The sky was filled with morning when a noise startled Davidge out of
nullity. He was amazed to find a strange woman asleep at his elbow. He
remembered her suddenly.
With a clatter of wheels and cans and hoofs a milkman's wagon and team
came out of the hills. Davidge stepped down from the car and stopped
the loud-voiced, wide-mouthed driver with a gesture. He spoke in a low
voice which the milkman did not copy. The taxi-driver woke to the
extent of one eye and a horrible yawn, while Davidge explained his
plight.
"Gasolene gave out, hey?" said the milkman.
"It certainly did," said Davidge, "and I'd be very much obliged if
you'd get me some more."
"Wa-all, I'm purty busy."
"I'll pay you anything you ask."
The milkman was modest in his ambitions.
"How'd two dollars strike ye?"
"Five would be better if you hurried."
This looked suspicious, but the milkman consented.
"Wa-all, all right, but what would I fetch the gasolene in?"
"One of your milk-cans."
"They're all fuller melk."
"I'll buy one, milk and all."
"Wa-all, I reckon I'll hev to oblige you."
"Here's five dollars on account. There'll be five more when you get
back."
"Wa-all, all ri-ight. Get along there, Jawn Henry."
John Henry got along. Even his _cloppety-clop_ did not waken Miss
Webling.
The return of the rattletrap and the racket of filling the tank with
the elixir finished her sleep, however. She woke in confusion,
finding herself sitting up, dressed, in her little room, with three
strange men at work outside.
When the tank was filled, Davidge entered her compartment with a
cheery "Good morning," and slammed the door after him. The gasolene,
like the breath of a god, gave life to the dead. The car snarled and
jumped, and went roaring across the bridge, up the hill and down
another, and down that and up another.
Here they caught, through a frame of leaves, a glimpse of Washington
in the sunrise, a great congregation of marble temples and trees and
sky-colored waters, the shaft of the Monument lighted with the milky
radiance of a mountain peak on its upper half, the lower part still
dusk with valley shadow, and across the plateau of roofs the solemn
Capitol in as mythical a splendor as the stately dome that Kubla Khan
decreed in Xanadu.
This sight of Canaan from Pisgah-height was no luxury to the
taxi-driver, and he hustled his coffee-grinder till he reached Rosslyn
once more, crossed the Potomac's many-tinted stream, and rattled
through Georgetown and the shabby, sleeping little shops of M Street
into the tree-tunnels of Washington.
He paused to say, "Where do we go from here?"
Davidge and Marie Louise looked their chagrin. They still had no place
to go.
"To the Pennsylvania Station," said Davidge. "We can at least get
breakfast there."
The streets of Washington are never so beautiful as at this still hour
when nothing stirs but the wind in the trees and the grass on the
lawns, and hardly anybody is abroad except the generals on their
bronze horses fronting their old battles with heroic eyes. The station
outside was something Olympic but unfrequented. Inside, it was a vast
cathedral of untenanted pews.
Davidge paid the driver a duke's ransom. There was no porter about,
and he carried Marie Louise's suit-cases to the parcel-room. Her
baggage had had a long journey. She retreated to the women's room for
what toilet she could make, and came forth with a very much washed
face. Somnambulistic negroes took their orders at the lunch-counter.
Marie Louise had weakly decided to return to New York again, but the
hot coffee was full of defiance, and she said that she would make
another try at Mrs. Widdicombe as soon as a human hour arrived.
And she showed a tactfulness that won much respect from Davidge when
she said:
"Do get your morning paper and read it. I'm sure I have nothing to say
that I haven't said, and if I had, it could wait till you find out how
the battle goes in Europe."
He bought her a paper, too, and they sat on a long bench, exchanging
comments on the news that made almost every front page a chapter in
world history.
She heard him groan with rage. When she looked up he pointed to the
submarine record of that week.
"Last week the losses took a horrible jump--forty ships of over
sixteen hundred tons. This week it's almost as bad--thirty-eight
ships of over sixteen hundred, thirteen ships under, and eight
fishing-vessels. Think of it--all of 'em merchant-ships!
