THERE WAS
the usual insincere little note saying : "I wanted you
to be the
first to know/ 7 It was a double shock to Michael, announc-
ing, as
it did, both the engagement and the imminent marriage;
which,
moreover, was to be held, not in New York, decently and far
away, but
here in Paris under his very nose, if that could be said to
extend
over the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity,
Avenue
George-Cinq. The date was two weeks off, early in June.
At first
Michael was afraid and his stomach felt hollow. When he
left the
hotel that morning, the jemme de chambre, who was in love
with his
fine, sharp profile and his pleasant buoyancy, scented the
hard
abstraction that had settled over him. He walked in a daze to
his bank,
he bought a detective story at Smith's on the Rue de Rivoli,
he
sympathetically stared for a while at a faded panorama of the
battlefields
in a tourist-office window and cursed a Greek tout who
followed
him with a half -displayed packet of innocuous post cards
warranted
to be very dirty indeed.
But the
fear stayed with him, and after a while he recognized it
as the
fear that now he would never be happy. He had met Caroline
Dandy
when she was seventeen, possessed her young heart all
through
her first season in New York, and then lost her, slowly,
tragically,
uselessly, because he had no money and could make no
money ;
because, with all the energy and good will in the world, he
could not
find himself ; because, loving him still, Caroline had lost
faith and
begun to see him as something pathetic, futile and shabby,
outside
the great, shining stream of life toward which she was in-
evitably
drawn.
Since his
only support was that she loved him, he leaned weakly
on that ;
the support broke, but still he held on to it and was carried
out to
sea and washed up on the French coast with its broken pieces
still in
his hands. He carried them around with him in the form of
photographs
and packets of correspondence and a liking for a maud-
lin
popular song called Among My Souvenirs. He kept clear of other
girls, as
if Caroline would somehow know it and reciprocate with a
faithful
heart. Her note informed him that he had lost her forever.
It was a
fine morning. In front of the shops in the Rue de Cas-
tiglione,
proprietors and patrons were on the sidewalk gazing upward,
for the
Graf Zeppelin, shining and glorious, symbol of escape and
destruction
of escape, if necessary, through destruction glided in
the Paris
sky. He heard a woman say in French that it would not
her
astonish if that commenced to let fall the bombs. Then he heard
another
voice, full of husky laughter, and the void in his stomach
froze.
Jerking about, he was face to face with Caroline Dandy and
her
fianc6.
"Why,
Michael ! Why, we were wondering where you were. I asked
at the
Guaranty Trust, and Morgan and Company, and finally sent
a note to
the National City "
Why
didn't they back away? Why didn't they back right up,
walking
backward down the Rue de Castiglione, across the Rue de
Rivoli,
through the Tuileries Gardens, still walking backward as fast
as they
could till they grew vague and faded out across the river ?
"This
is Hamilton Rutherford, my fiance."
"We've
met before."
"At
Pat's, wasn't it?"
"And
last spring in the Ritz Bar."
"Michael,
where have you been keeping yourself?"
"Around
here." This agony. Previews of Hamilton Rutherford
flashed
before his eyes a quick series of pictures, sentences. He re-
membered
hearing that he had bought a seat in 1920 for a hundred
and
twenty-five thousand of borrowed money, and just before the
break
sold it for more than half a million. Not handsome like
Michael,
but vitally attractive, confident, authoritative, just the
right
height over Caroline there Michael had always been too short
for
Caroline when they danced.
Rutherford
was saying : "No, I'd like it very much if you'd come
to the
bachelor dinner. I'm taking the Ritz Bar from nine o'clock on.
Then
right after the wedding there'll be a reception and breakfast
at the
Hotel George-Cinq."
"And,
Michael, George Packman is giving a party day after
tomorrow
at Chez Victor, and I want you to be sure and come. And
also to
tea Friday at Jebby West's ; she'd want to have you if she
knew
where you were. What's your hotel, so we can send you an in-
vitation
? You see, the reason we decided to have it over here is be-
cause
mother has been sick in a nursing home here and the whole
clan is
in Paris. Then Hamilton's mother's being here too "
The
entire clan ; they had always hated him, except her mother ;
always
discouraged his courtship. What a little counter he was in
this game
of families and money ! Under his hat his brow sweated
with the
humiliation of the fact that for all his misery he was worth
just
exactly so many invitations. Frantically he began to mumble
something
about going away.
