Part 37 (2/2)

”Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned, Chris,” said Andrews's voice. Chrisfield blinked the rain out of his lashes. Andrews sat writing with a pile of papers before him and a bottle of champagne. It seemed to Chrisfield to soothe his nerves to hear Andy's voice. He wished he would go on talking a long time without a pause.

”If you aren't the crowning idiot of the ages,” Andrews went on in a low voice. He took Chrisfield by the arm and led him into the little back room, where was a high bed with a brown coverlet and a big kitchen table on which were the remnants of a meal.

”What's the matter? Your arm's trembling like the devil. But why.... O pardon, Crimpette. C'est un ami.... You know Crimpette, don't you?” He pointed to a youngish woman who had just appeared from behind the bed.

She had a flabby rosy face and violet circles under her eyes, dark as if they'd been made by blows, and untidy hair. A dirty grey muslin dress with half the hooks off held in badly her large b.r.e.a.s.t.s and flabby figure. Chrisfield looked at her greedily, feeling his furious irritation flame into one desire.

”What's the matter with you, Chris? You're crazy to break out of quarters this way?”

”Say, Andy, git out o' here. Ah ain't your sort anyway.... Git out o'

here.”

”You're a wild man. I'll grant you that.... But I'd just as soon be your sort as anyone else's.... Have a drink.”

”Not now.”

Andrews sat down with his bottle and his papers, pus.h.i.+ng away the broken plates full of stale food to make a place on the greasy table. He took a gulp out of the bottle, that made him cough, then put the end of his pencil in his mouth and stared gravely at the paper.

”No, I'm your sort, Chris,” he said over his shoulder, ”only they've tamed me. O G.o.d, how tame I am.”

Chrisfield did not listen to what he was saying. He stood in front of the woman, staring in her face. She looked at him in a stupid frightened way. He felt in his pockets for some money. As he had just been paid he had a fifty-franc note. He spread it out carefully before her. Her eyes glistened. The pupils seemed to grow smaller as they fastened on the bit of daintily colored paper. He crumpled it up suddenly in his fist and shoved it down between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Some time later Chrisfield sat down in front of Andrews. He still had his wet slicker on.

”Ah guess you think Ah'm a swine,” he said in his normal voice. ”Ah guess you're about right.”

”No, I don't,” said Andrews. Something made him put his hand on Chrisfield's hand that lay on the table. It had a feeling of cool health.

”Say, why were you trembling so when you came in here? You seem all right now.”

”Oh, Ah dunno,'” said Chrisfield in a soft resonant voice.

They were silent for a long while. They could hear the woman's footsteps going and coming behind them.

”Let's go home,” said Chrisfield.

”All right.... Bonsoir, Crimpette.”

Outside the rain had stopped. A stormy wind had torn the clouds to rags.

Here and there cl.u.s.ters of stars showed through. They splashed merrily through the puddles. But here and there reflected a patch of stars when the wind was not ruffling them.

”Christ, Ah wish Ah was like you, Andy,” said Chrisfield.

”You don't want to be like me, Chris. I'm no sort of a person at all.

I'm tame. O you don't know how d.a.m.n tame I am.”

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