BABYLON REVISITED
"AND WHERE'S Mr. Campbell?" Charlie asked.
"Gone to Switzerland. Mr. Campbell's a pretty sick man, Mr.
Wales."
"I'm sorry to hear that. And George Hardt?" Charlie inquired.
"Back in America, gone to work."
"And where is the Snow Bird?"
"He was in here last week. Anyway, his friend, Mr. Schaeffer, is
in Paris."
Two familiar names from the long list of a year and a half ago.
Charlie scribbled an address in his notebook and tore out the page.
"If you see Mr. Schaeffer, give him this," he said. "It's my brother-
in-law's address. I haven't settled on a hotel yet."
He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty. But the
stillness in the Ritz bar was strange and portentous. It was not an
American bar any more he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned
it. It had gone back into France. He felt the stillness from the mo-
ment he got out of the taxi and saw the doorman, usually in a frenzy
of activity at this hour, gossiping with a chasseur by the servants'
entrance.
Passing through the corridor, he heard only a single, bored voice in
the once-clamorous women's room. When he turned into the bar he
traveled the twenty feet of green carpet with his eyes fixed straight
ahead by old habit; and then, with his foot firmly on the rail, he
turned and surveyed the room, encountering only a single pair of
eyes that fluttered up from a newspaper in the corner. Charlie asked
for the head barman, Paul, who in the latter days of the bull market
had come to work in his own custom-built car disembarking, how-
ever, with due nicety at the nearest corner. But Paul was at his coun-
try house today and Alix giving him information.
"No, no more," Charlie said, "I'm going slow these days."
Alix congratulated him : "You were going pretty strong a couple
of years ago."
"Ill stick to it all right," Charlie assured him. "I've stuck to it for
over a year and a half now."
"How do you find conditions in America?"
"I haven't been to America for months. I'm in business in Prague,
representing a couple of concerns there. They don't know about me
down there."
Alix smiled.
"Remember the night of George Hardt's bachelor dinner here?"
said Charlie. "By the way, what's become of Claude Fessenden?"
Alix lowered his voice confidentially: "He's in Paris, but he doesn't
come here any more. Paul doesn't allow it. He ran up a bill of thirty
thousand francs, charging all his drinks and his lunches, and usually
his dinner, for more than a year. And when Paul finally told him he
had to pay, he gave him a bad check."
Alix shook his head sadly.
"I don't understand it, such a dandy fellow. Now he's all bloated
up " He made a plump apple of his hands.
Charlie watched a group of strident queens installing themselves
in a corner.
"Nothing affects them," he thought. "Stocks rise and fall, people
loaf or work, but they go on forever." The place oppressed him. He
called for the dice and shook with Alix for the drink.
"Here for long, Mr. Wales?"
"I'm here for four or five days to see my little girl."
"Oh-hl You have a little girl?"
Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs shone smokily
through the tranquil rain. It was late afternoon and the streets were
in movement ; the bistros gleamed. At the corner of the Boulevard
des Capucines he took a taxi. The Place de la Concorde moved by in
pink majesty; they crossed the logical Seine, and Charlie felt the
sudden provincial quality of the left bank.
Charlie directed his taxi to the Avenue de 1'Opera, which was out
of his way. But he wanted to see the blue hour spread over the mag-
nificent fagade, and imagine that the cab horns, playing endlessly
the first few bars of Le Plus que Lent, were the trumpets of the Sec-
ond Empire. They were closing the iron grill in front of Brentano's
Book-store, and people were already at dinner behind the trim little
bourgeois hedge of Duval's. He had never eaten at a really cheap
restaurant in Paris. Five-course dinner, four francs fifty, eighteen
cents, wine included. For some odd reason he wished that he had.
As they rolled on to the Left Bank and he felt its sudden pro-
vincialism, he thought, "I spoiled this city for myself. I didn't realize
it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years
were gone, and everything was gone, and I was gone."
He was thirty-five, and good to look at. The Irish mobility of his
face was sobered by a deep wrinkle between his eyes. As he rang his
brother-in-law's bell in the Rue Palatine, the wrinkle deepened till it
pulled down his brows; he felt a cramping sensation in his belly.
From behind the maid who opened the door darted a lovely little
girl of nine who shrieked "Daddy ! " and flew up, struggling like a
fish, into his arms. She pulled his head around by one ear and set her
cheek against his.
"My old pie," he said.
"Oh, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, dads, dads, dads!"