Then it
happened Caroline saw deep into him, and Michael knew
that she
saw. She saw through to his profound woundedness, and
something
quivered inside her, died out along the curve of her mouth
and in
her eyes. He had moved her. All the unforgettable impulses
of first
love had surged up once more ; their hearts had in some way
touched
across two feet of Paris sunlight. She took her fiance's arm
suddenly,
as if to steady herself with the feel of it.
They
parted. Michael walked quickly for a minute; then he
stopped,
pretending to look in a window, and saw them farther up
the
street, walking fast into the Place Vendome, people with much
to do.
He had
things to do also he had to get his laundry.
"Nothing
will ever be the same again," he said to himself. "She
will
never be happy in her marriage and I will never be happy at all
any
more."
The two
vivid years of his love for Caroline moved back around
him like
years in Einstein's physics. Intolerable memories arose
of rides
in the Long Island moonlight ; of a happy time at Lake
Placid
with her cheeks so cold there, but warm just underneath the
surface;
of a despairing afternoon in a little cafe on Forty-eighth
Street in
the last sad months when their marriage had come to seem
impossible.
"Come
in," he said aloud.
The
concierge with a telegram ; brusque because Mr. Curly's
clothes
were a little shabby. Mr. Curly gave few tips; Mr. Curly was
obviously
a petit client.
Michael
read the telegram.
u An
answer?" the concierge asked.
"No,"
said Michael, and then, on an impulse: "Look."
u Too bad
too bad," said the concierge. "Your grandfather is
dead."
"Not
too bad," said Michael. "It means that I come into a quarter
of a
million dollars."
Too late
by a single month ; after the first flush of the news his
misery
was deeper than ever. Lying awake in bed that night, he lis-
tened
endlessly to the long caravan of a circus moving through the
street
from one Paris fair to another.
When the
last van had rumbled out of hearing and the corners of
the
furniture were pastel blue with the dawn, he was still thinking
of the
look in Caroline's eyes that morning the look that seemed
to say:
"Oh, why couldn't you have done something about it? Why
couldn't
you have been stronger, made me marry you? Don't you
see how
sad I am ?"
Michael's
fists clenched.
"Well,
I won't give up till the last moment," he whispered. "I've
had all
the bad luck so far, and maybe it's turned at last. One takes
what one
can get, up to the limit of one's strength, and if I can't have
her, at
least she'll go into this marriage with some of me in her
heart."
II
Accordingly
he went to the party at Chez Victor two days later,
upstairs
and into the little salon off the bar where the party was to
assemble
for cocktails. He was early ; the only other occupant was a
tall lean
man of fifty. They spoke.
"You
waiting for George Packman's party?"
"Yes.
My name's Michael Curly."
"My
name's "
Michael
failed to catch the name. They ordered a drink, and
Michael
supposed that the bride and groom were having a gay time.
"Too
much so," the other agreed, frowning. "I don't see how they
stand it.
We all crossed on the boat together ; five days of that crazy
life and
then two .weeks of Paris. You" he hesitated, smiling faintly
"you'll
excuse me for saying that your generation drinks too
much."
"Not
Caroline."
"No,
not Caroline. She seems to take only a cocktail and a glass
of
champagne, and then she's had enough, thank God. But Hamilton
drinks
too much and all this crowd of young people drink too much.
Do you
live in Paris ?"
"For
the moment," said Michael.
"I
don't like Paris. My wife that is to say, my ex-wife, Hamilton's
mother
lives in Paris."
"You're
Hamilton Rutherford's father?"
"I
have that honor. And I'm not denying that I'm proud of what
he's done
; it was just a general comment."
"Of
course."
Michael
glanced up nervously as four people came in. He felt sud-
denly
that his dinner coat was old and shiny ; he had ordered a new
one that
morning. The people who had come in were rich and at home
in their
richness with one another a dark, lovely girl with a hysteri-
cal
little laugh whom he had met before ; two confident men whose
jokes
referred invariably to last night's scandal and tonight's po-
tentialities,
as if they had important roles in a play that extended
indefinitely
into the past and the future. When Caroline arrived,
Michael
had scarcely a moment of her, but it was enough to note
that,
like all the others, she was strained and tired. She was pale
beneath
her rouge ; there were shadows under her eyes. With a mix-
ture of
relief and wounded vanity, he found himself placed far from
her and
at another table ; he needed a moment to adjust himself to
his
surroundings. This was not like the immature set in which he
and
Caroline had moved ; the men were more than thirty and had an
air of
sharing the best of this world's good. Next to him was Jebby
West,
whom he knew ; and, on the other side, a jovial man who im-
mediately
began to talk to Michael about a stunt for the bachelor
dinner:
They were going to hire a French girl to appear with an
actual
baby in her arms, crying: "Hamilton, you can't desert me
now!"
