Comrade Yetta Part 33

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 cafe. 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 b.u.t.te 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 manquee_.

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 _cha.s.seur_ brought him a _pet.i.t bleue_ and the announcement that a new swarm of reporters wanted to see him.

"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, 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 friend BEATRICE 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 Cafes 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 superst.i.tions."

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."