She drew him into the salon, where the family waited, a boy and a
girl his daughter's age, his sister-in-law and her husband. He greeted
Marion with his voice pitched carefully to avoid either feigned en-
thusiasm or dislike, but her response was more frankly tepid, though
she minimized her expression of unalterable distrust by directing her
regard toward his child. The two men clasped hands in a friendly
way and Lincoln Peters rested his for a moment on Charlie's
shoulder.
The room was warm and comfortably American. The three chil-
dren moved intimately about, playing through the yellow oblongs
that led to other rooms; the cheer of six o'clock spoke in the eager
smacks of the fire and the sounds of French activity in the kitchen.
But Charlie did not relax ; his heart sat up rigidly in his body and
he drew confidence from his daughter, who from time to time came
close to him, holding in her arms the doll he had brought.
"Really extremely well," he declared in answer to Lincoln's ques-
tion. "There's a lot of business there that isn't moving at all, but
we're doing even better than ever. In fact, damn well. I'm bringing
my sister over from America next month to keep house for me. My
income last year was bigger than it was when I had money. You see,
the Czechs "
His boasting was for a specific purpose ; but after a moment, see-
ing a faint restiveness in Lincoln's eye, he changed the subject:
"Those are fine children of yours, well brought up, good manners."
"We think Honoria's a great little girl too."
Marion Peters came back from the kitchen. She was a tall woman
with worried eyes, who had once possessed a fresh American loveli-
ness. Charlie had never been sensitive to it and was always surprised
when people spoke of how pretty she had been. From the first there
had been an instinctive antipathy between them.
"Well, how do you find Honoria?" she asked.
"Wonderful. I was astonished how much she's grown in ten
months. All the children are looking well."
"We haven't had a doctor for a year. How do you like being back
in Paris ?"
"It seems very funny to see so few Americans around."
"I'm delighted," Marion said vehemently. "Now at least you can
go into a store without their assuming you're a millionaire. We've
suffered like everybody, but on the whole it's a good deal pleasanter."
"But it was nice while it lasted," Charlie said. "We were a sort of
royalty, almost infallible, with a sort of magic around us. In the bar
this afternoon" he stumbled, seeing his mistake "there wasn't a
man I knew."
She looked at him keenly. "I should think you'd have had enough,
of bars."
"I only stayed a minute. I take one drink every afternoon, and
no more."
"Don't you want a cocktail before dinner?" Lincoln asked.
"I take only one drink every afternoon, and I've had that."
"I hope you keep to it," said Marion.
Her dislike was evident in the coldness with which she spoke, but
Charlie only smiled; he had larger plans. Her very aggressiveness
gave him an advantage, and he knew enough to wait. He wanted
them to initiate the discussion of what they knew had brought him
to Paris.
At dinner he couldn't decide whether Honoria was most like him
or her mother. Fortunate if she didn't combine the traits of both that
had brought them to disaster. A great wave of protectiveness went
over him. He thought he knew what to do for her. He believed in
character ; he wanted to jump back a whole generation and trust in
character again as the eternally valuable element. Everything else
wore out.
He left soon after dinner, but not to go home. He was curious to
see Paris by night with clearer and more judicious eyes than those
of other days. He bought a strapontin for the Casino and watched
Josephine Baker go through her chocolate arabesques.
After an hour he left and strolled toward Montmartre, up the Rue
Pigalle into the Place Blanche. The rain had stopped and there were
a few people in evening clothes disembarking from taxis in front of
cabarets, and cocottes prowling singly or in pairs, and many Negroes.
He passed a lighted door from which issued music, and stopped with
the sense of familiarity ; it was Bricktop's, where he had parted with
so many hours and so much money. A few doors farther on he found
another ancient rendezvous and incautiously put his head inside.
Immediately an eager orchestra burst into sound, a pair of profes-
sional dancers leaped to their feet and a maitre d 'hotel swooped
toward him, crying, "Crowd just arriving, sir!" But he withdrew
quickly.
"You have to be damn drunk," he thought.
Zelli's was closed, the bleak and sinister cheap hotels surrounding
it were dark; up in the Rue Blanche there was more light and a
local, colloquial French crowd. The Poet's Cave had disappeared,
but the two great mouths of the Caf6 of Heaven and the Caf6 of Hell
still yawned even devoured, as he watched, the meager contents of
a tourist bus a German, a Japanese, and an American couple who
glanced at him with frightened eyes.
So much for the effort and ingenuity of Montmartre. All the cater-
ing to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he sud-
denly realized the meaning of the word "dissipate" to dissipate into
thin air; to make nothing out of something. In the little hours of
the night every move from place to place was an enormous human
jump, an increase of paying for the privilege of slower and slower
motion.
