Part 38 (1/2)
”We could always make ourselves believe, of course, that we were doing that to cheer up the men who were going to France--and were very likely never coming back. Like the English women one read about. The only thing that used to trouble me in those days was a perfectly scorching self-contempt that used to come when I realized that I was enjoying it all; enjoying the emotional thrill of it. I knew I was getting off cheap.
”I suppose I needn't have told you all that. You'd have understood it anyhow. But that was how I felt when I went to that dance. As if it would be a relief to do something--costly.
”It was a uniform dance as far as the men were concerned. We made ourselves, of course, as--attractive as we knew how. Somebody introduced this boy to me with just the look that said, 'Do be kind to him,' and that's what I set out, very resolutely and virtuously, to be. He couldn't talk much beyond monosyllables and he couldn't dance,--even with me. I mean, I've danced so much ...”
”I've seen you dance, my dear,” he reminded her, and saw how, with a deep-drawn breath, the memory of that night at Hickory Hill came back to her.
”Don't,” she gasped. ”Let me go on.” But it was the better part of a minute before she could.
”We sat out two or three dances together and then, when I might decently enough have pa.s.sed him on to some one else with that same sort of explanatory look--I didn't. Partly because of the feeling I have told you about and partly because I was attracted to him. He was big and young and good-looking, and his voice--oh, one can't explain those things. It wasn't pure altruism. That's what you must see. And then he got up suddenly and said, 'Good-by.' It was early, you know, and I asked him why he was going. He said he wanted to get out of there. Rather savagely.
”I got up too and said I felt the same way about it. So he asked if he might 'see me home.' The dance was in the East Sixties. There had been a shower but it was clear then and warm. There weren't any taxis about and, anyhow, he didn't seem to think of looking for one, and we went over and took a Lexington Avenue car. When we turned at Twenty-third Street I said we'd get out and walk. He'd said hardly anything, but we had sat rather close in the car and he had been holding a fold of my cloak between his fingers.
”We went on down Lexington to Gramercy Park. There was shrubbery in flower inside the iron fence and some of the trees had been leafing out that day and the air was very still and sweet. We both stopped for a minute without saying anything and I slipped my hand farther through his arm and took his.
”He gave a sort of sob and said, 'You wouldn't do that if you knew about me.' I said, 'You'd better tell me and see.'
”We walked on again, around the park and across Twentieth Street and down Fifth Avenue. When we got to my door he hadn't told me.
”My flat was just the second story of an old made-over house. There was no one about, I mean, to stare or wonder, and I asked him to come in.
When we were inside I looked at my watch and asked him what time he had to report. He said not until seven o'clock in the morning. He was going over detached. There was nothing but a hotel to go back to.
”If I'd asked him that question out on the sidewalk, and got that answer, I don't know whether I'd have asked him in or not.
”He just stood looking at me for a minute after telling me he hadn't anywhere to report that night. Then he turned away and sat down on the edge of my couch and bent his face down on his hands and began to talk.
He told me what was the matter with him. Of course, the same thing must have tormented thousands of them,--the terror of being afraid. He felt pretty sure he was a coward.
”Mostly, I think, that fear was pretty sensibly dealt with in this war.
It got talked out openly. But he must have been a terribly lonely person. He came from Iowa, but somehow he got sent to one of the southern cantonments, and had his officer's training, such as it was, down there.
Then he was sent along to fill in somewhere else. I don't remember all the details. He'd come to New York alone. The men he had gone to the dance with he had only met that afternoon.
”I tried to help him. I told him how some of the officers in the French and English armies, who had the highest decorations for courage, had suffered most horribly, in advance, from fear. I could tell him two or three that I knew about personally; men who had told their own stories to me. Well, that helped a little, roused him out of his daze, gave him a little gleam of hope perhaps. But it wasn't much; words can't be, sometimes.
”He wanted more than that. He wanted me. He didn't want to go back alone to that hotel. So I kept him. Early in the morning, about six o'clock, I cooked his breakfast and ate it with him and kissed him good-by.”
She made a sudden savage gesture of impatience. ”I didn't mean to make it sound like that. That sounds n.o.ble and self-sacrificial and sickening. I suppose because that's the half of the truth that is easiest to tell. I _did_ want to make an end of perpetually getting off cheap. I did have a sort of feeling of establis.h.i.+ng my good faith with myself. I wanted to comfort him and make him happy. But it's also true that I'd been attracted to him from the very first minute, and that it thrilled me when I first touched his hand, there by the park railing, and afterward when he took me in his arms.”
Since his last interruption he had sat motionless, even breathing small in the extremity of his effort not to hinder. But now he rose and without speaking, came to her and bending down, kissed her forehead, her eyes, her mouth. Then he seated himself on the table close beside her and took possession, thoughtfully, of one of her hands.
”Did you ever hear anything more of him?” he asked.
She shook her head. ”I don't think he remarked my name at all when we were introduced,” she said, ”nor asked what it was afterward. I think it must all have seemed afterward a little unreal to him. The girls he'd known at home don't smoke cigarettes nor drink champagne--nor wear their dresses as low as we do. He couldn't once have thought of people like father and Rush and Aunt Lucile as belonging to me. I remembered his name and used to look to see if it was there when I read the casualty lists, but I never did see it again.--No, that's the whole story; just what I have told you.”
CHAPTER XXV
DAYBREAK