The idea seemed stale and unamusing to Michael, but its
originator
shook with anticipatory laughter.
Farther
up the table there was talk of the market another drop
today,
the most appreciable since the crash; people were kidding
Rutherford
about it: "Too bad, old man. You better not get married,
after
all."
Michael
asked the man on his left, "Has he lost a lot?"
"Nobody
knows. He's heavily involved, but he's one of the
smartest
young men in Wall Street. Anyhow, nobody ever tells you
the
truth."
It was a
champagne dinner from the start, and toward the end it
reached a
pleasant level of conviviality, but Michael saw that all
these
people were too weary to be exhilarated by any ordinary stimu-
lant ;
for weeks they had drunk cocktails before meals like Ameri-
cans,
wines and brandies like Frenchmen, beer like Germans, whisky-
and-soda
like the English, and as they were no longer in the twen-
ties,
this preposterous melange, that was like some gigantic cocktail
in a
nightmare, served only to make them temporarily less conscious
of the mistakes
of the night before. Which is to say that it was not
really a
gay party ; what gayety existed was displayed in the few who
drank
nothing at all.
But
Michael was not tired, and the champagne stimulated him and
made his
misery less acute. He had been away from New York for
more than
eight months and most of the dance music was unfamiliar
to him,
but at the first bars of the "Painted Doll", to which he and
Caroline
had moved through so much happiness and despair the pre-
vious
summer, he crossed to Caroline's table and asked her to dance.
She was
lovely in a dress of thin ethereal blue, and the proximity
of her
crackly yellow hair, of her cool and tender gray eyes, turned
his body
clumsy and rigid ; he stumbled with their first step on the
floor. For
a moment it seemed that there was nothing to say; he
wanted to
tell her about his inheritance, but the idea seemed abrupt
unprepared
for.
"Michael,
it's so nice to be dancing with you again."
He smiled
grimly.
"I'm
so happy you came," she continued. "I was afraid maybe
you'd be
silly and stay away. Now we can be just good friends and
natural
together. Michael, I want you and Hamilton to like each
other."
The
engagement was making her stupid ; he had never heard her
make such
a series of obvious remarks before.
"I
could kill him without a qualm," he said pleasantly, "but he
looks
like a good man. He's fine. What I want to know is, what
happens
to people like me who aren't able to forget?"
As he
said this he could not prevent his mouth from drooping
suddenly,
and glancing up, Caroline saw, and her heart quivered
violently,
as it had the other morning.
"Do
you mind so much, Michael?"
"Yes."
For a
second as he said this, in a voice that seemed to have come
up from
his shoes, they were not dancing ; they were simply clinging
together.
Then she leaned away from him and twisted her mouth
into a
lovely smile.
"I
didn't know what to do at first, Michael. I told Hamilton about
you that
I'd cared for you an awful lot but it didn't worry him,
and he
was right. Because I'm over you now yes, I am. And you'll
wake up
some sunny morning and be over me just like that."
He shook
his head stubbornly.
"Oh,
yes. We weren't for each other. I'm pretty flighty, and I need
somebody
like Hamilton to decide things. It was that more than
the
question of of "
"Of
money." Again he was on the point of telling her what had
happened,
but again something told him it was not the time.
"Then
how do you account for what happened when we met the
other
day," he demanded helplessly "what happened just now?
When we
just pour toward each other like we used to as if we were
one
person, as if the same blood was flowing through both of us?"
"Oh,
don't," she begged him. "You mustn't talk like that ; every-
thing's
decided now. I love Hamilton with all my heart. It's just that
I
remember certain things in the past and I feel sorry for you for
us for
the way we were."
Over her
shoulder, Michael saw a man come toward them to cut
in. In a
panic he danced her away, but inevitably the man came on.
"I've
got to see you alone, if only for a minute," Michael said
quickly.
"When can I ?"