He remembered thousand-franc notes given to an orchestra for
playing a single number, hundred-franc notes tossed to a doorman
for calling a cab.
But it hadn't been given for nothing.
It had been given, even the most wildly squandered sum, as an
offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth
remembering, the things that now he would always remember his
child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont.
In the glare of a brasserie a woman spoke to him. He bought her
some eggs and coffee, and then, eluding her encouraging stare, gave
her a twenty-franc note and took a taxi to his hotel.
II
He woke upon a fine fall day football weather. The depression of
yesterday was gone and he liked the people on the streets. At noon
he sat opposite Honoria at Le Grand Vatel, the only restaurant he
could think of not reminiscent of champagne dinners and long
luncheons that began at two and ended in a blurred and vague
twilight.
"Now, how about vegetables? Oughtn't you to have some vege-
tables?"
"Well, yes."
"Here's ipinards and chou-fleur and carrots and haricots"
"I'd like chou-fleur."
"Wouldn't you like to have two vegetables?"
"I usually only have one at lunch."
The waiter was pretending to be inordinately fond of children.
"Qu'elle est mignonne la petite I Elle parle exactement comme une
Fran$aise."
"How about dessert? Shall we wait and see?"
The waiter disappeared. Honoria looked at her father expectantly.
"What are we going to do ?"
"First, we're going to that toy store in the Rue Saint-Honor6 and
buy you anything you like. And then we're going to the vaudeville
at the Empire."
She hesitated. "I like it about the vaudeville, but not the toy
store."
"Why not?"
"Well, you brought me this doll." She had it with her. "And I've
got lots of things. And we're not rich any more, are we?"
"We never were. But today you are to have anything you want."
"All right," she agreed resignedly.
When there had been her mother and a French nurse he had been
inclined to be strict ; now he extended himself, reached out for a new
tolerance ; he must be both parents to her and not shut any of her
out of communication.
"I want to get to know you," he said gravely. "First let me intro-
duce myself. My name is Charles J. Wales, of Prague."
"Oh, daddy ! " her voice cracked with laughter.
"And who are you, please?" he persisted, and she accepted a role
immediately: "Honoria Wales, Rue Palatine, Paris."
"Married or single?"
"No, not married. Single."
He indicated the doll. "But I see you have a child, madame."
Unwilling to disinherit it, she took it to her heart and thought
quickly: "Yes, I've been married, but I'm not married now. My
husband is dead."
He went on quickly, "And the child's name?"
"Simone. That's after my best friend at school."
"I'm very pleased that you're doing so well at school."
"I'm third this month," she boasted. "Elsie" that was her cousin
"is only about eighteenth, and Richard is about at the bottom."
"You like Richard and Elsie, don't you?"
"Oh, yes. I like Richard quite well and I like her all right."
Cautiously and casually he asked : "And Aunt Marion and Uncle
Lincoln which do you like best?"
"Oh, Uncle Lincoln, I guess."
He was increasingly aware of her presence. As they came in, a
murmur of ". . . adorable" followed them, and now the people at
the next table bent all their silences upon her, staring as if she were
something no more conscious than a flower.
"Why don't I live with you?" she asked suddenly. "Because
mamma's dead?"
"You must stay here and learn more French. It would have been
hard for daddy to take care of you so well."
"I don't really need much taking care of any more. I do everything
for myself."
Going out of the restaurant, a man and a woman unexpectedly
hailed him.
"Well, the old Wales!"
"Hello there, Lorraine. . . . Dune."
Sudden ghosts out of the past: Duncan Schaeffer, a friend from
college. Lorraine Quarries, a lovely, pale blonde of thirty ; one of a
crowd who had helped them make months into days in the lavish
times of three years ago.
"My husband couldn't come this year," she said, in answer to his
question. "We're poor as hell. So he gave me two hundred a month
and told me I could do my worst on that. . . . This your little
girl?"
"What about coming back and sitting down ?" Duncan asked.
"Can't do it." He was glad for an excuse. As always, he felt Lor-
raine's passionate, provocative attraction, but his own rhythm was
different now.
"Well, how about dinner?" she asked.
"I'm not free. Give me your address and let me call you."
"Charlie, I believe you're sober," she said judicially. "I honestly
believe he's sober, Dune. Pinch him and see if he's sober."
Charlie indicated Honoria with his head. They both laughed.
"What's your address?" said Duncan skeptically.
