"Within twenty-four hours I'll mail it to you in print," Yetta said, moving towards the door.
"So!" he growled. "That's it, is it? Somebody else has offered you a better contract. You forget, of course, that we taught you how to write – that we advertised you – made you. You forget all that as soon as somebody else offers you – "
But Yetta had slammed the door in his face.
Back in her room, she called up Isadore and told him the story.
"I'm mailing you the article to print in The Clarion."
So she made the honorable amend.
"I was half wrong, anyhow," he tried to comfort her. "I never would have believed they'd let you free as long as they did. And besides – you've learned to write. I hope you'll give us some more."
What hurt Yetta most was that a cable had come from Teheran saying that Walter had started homeward. He would hear of the mess she had made.
Mr. Karner, when he received the Socialist paper, with Yetta's article in it, vented some of his profane rage on his wife. The quarrel which resulted brought Mrs. Karner to life.
CHAPTER XXII
WALTER'S RETURN
When the Archæological Expedition reached Constantinople, the married men were met by their wives.
To the suburbanite who comes home after each day's work, the dinner is likely to seem as important as his spouse. The waiting wife has a deeper significance for the sailor and explorer. For three years these men had seen no white women, except in a Scotch Mission compound, four days' ride from their camp.
The Marquise d'Hauteville was much younger than her husband. She was a daintily gowned Parisienne of the Quartier St. Germain. She was on the dock with her two boys, seven and four. The sight of her explained to Walter the nervous impatience which had kept the Chief pacing the deck restlessly ever since they had left Batoum.
Dr. Bertholet, the querulous specialist in measuring skulls, suddenly began to smile when he caught sight of Madame – a fat bourgeoise in black silk, who looked like la patronne of a café. Beckmeyer, the German authority on the ancient religions of Persia, waved his handkerchief wildly to a flaxen-haired Gretchen. They had lost a son while he was away, and when the gang plank was down, they rushed into each other's arms and sobbed like children.
The unmarried men stood on one foot and then on the other until the first transports had quieted and were then presented to the ladies. The Marquis gave them a rendezvous in Paris for the next week. It was understood that the married men were to have a few days with their families before the expedition should formally report its return.
Delanoue, Vibert, and Walter rushed their baggage through the customs and had just time to catch the Orient Express. All three of them were in a hurry to reach Paris. The two Frenchmen were like bathers on a spring-board about to dive into the sea. They let their imaginations run riot, trying to devise a suitable orgy to recompense them for their three years of deprivation. Delanoue wished them both to be his guests. He proposed to lead them to his favorite restaurant and order everything on the bill of fare. Afterwards they would invade Montmartre. Unless Paris had seriously deteriorated, he felt sure he could make them realize how sad and colorless were the wildest dreams of the Arabian Nights.
Vibert gleefully accepted the invitation. But Walter quietly refused. He also was in a hurry to reach Paris – he hoped to find a letter from Mabel. When the train reached the Gare de l'Est, in spite of their jibes at his Puritanism, he left them.
At the Consulate he found three packages of mail. He hurried to a hotel and opened them eagerly. There was only one letter from Mabel, hardly more than a note. Yetta, she wrote, had told her that he had started homeward. She hoped the Expedition had been successful. She would be glad to see him again. She was, as usual, very busy, but both she and Eleanor were well.
What a fool he had been made by hope! He had not been able to accept her definite refusals – he remembered them all now. These three years he had shut his eyes to reality and had lived in a baseless hope. A man needs something more than routine work to keep him going. In all the idle moments scattered through his busy, exciting life – the minutes before he fell asleep, the times some jackal's cry had waked him in the night, all the intervals of waiting – he had thought of Mabel. And always he had asked himself if their long intimacy was to lead to nothingness. It seemed impossible. Surely she would feel his absence, miss him from her life and want him back. His friendship must have meant something to her. She was proud and hard to change. But time would work the miracle. She would call to him. It seemed to be written in the stars, in the glory of the desert dawns, in the haunting afterglows of the sunset.
The last months this dream had been more concrete than any reality. When he reached Paris after his long exile, he would find her summons. Perhaps she would come there to meet him. There was only this cold and formal note.