"Pretty soon I've got to send my ship out to run the gantlet. She's
like Little Red Riding Hood going through the forest to take old
Granny Britain some food. And the wolves are waiting for her. What a
race of people, what a pack of beasts!"
Marie Louise had an idea. "I'll tell you a pretty name for your
ship--_Little Red Riding Hood_. Why don't you give her that?"
He laughed. "The name would be heavier than the cargo. I wonder what
the crew would make of it. No, this ship, my first one, is to be named
after"--he lowered his voice as one does on entering a church--"after
my mother."
"Oh, that's beautiful!" Marie Louise said. "And will she be there to
christen-- Oh, I remember, you said--"
He nodded three or four times in wretchedness. But the grief was his
own, and he must not exploit it. He assumed an abrupt cheer.
"I'll name the next ship after you, if you don't mind."
This was too glorious to be believed. What bouquet or jewel could
equal it? She clapped her hands like a child hearing a Christmas
promise.
"What is your first name, Miss Webling?"
She suddenly realized that they were not, after all, such old friends
as the night had seemed to make them.
"My first two names," she said, "are Marie Louise."
"Oh! Well, then we'll call the ship _Marie Louise_."
She saw that he was a little disappointed in the name, so she said:
"When I was a girl they called me Mamise."
She was puzzled to see how this startled him.
He jumped audibly and fastened a searching gaze on her. Mamise! He had
thought of Mamise when he saw her, and now she gave the name. Could
she possibly be the Mamise he remembered? He started to ask her, but
checked himself and blushed. A fine thing it would be to ask this
splendid young princess, "Pardon me, Princess, but were you playing in
cheap vaudeville a few years ago?" It was an improbable coincidence
that he should meet her thus, but an almost impossible coincidence
that she should wear both the name and the mien of Mamise and not be
Mamise. But he dared not ask her.
She noted his blush and stammer, but she was afraid to ask their
cause.
"_Mamise_ it shall be," he said.
And she answered, "I was never so honored in my life."
"Of course," he warned her, "the boat isn't built yet. In fact, the
new yard isn't built yet. There's many a slip 'twixt the keel and the
ship. She might never live to be launched. Some of these sneaking
loafers on our side may blow her up before the submarines get a chance
at her."
There he was, speaking of submarines once more! She shivered, and she
looked at the clock and got up and said:
"I think I'll try Mrs. Widdicombe now."
"Let me go along," said Davidge.
But she shook her head. "I've taken enough of your life--for the
present."
Trying to concoct a felicitous reply, he achieved only an eloquent
silence. He put her and her luggage aboard a taxicab, and then she
gave him her most cordial hand.
"I could never hope to thank you enough," she said, "and I won't begin
to try. Send me your address when you have one, and I'll mail you Mrs.
Widdicombe's confidential telephone number. I do want to see you soon
again, unless you've had enough of me for a lifetime."
He did very handsomely by the lead she gave him:
"I couldn't have enough--not in a lifetime."
The taxi-driver snipped the strands of their gaze as he whisked her
away.
Marie Louise felt a forenoon elation in the cool air and the bright
streets, thick with men and women in herds hurrying to their patriotic
tasks, and a multitude of officers and enlisted men seeking their
desks. She was here to join them, and she hoped that it would not be
too hard to find some job with a little thrill of service in it.
As she went through Georgetown now M Street was different--full of
marketers and of briskness. The old bridge was crowded. As her car
swooped up the hills and skirted the curves to Polly Widdicombe's she
began to be afraid again. But she was committed to the adventure and
she was eager for the worst of it. She found the house without trouble
and saw in the white grove of columns Polly herself, bidding good-by
to her husband, whose car was waiting at the foot of the steps.
Polly hailed Marie Louise with cries of such delight that before the
cab had made the circle and drawn up at the steps the hunted look was
gone and youth come back to Marie Louise's anxious smile. Polly kissed
her and presented her husband, pointing to the gold leaves on his
shoulders with militaristic pride.
Widdicombe blushed and said: "Fearless desk-fighter has to hurry off
to battle with ruthless stenographers. Such are the horrors of war!"