He hesitated, unwilling to give the name of his hotel.
"I'm not settled yet. I'd better call you. We're going to see the
vaudeville at the Empire."
"There ! That's what I want to do," Lorraine said. "I want to see
some clowns and acrobats and jugglers. That's just what we'll do,
Dune."
"We've got to do an errand first," said Charlie. "Perhaps we'll see
you there."
"All right, you snob. . . . Good-by, beautiful little girl."
"Good-by."
Honoria bobbed politely.
Somehow, an unwelcome encounter. They liked him because he
was functioning, because he was serious; they wanted to see him,
because he was stronger than they were now, because they wanted
to draw a certain sustenance from his strength.
At the Empire, Honoria proudly refused to sit upon her father's
folded coat. She was already an individual with a code of her own,
and Charlie was more and more absorbed by the desire of putting a
little of himself into her before she crystallized utterly. It was hope-
less to try to know her in so short a time.
Between the acts they came upon Duncan and Lorraine in the
lobby where the band was playing.
"Have a drink?"
"All right, but not up at the bar. Well take a table."
"The perfect father."
Listening abstractedly to Lorraine, Charlie watched Honoria's
eyes leave their table, and he followed them wistfully about the
room, wondering what they saw. He met her glance and she smiled.
"I liked that lemonade," she said.
What had she said ? What had he expected ? Going home in a taxi
afterward, he pulled her over until her head rested against his chest.
"Darling, do you ever think about your mother?"
"Yes, sometimes," she answered vaguely.
"I don't want you to forget her. Have you got a picture of her?"
"Yes, I think so. Anyhow, Aunt Marion has.Why don't you want
me to forget her?"
"She loved you very much."
"I loved her too."
They were silent for a moment.
"Daddy, I want to come and live with you," she said suddenly.
His heart leaped ; he had wanted it to come like this.
"Aren't you perfectly happy?"
"Yes, but I love you better than anybody. And you love me better
than anybody, don't you, now that mummy's dead?"
"Of course I do. But you won't always like me best, honey. You'll
grow up and meet somebody your own age and go marry him and
forget you ever had a daddy."
"Yes, that's true," she agreed trancpilly.
He didn't go in. He was coming l&ack at nine o'clock and he
wanted to keep himself fresh and new for the thing he must say then.
"When you're safe inside, just show yourself in that window."
"All right. Good-by, dads, dads, dads, dads."
He waited in the dark street until she appeared, all warm and
glowing, in the window above and kissed her fingers out into the
night.
Ill
They were waiting. Marion sat behind the coffee service in a dig-
nified black dinner dress that just faintly suggested mourning. Lin-
coln was walking up and down with the animation of one who had
already been talking. They were as anxious as he was to get into the
question. He opened it almost immediately :
"I suppose you know what I want to see you about why I really
came to Paris."
Marion played with the black stars on her necklace and frowned.
"I'm awfully anxious to have a home," he continued. "And Fm
awfully anxious to have Honoria in it. I appreciate your taking in
Honoria for her mother's sake, but things have changed now" he
hesitated and then continued more forcibly "changed radically with
me, and I want to ask you to reconsider the matter. It would be silly
for me to deny that about three years ago I was acting badly "
Marion looked up at him with hard eyes.
" but all that's over. As I told you, I haven't had more than a
drink a day for over a year, and I take that drink deliberately, so
that the idea of alcohol won't get too big in my imagination. You
see the idea?"
"No," said Marion succinctly.
"It's a sort of stunt I set myself. It keeps the matter in propor-
tion."
"I get you," said Lincoln. "You don't want to admit it's got any
attraction for you."
"Something like that. Sometimes I forget and don't take it. But
I try to take it. Anyhow, I couldn't afford to drink in my position.
The people I represent are more than satisfied with what I've done,
and I'm bringing my sister over from Burlington to keep house for
me, and I want awfully to have Honoria too. You know that even
when her mother and I weren't getting along well we never let any-
thing that happened touch Honoria. I know she's fond of me and I
know I'm able to take care of her and well, there you are. How do
you feel about it?" f
He knew that now he would have to take a beating. It would last
an hour or two hours, and it would be difficult, but if he modulated
his inevitable resentment to the chastened attitude of the reformed
sinner, he might win his point in the end.
Keep your temper, he told himself. You don't want to be justified.
You want Honoria.
Lincoln spoke first : "We've been talking it over ever since we got
your letter last month. We're happy to have Honoria here. She's a
dear little thing, and we're glad to be able to help her, but of course
that isn't the question "
Marion interrupted suddenly. "How long are you going to stay
sober, Charlie?" she asked.
