So here I am and while, as I say, I’m not crazy about the place, Arnold and I and his friends, a Mr. and Mrs. Doone, perfectly darling people and such wonderful sports though they’re nearly seventy, we have gay little parties of our own and loaf around on the beach for hours hours hours at a time. Address me ℅ Paris, though I’m certain to be here for at least three weeks more, as there is a magnificent costume ball coming off to which Arnold and I are going, most scrumptiously as the Sirocco and the North Wind, me with my nice pale Swede hair being naturally the North Wind. Lots of love,
Sam cabled, “Sailing Carmania meet you Paris Hotel Universel September two.
” He added “Love
,” and crossed it out, and put it in again.
Twelve days later he was looking at the long fortifications at Cherbourg, watching the voluble little Frenchmen on the tender.
On deck, by night and day, he had walked out of his system all irritation at Fran, all hatred of Arnold Israel. When he had finished her letter from Deauville, he had suddenly grasped something which he had never completely formulated in their twenty-three years of marriage: that she was not in the least a mature and responsible woman, mother and wife and administrator, but simply a clever child, with a child’s confused self-dramatizations. The discovery had dismayed him. Then it had made him the more tender. His other children, Brent and Emily, did not need him; his child Fran did need him! Something in life still needed him! He thought of her, awaiting him there in Paris, as he had thought of her in the uncomplicated days of their courtship.
XX
Late of a cloudy afternoon, the Paris express slid through the thunderous gloom of the train shed, and Sam was jumpy with the excitement of arrival, looking down at the porters as though they were his friends, smiling at the advertisements of Cointreau and Fernet Branca, of Rouen and Avignon, on the station walls. He marched quickly out of the train, peering for Fran, anxious when he did not see her, and he felt utterly let down as he clumped after the porter with his bags.
She was at the end of the platform.
He saw her afar; he was startled to know how much lovelier she was than he had remembered. In a cool blue coat and skirt, with a white blouse, her hair, pale and light-touched as new straw, her slim legs so silken, her shoulders so confident, she was the American athletic girl, swift to dance, to play tennis, to drive like a cyclone. She was so vital, so young! His heart caught with admiration. But he was conscious that her face was unhappy, and that she looked at the approaching passengers only mechanically. Didn’t she want him—
He came up to her shyly. He was confused by the rather polite smile that masked her face, but holding her by her shoulders, looming over her, he murmured, “Did I remember to write you that I adore you?”
“Why, no, I don’t believe you did. Do you? That’s very nice, I’m sure.”
Her tone was as light and smooth and passionless, her laugh was as distant, as the banter of an actress in a drawing-room comedy.
They were strangers.
At the hotel she said hesitantly, “Uh, Sam—do you mind—I thought you’d be tired after the journey. I know I am, after coming from Deauville. So I got two single rooms instead of a double. But they’re right next to each other.”
“No, maybe better rest,” he said.
She came with him into his room, but she hovered near the door, saying with a dreadful politeness, “I hope you will find the room all right. It has quite a nice bathroom.”
He hesitated. “I’ll unpack later. Let’s not hang around here now. Let’s skip right out and catch us a good old sidewalk café and watch the world go by again!” Wretchedly he noted that she looked relieved. He had given her but a tap of a kiss. She had demanded no further caress.
She was courteous, while he gossiped of Zenith; she laughed at the right moments; and she remained a stranger, forced to entertain the friend of a friend and wanting to get the duty over. She did ask questions about Emily and Brent, but when he talked of Tub, of golfing, she did not listen.
He could not endure it, but he said only, tenderly, “What’s the matter, honey? You seem kind of far off. Not feeling well? Glad to see me?”
“Of course! It’s nothing. It’s just—I guess I didn’t sleep very well last night. I’m a little nervy. But of course I’m glad to see you, dear old bear!”
And still they had not talked of Madame de Pénable, of Arnold Israel, of Stresa and Deauville. He had kept from it as much as she; he had said only, “Too bad you had your trouble with Mrs. Pénable, but I’m glad you had some fun after that. Your letters were great.” He sounded provincial to himself as he maundered about Zenith, sounded rather dull and thick, but his senses were furiously awake. He noted how agitated she seemed. He noted that she drank three cocktails. He noted that he, Sam Dodsworth, was slowly massing for a battle, and that he dreaded it.
When they dressed for dinner, she closed the door between their two rooms.
“Let’s go to Voisin’s, where we can be quiet and talk,” said he, when she came in to announce that she was ready.
“Oh, wouldn’t you rather go some place a little more festive?”
“I would not!”
Then first was he brusque.
“I want to talk!”
She shrugged.
After the soup, he bumbled, “Well, I guess I’ve given you most of the