In his barren hotel room he sounded the very depths of loneliness. Of all his recent comrades he alone was unwelcomed. He thought of the dainty Marquise d'Hauteville and her children. They had stopped off at Semmering in the Austrian Alps. He did not know where the Bertholets were celebrating their reunion. Beckmeyer and his Gretchen had gone up to their village home on the edge of the Black Forest. And somewhere on the side of La Butte joyeuse, Delanoue and Vibert were finding companionship and a hearty welcome. Here he was in his dismal hotel room, alone with the Dead Hope he could not forget, a misfit, a mistake —une vie manquée.
The winter night fell over Paris, but he was too gloomy to notice the darkness. It was the cold which at last stung into his consciousness. He went to bed like a man who had been drugged.
The next morning he was awakened by a batch of reporters. Somehow the news that the Expedition had returned had leaked out. The reporters had heard some vague rumors of "the siege" when for two weeks the fanatics had attacked the camp, and how Walter, dressed in native clothes, had slipped through the lines and brought relief. But he refused to talk, taking refuge behind the etiquette which requires subordinates to hold their peace until the chief has spoken.
He had hardly got rid of the reporters, when Delanoue and Vibert broke in with an incoherent account of their adventures. They were both drunk and decidedly tired. While Walter was shaving, Delanoue fell asleep on his bed, Vibert on his lounge. And they were not quiet about it.
The coffee went cold in Walter's cup. What should he do? It was impossible to spend the morning listening to uneasy grunts and snores. Where should he go? On previous visits to Paris he had enjoyed himself. He knew many people. But he did not feel that they would amuse him this time. Anyhow it was too early to make calls. His coffee was hopelessly cold. He was trying to overcome his listlessness and ring for more, when the chasseur brought him a petit bleue and the announcement that a new swarm of reporters wanted to see him.
"Hello, hello, Mr. Walter Longman," the pneumatique ran. "The morning papers announce your advent. Come around for dejeuner. By all means come. I'll lock the door. I warrant the newspaper men are hounding you. If you are one half as agreeable as you used to be, you'll rescue from the very bottom of boredom an unfortunate woman who signs herself
Your friendBeatrice Maynard Karner."
Walter had hardly thought of Mrs. Karner since leaving America. But five minutes after he had torn open the despatch, he had dodged the reporters and was out on the sidewalk. It was his intention to call a taxi and go at once to Mrs. Karner's, but he realized abruptly that it was much too early. He had an hour and a half to kill before time for dejeuner. He sat down in one of the Boulevard Cafés and tried to interest himself in the papers. But once more the ugly mood came to him. He let his coffee grow cold again. He sat there glowering at an indefinite spot on the polished floor – wondering dully if there was any further interest left for him in life. He felt so unsocial that he gave up the idea of going to Mrs. Karner's. He would be bored. But as lunch time approached he became disturbed at the idea of eating alone. Certainly anybody's company would be better than his own.
Mrs. Karner welcomed him gayly. She seemed bent on being merry. There was a subtle change in her manner of dressing. She was less of a grande dame than she had been in New York. She was feeling her way back to her youth. There was a dash of reckless uncertainty in her manner as of a boy at the beginning of his vacation or a convict just released.
"How I envy you all the excitement you've been having! Tell me about it."
He had just started to reply when dejeuner was announced and they went out to the dining-room. He hardly remembered what they talked about – details of the Expedition mostly. But when the meal was ended and they went back to the salon, Mrs. Karner stretched out on a chaise longue and he sat down on the ottoman by the open fire. A constraint fell on them. For lack of a better remark he said —
"I've a pocket full of choice Caucasian cigarettes. Won't you try one?"
She accepted his suggestion, but he could think of nothing further to say.
"You're not exactly cheerful to-day," she said. "Anything wrong?"
He made a vague gesture.
"Bad news from home?"
"Home?" He tried to make his tone flippant. "Is there any such place?"
"Fine!" she said. "You're coming on, Walter. Your worst fault used to be your belief in such superstitions."
It was her turn now to hide her seriousness behind the mask of flippancy.
"Do you notice anything particular about the furniture in this room?"
"It's fine old Empire."
"Well, it doesn't matter whether it's Empire, or Louis Seize, or Henri Quatre, or Chinois. It isn't Gothic! That's the important point. Yes," she went on in answer to the question in his eyes, "I'm expecting the final papers any day. I'll take my maiden name. Beatrice Maynard."
She threw back her head and blew out some rings of the fragrant smoke.
