“Yes. I guess—I guess maybe there’s a good deal to what you say,” he sighed. “Well, it works out all right. I’ll trot off and welcome Tub and then come back.”
“Yes, and you’ll probably enjoy it more if I’m not there. Men ought to get off by themselves now and then, away from the dratted women. Take my advice and get rid of Matey as much as you can—get her interested in buying a lot of clothes and you and Tub knock around together. You’ll probably have a wonderful time. You do see now that I wasn’t merely being beastly and unselfish, don’t you?”
And she kissed him, fleetingly, and was cheerfully off to bed.
Even of such kisses there had not been over many, since the affair of Arnold Israel. The change in their intimacy was never admitted, but it was definite. It was not that Fran was less attractive to him; indeed more than ever he valued her sleek smoothness; but she had become to him a nun, taboo, and any passion toward her was forbidden. She seemed relieved by it; and they had drifted into a melancholy brother and sister relationship which left him irritable and hopeless.
They said nothing, neither then nor next day, of the fact that when Sam went to Paris, Fran and Kurt von Obersdorf would be left together. And these two, Fran and Kurt, very cheery and affectionate, saw him off on the evening train for Paris, and Kurt brought him as bon voyage presents a package of American cigarettes, a cactus plant, and a copy of the Nation, under the misconception that it was one of the most conservative of American magazines and especially suitable to the prejudices of a millionaire manufacturer.
Sam had to share his sleeping compartment with a small meek German who insisted, with apologetic gestures, on taking the undesirable upper berth, to which Sam was billeted. So when the German wanted to keep on the night-light, Sam could not object, and he lay in his berth staring up into a narrow vault made gloomier by that sepulchral blue glimmer which took away the oblivion of darkness and revealed the messy crowdedness of the compartment: the horribly lifelike trousers swaying against the wall, the valises wedged under the little folding table by the window, the litter of newspapers and cigarette butts. The train was loud with fury; it carried him on powerless; life carried him on powerless. Without Fran, he felt small, callow, defenseless. Why was he venturing to Paris, alone? He knew no French, really; he knew little of anything in Europe. He was marooned.
She had let him go off so casually. Was he going to lose her, to whom he had turned with every triumph and every worry these twenty-four years; whose hand had always been there, to let him warm and protect it, that he might himself be warmed and protected?
Or already lost her?
He brooded, a lumpy blanketed mound in the mean blue ghost-light.
What could he do?
The train seemed to be running with such abnormal speed. Surely even the Twentieth Century had never raced like this. Anything wrong?
It would be nice if it were Fran in the upper berth; if her hand were drooping over the edge, so that he could see it, perhaps touch it by pretended accident—
Not that she’d be in the upper, though, if they were together!
When he awoke at three, his first loneliness for her had passed, and he worked up a good deal of angry protest.
This “adventurous new life” they’d been going to find—Rats! Might be for her, but he himself had never been so bored. All came of trying to suit himself to her whims. And then lose her, after all—
What would Kurt and she be doing while he was away?
And this business of her having been such a devoted mother! Ever been a time when the children hadn’t had a nurse or a governess, with plenty of maids? If she ever did “get down on her knees and scrub a floor” it’d never happened more than once.
Oh, she’d meant it; she really did believe she’d been a sacrificing mother. Chief trouble with her. Never could see herself as she was. Never!
Yes, he’d have to rebel against her—or against his worship of her. Not been a go, his trying to be happy in her way. Make a life for himself. Be pretty darn lonely for a while. Sure. But not impossible to make a new life—
There were women, to say nothing of men friends—
Suddenly he was taut with desire for Minna von Escher. He felt her lips; he saw her too clearly.
Well, there were gorgeous girls in Paris—Hang it, he was no washed-out Sir Galahad, like he’d read about in Tennyson! He’d been patient and sacrificing. Lot of good it’d done him! Why should Fran have all the love? He’d go out—
Then Fran’s face, hovering in the wan blue dusk, a hurt, reproving face, very pale, very pure. He could not wound her, even by thought. And so he tossed, helpless in the rushing train, turning from the desire to serve Fran to the desire for Minna’s warm arms, and back ever to Fran … and back ever to Minna.
He breakfasted well in the restaurant carriage, and if he missed Fran, it was a relief to have a man’s proper ration of bacon and eggs without having her chronic complaint that real Europeans don’t take horrid heavy breakfasts. When he had lighted a cigar, Sam felt a faint exciting flavor in traveling alone, in going where he would.
He heard an American woman, at breakfast, say to her companion, “But the play I really liked was They Knew What They Wanted.”
He heard no more. He pondered, “That’s been the trouble with me, my entire life. It isn’t simply that I’ve never got what I wanted. I’ve never known what I wanted. There are women who are better sports than Fran. Not so selfish. More peace.