"I'll
be at Jebby West's tea tomorrow," she whispered as a hand
fell
politely upon Michael's shoulder.
But he
did not talk to her at Jebby West's tea. Rutherford stood
next to
her, and each brought the other into all conversations. They
left
early. The next morning the wedding cards arrived in the first
mail.
Then
Michael, grown desperate with pacing up and down his
room,
determined on a bold stroke; he wrote to Hamilton Ruther-
ford,
asking him for a rendezvous the following afternoon. In a
short
telephone communication Rutherford agreed, but for a day
later
than Michael had asked. And the wedding was only six days
away.
They were
to meet in the bar of the Hotel Jena. Michael knew
what he
would say: "See here, Rutherford, do you realize the re-
sponsibility
you're taking in going through with this marriage? Do
you
realize the harvest of trouble and regret you're sowing in per-
suading a
girl into something contrary to the instincts of her heart?"
He would
explain that the barrier between Caroline and himself had
been an
artificial one and was now removed, and demand that the
matter be
put up to Caroline frankly before it was too late.
Rutherford
would be angry, conceivably there would be a scene,
but
Michael felt that he was fighting for his life now.
He found
Rutherford in conversation with an older man, whom
Michael
had met at several of the wedding parties.
"I
saw what happened to most of my friends," Rutherford was
saying,
"and I decided it wasn't going to happen to me. It isn't so
difficult
; if you take a girl with common sense, and tell her what's
what, and
do your stuff damn well, and play decently square with
her, it's
a marriage. If you stand for any nonsense at the beginning,
it's one
of these arrangements within five years the man gets out,
or else
the girl gobbles him up and you have the usual mess."
"Right!"
agreed his companion enthusiastically. "Hamilton, boy,
you're
right."
Michael's
blood boiled slowly.
"Doesn't
it strike you," he inquired coldly, "that your attitude
went out
of fashion about a hundred years ago?"
"No,
it didn't," said Rutherford pleasantly, but impatiently. "I'm
as modern
as anybody. I'd get married in an aeroplane next Satur-
day if
it'd please my girl."
"I
don't mean that way of being modern. You can't take a sensitive
woman
"
"Sensitive?
Women aren't so darn sensitive. It's fellows like you
who are
sensitive ; it's fellows like you they exploit all your devo-
tion and
kindness and all that. They read a couple of books and see
a few
pictures because they haven't got anything else to do, and then
they say
they're finer in grain than you are, and to prove it they take
the bit
in their teeth and tear off for a fare-you-well just about as
sensitive
as a fire horse."
"Caroline
happens to be sensitive," said Michael in a clipped
voice.
At this
point the other man got up to go ; when the dispute about
the check
had been settled and they were alone, Rutherford leaned
back to
Michael as if a question had been asked him.
"Caroline's
more than sensitive," he said. "She's got sense."
His
combative eyes, meeting Michael's, flickered with a gray light.
"This
all sounds pretty crude to you, Mr. Curly, but it seems to me
that the
average man nowadays just asks to be made a monkey of by
some
woman who doesn't even get any fun out of reducing him to
that
level. There are darn few men who possess their wives any more,
but I am
going to be one of them."
To
Michael it seemed time to bring the talk back to the actual
situation:
"Do you realize the responsibility you're taking?"
"I
certainly do," interrupted Rutherford. "I'm not afraid of re-
sponsibility.
I'll make the decisions fairly, I hope, but anyhow
they'll
be final."
"What
if you didn't start right?" said Michael impetuously. "What
if your
marriage isn't founded on mutual love?"
"I
think I see what you mean," Rutherford said, still pleasant.
"And
since you've brought it up, let me say that if you and Caroline
had
married, it wouldn't have lasted three years. Do you know what
your
affair was founded on? On sorrow. You got sorry for each other.
Sorrow's
a lot of fun for most women and for some men, but it seems
to me
that a marriage ought to be based on hope." He looked at his
watch and
stood up.
"I've
got to meet Caroline. Remember, you're coming to the
bachelor
dinner day after tomorrow."
Michael
felt the moment slipping away. "Then Caroline's personal
feelings
don't count with you?" he demanded fiercely.
"Caroline's
tired and upset. But she has what she wants, and that's
the main
thing."
"Are
you referring to yourself ?" demanded Michael incredulously.
"Yes."
"May
I ask how long she's wanted you?"
"About
two years." Before Michael could answer, he was gone.