"It took me a long time to learn this trick," she said, as if it were a very serious matter. "The man who kept the Morgue on The Star taught me – in the old days."
But Walter hardly heard her irrelevant words. He was thinking of the implications of her smash-up, and overlaid on these thoughts was the impression that her throat was very beautiful. He had never noticed it before.
"Fine cigarettes, these," she commented, still watching the smoke rings to avoid meeting his eyes.
But Walter did not reply. A sudden pity for her flooded him. How hopelessly lost they both were, splashing about aimlessly in the great muddle of life. They sat silent for many minutes, staring blankly at the dead past and the future which promised to be stillborn.
It is strange how much we sometimes know of other people which has never been told. Mrs. Karner, although Walter had never taken her into his confidence, knew with amazing clearness the import of his barren romance. And he, in the same way, sensed what was wrong with her, felt the deadening tragedy which lay behind her mocking words.
She – frightened by the feeling that in this poignant silence they were becoming dangerously intimate – brought their reveries to an abrupt end by jumping up.
"We're a sorry couple, aren't we? We've messed things up frightfully, and we want to cry. It's much better business to laugh. Let's shake hands and cheer up."
The wide sleeve of her morning gown fell back from her arm as she stretched out her hand to him. Her skin seemed inordinately, preposterously white to him as he stood up. But the thing which impressed him most was the intricate network of tiny blue veins on the inside by the elbow.
"In France," he said, "I claim French privileges."
As she did not pull her hand away when he raised it to his lips, he kissed the blue veins inside her elbow. He did not realize what he was doing – what he had done – until he heard the sharp intake of her breath. The look on her face made the blood pound in his temples.
It was only a matter of seconds that they were both silent. But it seemed an interminable time.
Walter looked down into the glowing fireplace – struggling with the thing which burned within him more hotly than the coals. After all – why not? It is horrible to be lonely.
"You foolish boy," she said, with an uneasy laugh, "I didn't mean to be taken so literally."
"I guess it's the only way for us – if we want to cheer up."
He snapped his half-burnt cigarette into the grate and turned towards her. Her face suddenly went white, and she swayed unsteadily. One hand waved aimlessly in the air, seeking support. He took it in his.
The next few days the papers were full of the Expedition. The Marquis d'Hauteville came back from Semmering, and a large part of his statement was a tribute to Walter's ability and courage. The other members of the Expedition, with the delightful courtesy of the French, emphasized his part in the Siege and exaggerated the perils he had run while bringing them relief. Paris dearly loves such sensations. Nothing pleases the gay city more than to idolize a foreigner. He did the best he could to escape the lionizing.
There was much work still to do in the preparing of the report. He moved from the hotel to a quiet cottage in Passy and settled down to work – and play. Beatrice scrupulously respected his "duty hours," but once he was free from his desk, he plunged with her into a swirl of gayety, such as he had never before permitted himself. The follies of the "Transatlantique" set – the rich Americans of the Étoile district – interested him from their sheer novelty. Beatrice's incisive comments on the bogus aristocracy – the Roumanian Grand Dukes and Princes of the Papal States – who fattened off the gullibility of his countrymen amused him immensely.
Their intimacy was strange indeed. Before his infatuation with Mabel, Walter had not been exactly a Puritan, but he had never experienced anything like this. No word of love ever passed between him and Beatrice. The hallowed phrases of affection were under the ban. They were feverishly engaged in trying to forget, in helping each other forget how hollow such words had proved. A feeling of delicacy restrained him from using the word "home," it had been such a mockery to her. And to have spoken to him of fidelity would have seemed to her rank cruelty.
Only once did they talk together of the past. What he had to tell was told quickly. Her story was longer, and part of it she did not tell.
Her father had been a doctor. His death, when she was in college, had left her almost penniless, alone with an invalid mother. Literature had always been her ambition; so, leaving college, she had come to New York to try newspaper work. She had fought her way to a very moderate success. It was not the kind of work which interested her, – the dreariest kind of pot-boiling, – and it did not pay enough to keep her mother in the comfort she was accustomed to. There was no immediate prospect of bettering their position. Beatrice was very much discouraged. She thought she had it in her to write novels, but by wearing herself out with hack work she could not earn enough for her mother's needs and had no energy left for the things she longed to do.