"Permanently, I hope."
"How can anybody count on that?"
"You know I never did drink heavily until I gave up business and
came over here with nothing to do. Then Helen and I began to run
around with "
"Please leave Helen out of it. I can't bear to hear you talk about
her like that."
He stared at her grimly ; he had never been certain how fond of
each other the sisters were in life.
"My drinking only lasted about a year and a half from the time
we came over until I collapsed."
"It was time enough."
"It was time enough," he agreed.
"My duty is entirely to Helen," she said. "I try to think what
she would have wanted me to do. Frankly, from the night you did
that terrible thing you haven't really existed for me. I can't help
that. She was my sister."
"Yes."
"When she was dying she asked me to look out for Honoria. If
you hadn't been in a sanitarium then, it might have helped
matters."
He had no answer.
"I'll never in my life be able to forget the morning when Helen
knocked at my door, soaked to the skin and shivering and said you'd
locked her out."
Charlie gripped the sides of the chair. This was more difficult than
he expected ; he wanted to launch out into a long expostulation and
explanation, but he only said : "The night I locked her out " and
she interrupted, "I don't feel up to going over that again."
After a moment's silence Lincoln said : "We're getting off the sub-
ject. You want Marion to set aside her legal guardianship and give
you Honoria. I think the main point for her is whether she has con-
fidence in you or not."
"I don't blame Marion," Charlie said slowly, "but I think she
can have entire confidence in me. I had a good record up to three
years ago. Of course, it's within human possibilities I might go
wrong any time. But if we wait much longer I'll lose Honoria's child-
hood and my chance for a home." He shook his head, "I'll simply
lose her, don't you see?"
"Yes, I see," said Lincoln.
"Why didn't you think of all this before?" Marion asked.
"I suppose I did, from time to time, but Helen and I were getting
along badly. When I consented to the guardianship, I was flat on
my back in a sanitarium and the market had cleaned me out. I
knew I'd acted badly, and I thought if it would bring any peace to
Helen, I'd agree to anything. But now it's different. I'm functioning,
I'm behaving damn well, so far as "
"Please don't swear at me/' Marion said.
He looked at her, startled. With each remark the force of her dis-
like became more and more apparent. She had built up all her fear
of life into one wall and faced it toward him. This trivial reproof
was possibly the result of some trouble with the cook several hours
before. Charlie became increasingly alarmed at leaving Honoria in
this atmosphere of hostility against himself; sooner or later it
would come out, in a word here, a shake of the head there, and
some of that distrust would be irrevocably implanted in Honoria.
But he pulled his temper down out of his face and shut it up inside
him; he had won a point, for Lincoln realized the absurdity of
Marion's remark and asked her lightly since when she had objected
to the word "damn."
"Another thing," Charlie said: "Fm able to give her certain ad-
vantages now. I'm going to take a French governess to Prague with
me. Fve got a lease on a new apartment "
He stopped, realizing that he was blundering. They couldn't be
expected to accept with equanimity the fact that his income was
again twice as large as their own.
"I suppose you can give her more luxuries than we can," said
Marion. "When you were throwing away money we were living
along watching every ten francs. ... I suppose you'll start doing
it again."
"Oh, no," he said. "Fve learned. I worked hard for ten years, you
know until I got lucky in the market, like so many people. Terribly
lucky. It won't happen again."
There was a long silence. All of them felt their nerves straining,
and for the first time in a year Charlie wanted a drink. He was sure
now that Lincoln Peters wanted him to have his child.
Marion shuddered suddenly; part of her saw that Charlie's feet
were planted on the earth now, and her own maternal feeling recog-
nized the naturalness of his desire ; but she had lived for a long time
with a prejudice a prejudice founded on a curious disbelief in her
sister's happiness, and which, in the shock of one terrible night, had
turned to hatred for him. It had all happened at a point in her life
where the discouragement of ill health and adverse circumstances
made it necessary for her to believe in tangible villainy and a
tangible villain.
"I can't help what I think!" she cried out suddenly. "How much
you were responsible for Helen's death, I don't know. It's something
you'll have to square with your own conscience."
An electric current of agony surged through him ; for a moment
he was almost on his feet, an unuttered sound echoing in his throat.
He hung on to himself for a moment, another moment.
"Hold on there," said Lincoln uncomfortably. "I never thought
you were responsible for that."
"Helen died of heart trouble," Charlie said dully.
"Yes, heart trouble." Marion spoke as if the phrase had another
meaning for her.