During
the next two days Michael floated in an abyss of helpless-
ness. The
idea haunted him that he had left something undone that
would
sever this knot drawn tighter under his eyes. He phoned
Caroline,
but she insisted that it was physically impossible for her
to see
him until the day before the wedding, for which day she
granted
him a tentative rendezvous. Then he went to the bachelor
dinner,
partly in fear of an evening alone at his hotel, partly from a
feeling
that by his presence at that function he was somehow nearer
to
Caroline, keeping her in sight.
The Ritz
Bar had been prepared for the occasion by French and
American
banners and by a great canvas covering one wall, against
which the
guests were invited to concentrate their proclivities in
breaking
glasses.
At the
first cocktail, taken at the bar, there were many slight spill-
ings from
many trembling hands, but later, with the champagne,
there was
a rising tide of laughter and occasional bursts of song.
Michael
was surprised to find what a difference his new dinner
coat, his
new silk hat, his new, proud linen made in his estimate of
himself ;
he felt less resentment toward all these people for being so
rich and
assured. For the first time since he had left college he felt
rich and
assured himself; he felt that he was part of all this, and
even
entered into the scheme of Johnson, the practical joker, for the
appearance
of the woman betrayed, now waiting tranquilly in the
room
across the hall.
"We
don't want to go too heavy," Johnson said, "because I imagine
Ham's had
a pretty anxious day already. Did you see Fullman Oil's
sixteen
points off this morning?"
"Will
that matter to him?" Michael asked, trying to keep the
interest
out of his voice.
"Naturally.
He's in heavily ; he's always in everything heavily. So
far he's
had luck ; anyhow, up to a month ago."
The
glasses were filled and emptied faster now, and men were
shouting
at one another across the narrow table. Against the bar a
group of
ushers was being photographed, and the flash light surged
through
the room in a stifling cloud.
"Now's
the time," Johnson said. "You're to stand by the door, re-
member,
and we're both to try and keep her from coming in just
till we
get everybody's attention."
He went
on out into the corridor, and Michael waited obediently
by the
door. Several minutes passed. Then Johnson reappeared with
a curious
expression on his face.
"There's
something funny about this."
"Isn't
the girl there?"
"She's
there all right, but there's another woman there, too ; and
it's
nobody we engaged either. She wants to see Hamilton Ruther-
ford, and
she looks as if she had something on her mind."
They went
out into the hall. Planted firmly in a chair near the
door sat
an American girl a little the worse for liquor, but with a
determined
expression on her face. She looked up at them with a
jerk of
her head.
"Well,
j'tell him?" she demanded. "The name is Marjorie Collins,
and he'll
know it. I've come a long way, and I want to see him now
and
quick, or there's going to be more trouble than you ever saw."
She rose
unsteadily to her feet.
"You
go in and tell Ham," whispered Johnson to Michael. "Maybe
he'd
better get out. I'll keep her here."
Back at
the table, Michael leaned close to Rutherford's ear and,
with a
certain grimness, whispered :
"A
girl outside named Marjorie Collins says she wants to see you.
She looks
as if she wanted to make trouble."
Hamilton
Rutherford blinked and his mouth fell ajar ; then slowly
the lips
came together in a straight line and he said in a crisp
voice :
"Please
keep her there. And send the head barman to me right
away."
Michael
spoke to the barman, and then, without returning to the
table,
asked quietly for his coat and hat. Out in the hall again, he
passed
Johnson and the girl without speaking and went out into the
Rue
Cambon. Calling a cab, he gave the address of Caroline's hotel.
His place
was beside her now. Not to bring bad news, but simply
to be
with her when her house of cards came falling around her head.
Rutherford
had implied that he was soft well, he was hard enough
not to
give up the girl he loved without taking advantage of every
chance
within the pale of honor. Should she turn away from Ruth-
erford,
she would find him there.
She was
in ; she was surprised when he called, but she was still
dressed
and would be down immediately. Presently she appeared in
a dinner
gown, holding two blue telegrams in her hand. They sat
down in
armchairs in the deserted lobby.
"But,
Michael, is the dinner over?"
"I
wanted to see you, so I came away."
"I'm
glad." Her voice was friendly, but matter-of-fact. "Because
I'd just
phoned your hotel that I had fittings and rehearsals all day
tomorrow.
Now we can have our talk after all."
