The Triflers Part 20

_Dear Marjory_ [he began]: Something has come up unexpectedly that makes it necessary for me to take an early train for England. I can't tell how long I shall be gone, but that of course is not important. I hope you will go on to etois, as we had planned; or, at any rate, leave Paris. Somehow, I feel that you belong out under the blue sky and not in town.

He paused a moment and read over that last sentence. Then he scratched it out. Then he tore up the whole letter.

What he had to say should be not written. He must meet her in the morning and tell her like a man.

CHAPTER XI

A CANCELED RESERVATION

Though it was late when he retired, Monte found himself wide awake at half past seven. Springing from bed, he took his cold tub, shaved, and after dressing proceeded to pack his bags. The process was simple; he called the hotel valet, gave the order to have them ready as soon as possible, and went below. From the office he telephoned upstairs to Marie, and learned that madame would meet him in the breakfast-room at nine. This left him a half-hour in which to pay his bill at the hotel, order a reservation on the express to Calais, and buy a large bunch of fresh violets, which he had placed on the breakfast table--a little table in a sunshiny corner.

Monte was calmer this morning than he had been the night before. He was rested; the interval of eight hours that had pa.s.sed since he last saw her gave him, however slight, a certain perspective, while his normal surroundings, seen in broad daylight, tended to steady him further. The hotel clerk, busy about his uninspired duties; the impa.s.sive waiters in black and white; the solid-looking Englishmen and their wives who began to make their appearance, lent a sense of unreality to the events of yesterday.

Yet, even so, his thoughts clung tenaciously to the necessity of his departure. In a way, the very normality of this morning world emphasized that necessity. He recalled that it was to just such a day as this he had awakened, yesterday. The hotel clerk had been standing exactly where he was now, sorting the morning mail, stopping every now and then with a troubled frown to make out an indistinct address. The corpulent porter in his blue blouse stood exactly where he was now standing, jealously guarding the door. Vehicles had been pa.s.sing this way and that on the street outside. He had heard the same undertone of leisurely moving life--the scuffling of feet, the closing of doors, distant voices, the rumble of traffic. Then, after this lazy prelude, he had been swept on and on to the final dizzy climax.

That must not happen again. At this moment he knew he had a firm grip on himself--but at this moment yesterday he had felt even more secure.

There had been no past then. That seemed a big word to use for such recent events covering so few hours; and yet it was none too big. It covered nothing less than the revelation of a man to himself. If that process sometimes takes years, it is none the less significant if it takes place in a day.

"Good-morning, Monte."

He turned quickly--so quickly that she started in surprise.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked.

She was in blue this morning, and wore at an angle a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with black and white. He thought her eyes looked a trifle tired. He would have said she had not slept well.

"I--I didn't know you were down," he faltered.

The interval of six hours upon which he had been depending vanished instantly. To-day was but the continuation of yesterday. As he moved toward the breakfast-room at her side, the outside world disappeared as by magic, leaving only her world--the world immediately about her, which she dominated. This room which she entered by his side was no longer merely the salle-a-manger of the Normandie. He was conscious of no portion of it other than that which included their table. All the sunshine in the world concentrated into the rays that fell about her.

He felt this, and yet at the same time he was aware of the absurdity of such exaggeration. It was the sort of thing that annoyed him when he saw it in others. All those newly married couples he used to meet on the German liners were afflicted in this same way. Each one of them acted as if the ship were their ship, the ocean their ocean, even the blue sky and the stars at night their sky and their stars. When he was in a good humor, he used to laugh at this; when in a bad humor, it disgusted him.

"Monte," she said, as soon as they were seated, "I was depending upon you this morning."

She studied him a second, and then tried to smile, adding quickly:--

"I don't like you to disappoint me like this."

"What do you mean?" he asked nervously.

She frowned, but it was at herself, not at him. It did not do much except make dimples between her brows.

"I lay awake a good deal last night--thinking," she answered.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "You ought n't to have done that!"

"It was n't wise," she admitted. "But I looked forward to the daylight--and you--to bring me back to normal."

"Well, here we are," he hastened to a.s.sure her. "I had the sun up ready for you several hours ago."

"You--you look so serious."

She leaned forward.

"Monte," she pleaded, "you must n't go back on me like that--now. I suppose women can't help getting the fidgets once in a while and thinking all sorts of things. I was tired. I 'm not used to being so very gay. And I let myself go a little, because I thought in the morning I 'd find you the same old Monte. I 've known you so long, and you always _have_ been the same."

"It was a pretty exciting day for both of us," he tried to explain.

"How for you?"

"Well, to start with, one does n't get married every morning."

He saw her cheeks flush. Then she drew back.

"I think we ought to forget that as much as possible," she told him.

Here was his opportunity. The way to forget--the only way--was for him to continue with his interrupted schedule to England, and for her to go on alone to etois. It was not too late for that--if he started at once. Surely it ought to be the matter of only a few weeks to undo a single day. Let him get the tang of the salt air, let him go to bed every night dog-tired physically, let him get out of sight of her eyes and lips, and that something--intangible as a perfume--that emanated from her, and doubtless he would be laughing at himself as heartily as he had laughed at others.

But he could not frame the words. His lips refused to move. Not only that, but, facing her here, it seemed a grossly brutal thing to do.

She looked so gentle and fragile this morning as, picking up the violets, she half hid her face in them.

"You mean we ought to go back to the day before yesterday?" he asked.

"In our thoughts," she answered.

"And forget that we are--"

She nodded quickly, not allowing him to finish.

"Because," she explained, "I think it must be that which is making you serious. I don't know you that way. It is n't you. I 've seen you all these years, wandering around wherever your fancy took you--care-free and smiling. I've always envied you, and now--I thought you were just going to keep right on, only taking me with you. Is n't that what we planned?"

"Yes," he nodded. "We started yesterday."

"I shall never forget that part of yesterday," she said.

"It was n't so bad, except for Hamilton."

"It was n't so bad even with Hamilton," she corrected. "I don't think I can ever be afraid of him again."

"Then it was n't he that bothered you last night?" he asked quickly.

"No," she answered.

"It--it was n't I?"