Then Bert Karner had come along. He was a young millionnaire from the West. He bought The Star on which Beatrice worked. Although rich, he was not of proud family. He never told how his father had made his stake. His outspoken ambition was "to make New York sit up and take notice." He had a decided genius for journalism. And it was not long before the steadily increasing circulation of his paper – and his piratical methods – attracted attention. There was no statute by which he could be sent to jail, so he became "a leading citizen."
At the very first he fell wildly and tumultuously in love with Beatrice. Although his passion for her was very real, it was not entirely free from calculation. His project of "being somebody" required a skilled manager. Beatrice was beautiful, she knew how to dress. She was witty, she would make a distinguished-looking hostess. He could also rely on her taste in selecting his neckties. He was morbidly afraid of appearing vulgar, and especially in this matter of neck-wear he was afraid to trust his own judgment. These considerations made him ask her to be his wife instead of his mistress. Her first refusal surprised him. But he was used to buying what he wanted, and he kept raising her price.
If Mrs. Maynard had complained, her daughter would very likely have been more egoistic. But her mother, whom she always referred to as an Angel in Heaven, never complained. And so at last Beatrice sold herself. But – and this, for some unaccountable reason, she did not tell Walter – she had had an outspoken explanation with Karner. He knew what he was buying, knew that she did not love him.
Three months after the marriage Mrs. Maynard died suddenly. This was what had annihilated Beatrice. It was so horribly grotesque. If her mother had only died before the wedding! If the gods had only given Beatrice courage to hold out a little longer! To give her mother these three months of comfort, she had sold all her life.
In her first fit of despair she had burned the half-finished novel. What did a failure like herself have to tell the world? But her mother's death had not been Bert's fault. So at first she tried to fulfil her contract with him, did what she could to organize his home and help him in his social climbing. But the Fates had not finished their bludgeonings. Into this dumb indifference which followed her mother's death came a sudden demonstration of her husband's rascality. When she had married him, she had at least thought he was an upright man. If her spirit had not been broken, she would have left him at once. But she was too shattered to care any more. She had gone through the forms of life, seeking listlessly after distraction. The thing which had come nearest to reality had been her interest in the Woman's Trade Union League. She had gone on the Board because her husband urged her to make friends with Mrs. Van Cleave. It held her interest because her own hunger-years had given her a deep sympathy.
Although she did not realize it, it was Yetta who had at last driven her to leave her husband. She had caught some of Yetta's life-giving faith. It takes us a long time to recover when once we are dead, and Mrs. Karner had been a long time dead. She did not know what was happening, but the grain of faith, which the little East Side vest-maker had planted in her, grew steadily. Slowly it had forced out roots into the dead matter about it, pushed the stem which was to bear fruit up through the hardened soil to the light. When Mr. Karner had profanely explained how Yetta had left his office, his wife suddenly realized that she was alive again. The sham was over. The next day she had called on a lawyer and had left for Europe shortly afterwards.
Walter and Beatrice did not have another serious talk for several months. He had nearly finished his work, and she at least had begun to wonder what would come next. An early spring day had tempted them to motor down the river to St. Cloud. After supper, Walter was contentedly filling his pipe, his back against a great chestnut tree, while she was repacking the dishes in the lunch basket.
"If you want any help," he said lazily, "I'll call the chauffeur. He's paid to do such things."
She ignored his remark until she had finished. Then she came over and sat beside him.
"Walter," she said, "in three weeks now I'm going to leave Paris – for Switzerland."
"It doesn't begin to get hot here till the end of June."
"Well, I'm not going in search of coolness. Quiet is what I want. I've got to settle down to work – a novel. I must get away from this turmoil of a city and its disturbances."
"Am I one of the disturbances?" he asked after a moment's thought.
"Yes."
"It'll be very lonely for me when you go."
"Let's have a cigarette," she said.
It was not till it had almost burnt out that either of them spoke. She broke the silence.
"Yes. I will be lonely too. But it looks to me like my only salvation." She stopped to press out the spark of her cigarette on the sole of her slipper. "I'm not a success as a light-minded woman, Walter. I'm no good at dancing a clog. I rather think you saved my life. I've been leaning on you more than you have known, I guess. I've caught my breath – thanks to you."
He put out his hand in protest: —
"There's lots of thanking to be done, but it's the other way round."
But she did not seem to hear him. Her brow was puckered up trying to find words for the thing she wanted to say.
"I've got to stand on my own feet – alone. I didn't want to take any money from Bert. A good friend lent me some. Enough for a year or two, but I can't always be dependent."