"You're
tired," he guessed. "Perhaps I shouldn't have come."
"No.
I was waiting up for Hamilton. Telegrams that may be im-
portant.
He said he might go on somewhere, and that may mean
any hour,
so I'm glad I have someone to talk to."
Michael
winced at the impersonality in the last phrase.
"Don't
you care when he gets home?"
"Naturally,"
she said, laughing, "but I haven't got much say
about it,
have I?"
"Why
not?"
"I
couldn't start by telling him what he could and couldn't
do."
"Why
not?"
"He
wouldn't stand for it."
"He
seems to want merely a housekeeper," said Michael ironi-
cally.
"Tell
me about your plans, Michael," she asked quickly.
"My plans?
I can't see any future after the day after tomorrow.
The only
real plan I ever had was to love you."
Their
eyes brushed past each other's, and the look he knew so
well was
staring out at him from hers. Words flowed quickly from
his heart
:
"Let
me tell you just once more how well I've loved you, never
wavering
for a moment, never thinking of another girl. And now
when I
think of all the years ahead without you, without any hope,
I don't
want to live, Caroline darling. I used to dream about our
home, our
children, about holding you in my arms and touching your
face and
hands and hair that used to belong to me, and now I just
can't
wake up."
Caroline
was crying softly. "Poor Michael poor Michael." Her
hand
reached out and her fingers brushed the lapel of his dinner
coat.
"I was so sorry for you the other night. You looked so thin,
and as if
you needed a new suit and somebody to take care of you."
She
sniffled and looked more closely at his coat. "Why, you've got
a new
suit ! And a new silk hat ! Why, Michael, how swell ! " She
laughed,
suddenly cheerful through her tears. "You must have come
into
money, Michael ; I never saw you so well turned out."
For a
moment, at her reaction, he hated his new clothes.
"I
have come into money," he said. "My grandfather left me about
a quarter
of a million dollars."
"Why,
Michael," she cried, "how perfectly swell I I can't tell you
how glad
I am. I've always thought you were the sort of person who
ought to
have money."
"Yes,
just too late to make a difference."
The
revolving door from the street groaned around and Hamilton
Rutherford
came into the lobby. His face was flushed, his eyes were
restless
and impatient.
"Hello,
darling; hello, Mr. Curly." He bent and kissed Caroline.
"I
broke away for a minute to find out if I had any telegrams. I see
you've
got them there." Taking them from her, he remarked to
Curly,
"That was an odd business there in the bar, wasn't it ? Espe-
cially as
I understand some of you had a joke fixed up in the same
line."
He opened one of the telegrams, closed it and turned to Caro-
line with
the divided expression of a man carrying two things in his
head at
once.
"A
girl I haven't seen for two years turned up," he said. "It seemed
to be
some clumsy form of blackmail, for I haven't and never have
had any
sort of obligation toward her whatever."
"What
happened?"
"The
head barman had a Surete Generate man there in ten minutes
and it
was settled in the hall. The French blackmail laws make ours
look like
a sweet wish, and I gather they threw a scare into her that
shell
remember. But it seems wiser to tell you."
"Are
you implying that I mentioned the matter?" said Michael
stiffly.
"No,"
Rutherford said slowly. "No, you were just going to be on
hand. And
since you're here, I'll tell you some news that will interest
you even
more."
He handed
Michael one telegram and opened the other.
"This
is in code," Michael said.
"So
is this. But I've got to know all the words pretty well this last
week. The
two of them together mean that I'm due to start life all
over."
Michael
saw Caroline's face grow a shade paler, but she sat quiet
as a
mouse.
"It
was a mistake and I stuck to it too long," continued Ruth-
erford.
"So you see I don't have all the luck, Mr. Curly. By the way,
they tell
me you've come into money."
"Yes,"
said Michael.
"There
we are, then." Rutherford turned to Caroline. "You under-
stand,
darling, that I'm not joking or exaggerating. I've lost almost
every
cent I had and I'm starting life over."
Two pairs
of eyes were regarding her Rutherford's noncommittal
and
unrequiring, Michael's hungry, tragic, pleading. In a minute she
had
raised herself from the chair and with a little cry thrown herself
into
Hamilton Rutherford's arms.
"Oh,
darling," she cried, "what does it matter! It's better; I like
it
better, honestly I do ! I want to start that way ; I want to ! Oh,
please
don't worry or be sad even for a minute ! "
"All
right, baby," said Rutherford. His hand stroked her hair
gently for
a moment ; then he took his arm from around her.