Then, in the flatness that followed her outburst, she saw him
plainly and she knew he had somehow arrived at control over the
situation. Glancing at her husband, she found no help from him, and
as abruptly as if it were a matter of no importance, she threw up the
sponge.
"Do what you like ! " she cried, springing up from her chair. "She's
your child. I'm not the person to stand in your way. I think if it
were my child I'd rather see her " She managed to check herself.
"You two decide it. I can't stand this. I'm sick. I'm going to bed."
She hurried from the room ; after a moment Lincoln said :
"This has been a hard day for her. You know how strongly she
feels " His voice was almost apologetic : "When a woman gets an
idea in her head."
"Of course."
"It's going to be all right. I think she sees now that you can
provide for the child, and so we can't very well stand in your way or
Honoria's way."
"Thank you, Lincoln."
"I'd better go along and see how she is."
"I'm going."
He was still trembling when he reached the street, but a walk
down the Rue Bonaparte to the quais set him up, and as he crossed
the Seine, fresh and new by the quai lamps, he felt exultant. But
back in his room he couldn't sleep. The image of Helen haunted
him. Helen whom he had loved so until they had senselessly begun
to abuse each other's love, tear it into shreds. On that terrible Feb-
ruary night that Marion remembered so vividly, a slow quarrel had
gone on for hours. There was a scene at the Florida, and then he
attempted to take her home, and then she kissed young Webb at a
table; after that there was what she had hysterically said. When
he arrived home alone he turned the key in the lock in wild anger.
How could he know she would arrive an hour later alone, that there
would be a snowstorm in which she wandered about in slippers, too
confused to find a taxi? Then the aftermath, her escaping pneu-
monia by a miracle, and all the attendant horror. They were "recon-
ciled," but that was the beginning of the end, and Marion, who had
seen with her own eyes and who imagined it to be one of many
scenes from her sister's martyrdom, never forgot.
Going over it again brought Helen nearer, and in the white, soft
light that steals upon half sleep near morning he found himself talk-
ing to her again. She said that he was perfectly right about Honoria
and that she wanted Honoria to be with him. She said she was glad
he was being good and doing better. She said a lot of other things
very friendly things but she was in a swing in a white dress, and
swinging faster and faster all the time, so that at the end he could
not hear clearly all that she said.
IV
He woke up feeling happy. The door of the world was open again.
He made plans, vistas, futures for Honoria and himself, but suddenly
he grew sad, remembering all the plans he and Helen had made.
She had not planned to die. The present was the thing work to do
and someone to love. But not to love too much, for he knew the injury
that a father can do to a daughter or a mother to a son by attaching
them too closely : afterward, out in the world, the child would seek
in the marriage partner the same blind tenderness and, failing
probably to find it, turn against love and life.
It was another bright, crisp day. He called Lincoln Peters at the
bank where he worked and asked if he could count on taking Honoria
when he left for Prague. Lincoln agreed that there was no reason for
delay. One thing the legal guardianship. Marion wanted to retain
that a while longer. She was upset by the whole matter, and it would
oil things if she felt that the situation was still in her control for
another year. Charlie agreed, wanting only the tangible, visible child.
Then the question of a governess. Charles sat in a gloomy agency
and talked to a cross Bearnaise and to a buxom Breton peasant,
neither of whom he could have endured. There were others whom he
would see tomorrow.
He lunched with Lincoln Peters at Griffons, trying to keep down
his exultation.
"There's nothing quite like your own child," Lincoln said. "But
you understand how Marion feels too."
"She's forgotten how hard I worked for seven years there," Charlie
said. "She just remembers one night."
"There's another thing." Lincoln hesitated. "While you and Helen
were tearing around Europe throwing money away, we were just
getting along. I didn't touch any of the prosperity because I never
got ahead enough to carry anything but my insurance. I think
Marion felt there was some kind of injustice in it you not even
working toward the end, and getting richer and richer."
"It went just as quick as it came," said Charlie.
"Yes, a lot of it stayed in the hands of chasseurs and saxophone
players and maitres dTiotel well, the big party's over now. I just
said that to explain Marion's feeling about those crazy years. If you
drop in about six o'clock tonight before Marion's too tired, we'll
settle the details on the spot."
Back at his hotel, Charlie found a pneumatique that had been re-
directed from the Ritz bar where Charlie had left his address for
the purpose of finding a certain man.
