make me tired! Why on earth don’t you
come to me? I take it d——d ill, Braith! How many times must I go
over the same thing and explain to you that because I have money it is
my duty to share it, and your duty and the duty of every American to
share it with me? You can’t get a cent, the city’s blockaded, and the
American Minister has his hands full with all the German riff-raff and
deuce knows what! Why don’t you act sensibly?”
“I—I will, Trent, but it’s an obligation that perhaps I can never even
in part repay, I’m poor and—”
“Of course you’ll pay me! If I were a usurer I would take your talent
for security. When you are rich and famous—”
“Don’t, Trent—”
“All right, only no more monkey business.”
He slipped a dozen gold pieces into the purse, and tucking it again
under the mattress smiled at Braith.
“How old are you?” he demanded.
“Sixteen.”
Trent laid his hand lightly on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m twenty-two,
and I have the rights of a grandfather as far as you are concerned.
You’ll do as I say until you’re twenty-one.”
“The siège will be over then, I hope,” said Braith, trying to laugh,
but the prayer in their hearts: “How long, O Lord, how long!” was
answered by the swift scream of a shell soaring among the storm-clouds
of that December night.