"I
promised to join the party for an hour," he said. "So I'll say
good
night, and I want you to go to bed soon and get a good sleep.
Good
night, Mr. Curly. I'm sorry to have let you in for all these
financial
matters."
But
Michael had already picked up his hat and cane. "I'll go
along
with you," he said.
III
It was
such a fine morning. Michael's cutaway hadn't been de-
livered,
so he felt rather uncomfortable passing before the cameras
and
moving-picture machines in front of the little church on the
Avenue
George-Cinq.
It was
such a clean, new church that it seemed unforgivable not
to be
dressed properly, and Michael, white and shaky after a sleep-
less
night, decided to stand in the rear. From there he looked at the
back of
Hamilton Rutherford, and the lacy, filmy back of Caroline,
and the
fat back of George Packman, which looked unsteady, as if
it wanted
to lean against the bride and groom.
The
ceremony went on for a long time under the gay flags and
pennons
overhead, under the thick beams of June sunlight slanting
down
through the tall windows upon the well-dressed people.
As the
procession, headed by the bride and groom, started down
the
aisle, Michael realized with alarm he was just where everyone
would
dispense with their parade stiffness, become informal and
speak to
him.
So it
turned out. Rutherford and Caroline spoke first to him;
Rutherford
grim with the strain of being married, and Caroline love-
lier than
he had ever seen her, floating all softly down through the
friends
and relatives of her youth, down through the past and for-
ward to
the future by the sunlit door.
Michael
managed to murmur, "Beautiful, simply beautiful," and
then
other people passed and spoke to him old Mrs. Dandy,
straight
from her sickbed and looking remarkably well, or carrying
it off
like the very fine old lady she was; and Rutherford's father
and
mother, ten years divorced, but walking side by side and look-
ing made
for each other and proud. Then all Caroline's sisters and
their
husbands and her little nephews in Eton suits, and then a long
parade,
all speaking to Michael because he was still standing par-
alyzed
just at that point where the procession broke.
He
wondered what would happen now. Cards had been issued for
a
reception at the George-Cinq ; an expensive enough place, heaven
knew.
Would Rutherford try to go through with that on top of those
disastrous
telegrams? Evidently, for the procession outside was
streaming
up there through the June morning, three by three and
four by
four. On the corner the long dresses of girls, five abreast,
fluttered
many-colored in the wind. Girls had become gossamer
again,
perambulatory flora; such lovely fluttering dresses in the
bright
noon wind.
Michael
needed a drink ; he couldn't face that reception line with-
out a
drink. Diving into a side doorway of the hotel, he asked for the
bar,
whither a chasseur led him through half a kilometer of new
American-looking
passages.
But how
did it happen? the bar was full. There were ten
fifteen
men and two four girls, all from the wedding, all needing
a drink.
There were cocktails and champagne in the bar; Ruther-
ford's
cocktails and champagne, as it turned out, for he had engaged
the whole
bar and the ballroom and the two great reception rooms
and all
the stairways leading up and down, and windows looking out
over the
whole square block of Paris. By and by Michael went and
joined
the long, slow drift of the receiving line. Through a flowery
mist of
"Such a lovely wedding," "My dear, you were simply lovely,"
"You're
a lucky man, Rutherford" he passed down the line. When
Michael
came to Caroline, she took a single step forward and kissed
him on
the lips, but he felt no contact in the kiss ; it was unreal and
he
floated on away from it. Old Mrs. Dandy, who had always liked
him, held
his hand for a minute and thanked him for the flowers he
had sent
when he heard she was ill.
"I'm
so sorry not to have written ; you know, we old ladies are
grateful
for " The flowers, the fact that she had not written, the
wedding
Michael saw that they all had the same relative impor-
tance to
her now ; she had married off five other children and seen
two of
the marriages go to pieces, and this scene, so poignant, so con-
fusing to
Michael, appeared to her simply a familiar charade in which
she had
played her part before.
A buffet
luncheon with champagne was already being served at
small
tables and there was an orchestra playing in the empty ball-
room.
Michael sat down with Jebby West ; he was still a little em-
barrassed
at not wearing a morning coat, but he perceived now that
he was
not alone in the omission and felt better. "Wasn't Caroline
divine?"