"Why not lean on me a little more effectively," he broke in impetuously. "Why not go on just as we are – at least till you find your footing."
"No," she shook her head decisively. "That wouldn't do at all. Look here, Walter, we're grown up – we can talk it out straight. What future is there for us if we go on? Only two alternatives. We'll get to hate each other – or – we'll get to – we'll become a habit. Woof! Habits are hard to break. No. If I'm really going to live, I've got to avoid habits as I would leprosy. There'll never be any decent life for me till I've convinced myself that I can go it alone. I've got a whole lot of things to fight out. My plan is best. Three weeks more of vacation, three weeks more of ribbons – and then armor."
"As you think best," he said.
The last day, he bought her ticket for her, engaged her berth in the morning, and then they went out again to St. Cloud to spend the day. After lunch they spread out a rug under the great trees.
"Boy," she began. She was not as old as he, but being a woman she liked to pretend she was. "I've come to a momentous conclusion about you. You ought to be married."
He sat up with a jerk.
"Don't be frightened," she said. "I'm not a candidate. I've had too much of it already. But seriously – you're different. I don't mean to be insulting, but you were made to be a family man. Our little holiday has been pleasant without end, but it's not what you were meant for. After all you're not too old to reform. You've been on the rocks. But there's a good deal left of the wreckage. I got into trouble because I didn't have the nerve to hold tight enough to my dream. Watch out that you don't make the opposite mistake. Let me diagnose your case."
She moved around in front of him, and from time to time shook her slender finger at him solemnly.
"You've ability. Serious ability – the kind this old world of ours needs. And you've this 'social conscience' with which the younger generation is cursed. You won't be content to waste yourself. What are you going to do? Somehow you've got to find a place where you'll seem to yourself useful. If not, you'd better commit suicide at once. If you're going to run to waste, at least spare yourself the shameful years. But no. You're not defeated enough for the arsenic bottle.
"You've two kinds of ability. You pretend to despise this archæology – but nobody else does. The other ability is your grasp of social philosophy. For either career – and, wise as I am, I'm not sure which will be better for you – you need a quiet, orderly life, not a disturbing, disorderly romp like these last months. You need to be well kept, you need a wife."
Walter smoked away quietly, but his face had turned haggard.
"I don't want to hurt you," she went on relentlessly, "but Mabel Train isn't the only woman in the world."
"She's the only one I ever especially noticed, till you came along."
"Leave me out of this discussion. There's just the trouble. If you insist on keeping your eyes closed to the other women, you'd best run along and blow your fool head off at once. If you want a real life, open your eyes."
"Well," he said with a wry smile, "I suppose you've got some victim to recommend. Whom shall I notice?"
It was several minutes before she took up his challenge.
"Why don't you notice Yetta Rayefsky?"
"Yetta Rayefsky?" he repeated in amazement.
"Yes. Why not? She's a fine girl, and she worships the ground you walk on."
"You're joking."
"Not at all. I know what I'm talking about. Perhaps she doesn't realize it herself, but she's very much in love with you."
"The poor little girl!"
"Yes. Of course. You ought to be sorry for her. You don't deserve it. But when it comes to that, did any man ever live who really deserved to have a woman love him? That's the tragedy of our sex. We have nothing better to love than mere men."
There were no heroics over their separation. They went to town for supper. They were both sufficiently civilized to keep up the appearance of gayety.
Just before the train started she leaned out of the window of her compartment and tossed him a final challenge.
"Walter," she said, "I'm more fortunate than you. I know what I'm going to do next. Better not waste time deciding. You know what my advice is. Go back to New York and get married."
But there was no agreement in his face as the train pulled out.
The next weeks were Hell for him. Left to himself, the bitter memories came back with a rush. The Quatorze feuillet brought him the Legion of Honor. He had often thought that it was the one distinction he would enjoy most. The investiture seemed a farce. What good are honors, when there is no one at whose feet to lay them? Then came the offer of a professorship at Oxford. It was a life berth, the highest scholastic honor to which he could aspire. After all, if these people valued his knowledge of Haktite and no one else valued him at all, why not accept?
But he could not bring himself to a definite separation from Mabel. He decided to have one more try. He asked for a month to consider the Oxford offer and started home. He announced his coming by two cables – to Mabel and to Yetta.