"DEAR CHARLIE : You were so strange when we saw you the other
day that I wondered if I did something to offend you. If so, I'm not
conscious of it. In fact, I have thought about you too much for the
last year, and it's always been in the back of my mind that I might
see you if I came over here. We did have such good times that crazy
spring, like the night you and I stole the butcher's tricycle, and the
time we tried to call on the president and you had the old derby rim
and the wire cane. Everybody seems so old lately, but I don't feel
old a bit. Couldn't we get together some time today for old time's
sake? I've got a vile hang-over for the moment, but will be feeling
better this afternoon and will look for you about five in the sweat-
shop at the Ritz.
"Always devotedly,
"LORRAINE."
His first feeling was one of awe that he had actually, in his
mature years, stolen a tricycle and pedaled Lorraine all over the
toile between the small hours and dawn. In retrospect it was a
nightmare. Locking out Helen didn't fit in with any other act of his
life, but the tricycle incident did it was one of many. How many
weeks or months of dissipation to arrive at that condition of utter
irresponsibility ?
He tried to picture how Lorraine had appeared to him then very
attractive; Helen was unhappy about it, though she said nothing.
Yesterday, in the restaurant, Lorraine had seemed trite, blurred,
worn away. He emphatically did not want to see her, and he was
glad Alix had not given away his hotel address. It was a relief to
think, instead, of Honoria, to think of Sundays spent with her and of
saying good morning to her and of knowing she was there in his
house at night, drawing her breath in the darkness.
At five he took a taxi and bought presents for all the Peters a
piquant cloth doll, a box of Roman soldiers, flowers for Marion, big
linen handkerchiefs for Lincoln.
He saw, when he arrived in the apartment, that Marion had
accepted the inevitable. She greeted him now as though he were a
recalcitrant member of the family, rather than a menacing outsider.
Honoria had been told she was going ; Charlie was glad to see that
her tact made her conceal her excessive happiness. Only on his lap
did she whisper her delight and the question "When?" before she
slipped away with the other children.
He and Marion were alone for a minute in the room, and on an
impulse he spoke out boldly :
"Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any
rules. They 're not like aches or wounds ; they're more like splits in
the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material. I wish
you and I could be on better terms."
"Some things are hard to forget," she answered. "It's a question
of confidence." There was no answer to this and presently she asked,
"When do you propose to take her?"
"As soon as I can get a governess. I hoped the day after to-
morrow."
"That's impossible. I've got to get her things in shape. Not before
Saturday."
He yielded. Coming back into the room, Lincoln offered him a
drink.
"I'll take my daily whisky," he said.
It was warm here, it was a home, people together by a fire. The
children felt very safe and important ; the mother and father were
serious, watchful. They had things to do for the children more im-
portant than his visit here. A spoonful of medicine was, after all,
more important than the strained relations between Marion and
himself. They were not dull people, but they were very much in the
grip of life and circumstances. He wondered if he couldn't do some-
thing to get Lincoln out of his rut at the bank.
A long peal at the door-bell ; the bonne d tout faire passed through
and went down the corridor. The door opened upon another long
ring, and then voices, and the three in the salon looked up expect-
antly; Richard moved to bring the corridor within his range of
vision, and Marion rose. Then the maid came back along the corridor,
closely followed by the voices, which developed under the light into
Duncan Schaeffer and Lorraine Quarries.
They were gay, they were hilarious, they were roaring with laugh-
ter. For a moment Charlie was astounded ; unable to understand how
they ferreted out the Peters' address.
"Ah-h-h!" Duncan wagged his finger roguishly at Charlie.
"Ah-h-h!"
They both slid down another cascade of laughter. Anxious and at
a loss, Charlie shook hands with them quickly and presented them
to Lincoln and Marion. Marion nodded, scarcely speaking. She had
drawn back a step toward the fire ; her little girl stood beside her,
and Marion put an arm about her shoulder.
With growing annoyance at the intrusion, Charlie waited for
them to explain themselves. After some concentration Duncan said :
"We came to invite you out to dinner. Lorraine and I insist that
all this shishi, cagy business 'bout your address got to stop."
Charlie came closer to them, as if to force them backward down
the corridor.
"Sorry, but I can't. Tell me where you'll be and 111 phone you in
half an hour."
This made no impression. Lorraine sat down suddenly on the side
of a chair, and focusing her eyes on Richard, cried, "Oh, what a nice
little boy I Come here, little boy." Richard glanced at his mother,
but did not move. With a perceptible shrug of her shoulders, Lor-
raine turned back to Charlie :
"Come and dine. Sure your cousins won' mine. See you so sel'om.