He insisted on paying Marie Louise's driver, though she said, "Women
will never be free so long as men insist on paying all their bills."
Polly said: "Hush, or the brute will set me free!"
He kissed Polly, waved to Marie Louise, stepped into his car, and shot
away.
Polly watched him with devout eyes and said:
"Poor boy! he's dying to get across into the trenches, but they won't
take him because he's a little near-sighted, thank God! And he works
like a dog, day and night." Then she returned to the rites of
hospitality. "Had your breakfast?"
"At the station." The truth for once coincided very pleasantly with
convenience.
"Then I know what you want," said Polly, "a bath and a nap. After that
all-night train-trip you ought to be a wreck."
"I am."
Polly led her to a welcoming room that would have been quite pretty
enough if it had had only a bed and a chair. Marie Louise felt as if
she had come out of the wilderness into a city of refuge. Polly had an
engagement, a committee meeting of women war-workers, and would not be
back until luncheon-time. Marie Louise steeped herself in a hot tub,
then in a long sweet sleep in a real bed. She was wakened by the
voices of children, and looked out from her window to see the
Widdicombe tots drilling in a company of three with a drum, a flag,
and a wooden gun. The American army was not much bigger compared with
the European nations in arms, but it would grow.
Polly came home well charged with electricity, the new-woman idea that
was claiming half of the war, the true squaw-spirit that takes up the
drudgery at home while the braves go out to swap missiles with the
enemy. When Marie Louise said that she, too, had come to Washington to
get into harness somewhere, Polly promised her a plethora of
opportunities.
At luncheon Polly was reminded of the fact that a photographer was
coming over from Washington. He had asked for sittings, and she had
acceded to his request.
"I never can get photographs enough of my homely self," said Polly.
"I'm always hoping that by some accident the next one will make me
look as I want to look--make ithers see me as I see mysel'!"
When the camera-man arrived Polly insisted that Marie Louise must
pose, too, and grew so urgent that she consented at last, to quiet
her. They spent a harrowing afternoon striking attitudes all over the
place, indoors and out, standing, sitting, heads and half-lengths,
profile and three-quarters and full face. Their muscles ached with the
struggle to assume and retain beatific expressions on an empty soul.
The consequences of that afternoon of self-impersonation were
far-reaching for Marie Louise.
According to the Washingtonian custom, one of the new photographs
appeared the following Sunday in each of the four newspapers. The
Sunday after that Marie Louise's likeness appeared with "Dolly
Madison's" and Jean Elliott's syndicated letters on "The Week in
Washington" in Sunday supplements throughout the country. Every now
and then her likeness popped out at her from _Town and Country_,
_Vogue_, _Harper's Bazaar_, _The Spur_, what not?
One of those countless images fell into the hands of Jake Nuddle, who
had been keeping an incongruous eye on the Sunday supplements for some
time. This time the double of Mamise was not posed as a farmerette in
an English landscape, but as a woman of fashion in a Colonial
drawing-room.
He hurried to his wife with the picture, and she called it "Mamise"
with a recrudescent anguish of doubt.
"She's in this country now, the paper says," said Jake. "She's in
Washington, and if I was you I'd write her a little letter astin' her
is she our sister."
Mrs. Nuddle was crying too loosely to note that "our." The more Jake
considered the matter the less he liked the thought of waiting for a
letter to go and an answer to come.
"Meet 'em face to face; that's me!" he declared at last. "I think I'll
just take a trip to the little old capital m'self. I can tell the rest
the c'mittee I'm goin' to put a few things up to some them Senators
and Congersmen. That'll get my expenses paid for me."
There simply was nobody that Jake Nuddle would not cheat, if he
could.
His always depressing wife suggested: "Supposin' the lady says she
ain't Mamise, how you goin' to prove she is? You never seen her."
Jake snarled at her for a fool, but he knew that she was right. He
resisted the dismal necessity as long as he could, and then extended
one of his most cordial invitations:
"Aw, hell! I reckon I'll have to drag you along."
He grumbled and cursed his fate and resolved to make Mamise pay double
for ruining his excursion.