Jebby West said. "So entirely self-possessed. I asked her
this
morning if she wasn't a little nervous at stepping off like this.
And she
said, Why should I be? I've been after him for two years,
and now
I'm just happy, that's all.' "
"It
must be true," said Michael gloomily.
"What?"
"What
you just said."
He had been
stabbed, but, rather to his distress, he did not feel
the
wound.
He asked
Jebby to dance. Out on the floor, Rutherford's father
and
mother were dancing together.
"It
makes me a little sad, that," she said. "Those two hadn't met
for years
; both of them were married again and she divorced again.
She went
to the station to meet him when he came over for Caroline'*
wedding,
and invited him to stay at her house in the Avenue du Bois
with a
whole lot of other people, perfectly proper, but he was afraid
his wife
would hear about it and not like it, so he went to a hotel
Don't you
think that's sort of sad?"
An hour
or so later Michael realized suddenly that it was after-
noon. In
one corner of the ballroom an arrangement of screens like
a
moving-picture stage had been set up and photographers were tak-
ing
official pictures of . , still as
death and
pale as wax under the bright lights, appeared, to' the
dancers
circling the modulated semidarkness of the ballroom, like
those
jovial or sinister groups that one comes upon in The Old Mill
at an
amusement park.
After had
been photographed, there was a group
of the
ushers ; then the bridesmaids, the families, the children. Later,
Caroline,
active and excited, having long since abandoned the repose
implicit
in her flowing dress and great bouquet, came and plucked
Michael
off the floor.
"Now
we'll have them take one of just old friends." Her voice im-
plied
that this was best, most intimate of all. "Come here, Jebby,
George
not you, Hamilton; this is just my friends Sally "
A little
after that, what remained of formality disappeared and
the hours
flowed easily down the profuse stream of champagne. In
the
modern fashion, Hamilton Rutherford sat at the table with his
arm about
an old girl of his and assured his guests, which included
not a few
bewildered but enthusiastic Europeans, that the party was
not
nearly at an end ; it was to reassemble at Zelli's after midnight.
Michael
saw Mrs. Dandy, not quite over her illness, rise to go and
become
caught in polite group after group, and he spoke of it to one
of her
daughters, who thereupon forcibly abducted her mother and
called
her car. Michael felt very considerate and proud of himself
after
having done this, and drank much more champagne.
"It's
amazing," George Packman was telling him enthusiastically.
"This
show will cost Ham about five thousand dollars, and I under-
stand
they'll be just about his last. But did he countermand a bottle
of
champagne or a flower? Not he! He happens to have it that
young man.
Do you know that T. G. Vance offered him a salary of
fifty
thousand dollars a year ten minutes before the wedding
this
morning? In another year he'll be back with the million-
aires."
The
conversation was interrupted by a plan to carry Rutherford
out on
communal shoulders a plan which six of them put into
effect,
and then stood in the four-o'clock sunshine waving good-by
to the
bride and groom. But there must have been a mistake some-
where,
for five minutes later Michael saw both bride and groom
descending
the stairway to the reception, each with a glass of cham-
pagne
held defiantly on high.
"This
is our way of doing things," he thought. "Generous and fresh
and free
; a sort of Virgina-plantation hospitality, but at a different
pace now,
nervous as a ticker tape."
Standing
unself-consciously in the middle of the room to see which
was the
American ambassador, he realized with a start that he hadn't
really
thought of Caroline for hours. He looked about him with a
sort of
alarm, and then he saw her across the room, very bright and
young,
and radiantly happy. He saw Rutherford near her, looking at
her as if
he could never look long enough, and as Michael watched
them they
seemed to recede as he had wished them to do that day in
the Rue
de Castiglione recede and fade off into joys and griefs of
their
own, into the years that would take the toll of Rutherford's fine
pride and
Caroline's young, moving beauty; fade far away, so that
now he
could scarcely see them, as if they were shrouded in some-
thing as
misty as her white, billowing dress.
Michael
was cured. The ceremonial function, with its pomp and
its
revelry, had stood for a sort of initiation into a life where even
his
regret could not follow them. All the bitterness melted out of
him suddenly
and the world reconstituted itself out of the youth and
happiness
that was all around him, profligate as the spring sunshine.
He was
trying to remember which one of the bridesmaids he had
made a
date to dine with tonight as he walked forward to bid Ham-
ilton and
Caroline Rutherford good-by