Or solemn."
"I can't," said Charlie sharply. "You two have dinner and I'll
phone you."
Her voice became suddenly unpleasant. "All right, we'll go. But I
remember once when you hammered on my door at four A.M. I was
enough of a good sport to give you a drink. Come on, Dune."
Still in slow motion, with blurred, angry faces, with uncertain feet,
they retired along the corridor.
"Good night," Charlie said.
"Good night 1" responded Lorraine emphatically.
When he went back into the salon Marion had not moved, only
now her son was standing in the circle of her other arm. Lincoln
was still swinging Honoria back and forth like a pendulum from side
to side.
"What an outrage!" Charlie broke out. "What an absolute out-
rage!"
Neither of them answered. Charlie dropped into an armchair,
picked up his drink, set it down again and said :
"People I haven't seen for two years having the colossal nerve "
He broke off. Marion had made the sound "Oh!" in one swift,
furious breath, turned her body from him with a jerk and left the
room.
Lincoln set down Honoria carefully.
"You children go in and start your soup," he said, and when they
obeyed, he said to Charlie:
"Marion's not well and she can't stand shocks. That kind of peo-
ple make her really physically sick."
"I didn't tell them to come here. They wormed your name out of
somebody. They deliberately "
"Well, it's teo bad. It doesn't help matters. Excuse me a minute."
Left alone, Charlie sat tense in his chair. In the next room he
could hear the children eating, talking in monosyllables, already ob-
livious to the scene between their elders. He heard a murmur of con-
versation from a farther room and then the ticking bell of a tele-
phone receiver picked up, and in a panic he moved to the other side
of the room and out of earshot.
In a minute Lincoln came back. "Look here, Charlie. I think we'd
better call off dinner for tonight. Marion's in bad shape."
"Is she angry with me?"
"Sort of," he said, almost roughly. "She's not strong and "
"You mean she's changed her mind about Honoria?"
"She's pretty bitter right now. I don't know. You phone me at the
bank tomorrow."
"I wish you'd explain to her I never dreamed these people would
come here. I'm just as sore as you are."
"I couldn't explain anything to her now."
Charlie got up. He took his coat and hat and started down the
corridor. Then he opened the door of the dining room and said in
a strange voice, "Good night, children."
Honoria rose and ran around the table to hug him.
"Good night, sweetheart," he said vaguely, and then trying to
make his voice more tender, trying to conciliate something, "Good
night, dear children."
Charlie went directly to the Ritz bar with the furious idea of find-
ing Lorraine and Duncan, but they were not there, and he realized
that in any case there was nothing he could do. He had not touched
his drink at the Peters, and now he ordered a whisky-and-soda. Paul
came over to say hello.
"It's a great change," he said sadly. "We do about half the busi-
ness we did. So many fellows I hear about back in the States lost
everything, maybe not in the first crash, but then in the second. Your
friend George Hardt lost every cent, I hear. Are you back in the
States?"
"No, I'm in business in Prague."
"I heard that you lost a lot in the crash."
"I did," and he added grimly, "but I lost everything I wanted in
the boom."
"Selling short."
"Something like that."
Again the memory of those days swept over him like a nightmare
the people they had met travelling ; then people who couldn't add a
row of figures or speak a coherent sentence. The little man Helen
had consented to dance with at the ship's party, who had insulted
her ten feet from the table ; the women and girls carried screaming
with drink or drugs out of public places
The men who locked their wives out in the snow, because the
snow of twenty-nine wasn't real snow. If you didn't want it to be
snow, you just paid some money.
He went to the phone and called the Peters' apartment ; Lincoln
answered.
"I called up because this thing is on my mind. Has Marion said
anything definite?"
"Marion's sick," Lincoln answered shortly. "I know this thing
isn't altogether your fault, but I can't have her go to pieces about
it. I'm afraid we'll have to let it slide for six months ; I can't take
the chance of working her up to this state again."
"I see."
"I'm sorry, Charlie."
He went back to his table. His whisky glass was empty, but he
shook his head when Alix looked at it questioningly. There wasn't
much he could do now except send Honoria some things ; he would
send her a lot of things tomorrow. He thought rather angrily that
this was just money he had given so many people money. . . .
"No, no more," he said to another waiter. "What do I owe you?"
He would come back some day ; they couldn't make him pay for-
ever. But he wanted his child, and nothing was much good now,
beside that fact. He wasn't young any more, with a lot of nice
thoughts and dreams to have by himself. He was absolutely sure
Helen wouldn't have wanted him to be so alone.