Part 51 (2/2)
Gora did not see her sister-in-law for a moment and Alexina had time to recover her poise and make sharp swift observations. She had not seen Gora for four years, nor exchanged a line with her. She had almost forgotten her. The changes were more striking than in herself, who had been always slight. Gora's superb bust had disappeared; her face was gaunt, throwing into prominence its width and the high cheek bones. Her eyes were enormous in her thin brown face; to Alexina's excited imagination they looked like polar seas under a gray sky brooding above innumerable dead. There were lines about her handsome mouth, closer and firmer than ever. How she must have worked, poor thing! What sights, what suffering, what despair ... four long years of it. But she had evidently had her discharge. She wore an extremely well-cut brown tailored suit, good furs, and a small turban with a red wing.
What was she in Paris for? ... What ... what ...
II
Gora saw her and almost ran forward, that brilliant inner light that had always been her chief attraction breaking through her cold face ...
sunlight sparkling on polar seas ... oh, yes, Gora had her charm!
”Alexina! It isn't possible! I was going to ask at the American Emba.s.sy for your address. I only arrived last night.”
Alexina had lowered her m.u.f.f and her face expressed only the warmest surprise and welcome. ”Gora! It's too wonderful! But I suppose you couldn't go home without seeing Paris?”
”Rather not! It's the first chance I've had, too. Where can we have a talk?”
”It's too late for tea. Come out to my pension and spend the night.
Janet and Alice have gone to Nice for a few days' rest. You'll be hideously uncomfortable--”
”Not any more than where I am--sharing a room with three others. Where can I telephone? In here?”
”Good heavens, no. Take a liberty with a duke, but with the American aristocracy, never. Come down to the Meurice. Perhaps we can find a cab there. This seems to be hopeless. Everybody comes to the Crillon in a private car or a military automobile. Taxis appear to avoid it.”
III
It only took half an hour to get the telephone connection and another to seize by force a taxi, which, however, deposited them at the etoile.
The driver explained unamiably that he wanted his dinner; and a bribe, unless unthinkable, would have been useless. In these days taxi drivers made fifty francs a day in tips, and, as a Frenchman knows exactly what he wants and calculates to a nicety when he has enough, valuing rest and nutriment above even the delights of gouging foolish Americans, Alexina knew that it would be useless to argue and did not even waste energy in announcing her opinion of him for taking a fare under false pretenses. There was no other cab in sight and they walked the rest of the way. But both were inured to hards.h.i.+ps and took their mishap good-naturedly, trudging the long distance under their umbrellas.
IV
After a very bad dinner in an airless room as frugally lighted they made themselves comfortable in Alexina's room over the oil stove she had bought, and supplied through Olive's influence with the higher powers. She took off her street clothes and put on a thick dressing gown, giving her sister-in-law a quilted red wrapper of Janet's, which threw some warmth into Gora's pale cheeks. She looked comfortable, almost happy, as she smoked her cigarette in the arm-chair.
Alexina curled up on the bed.
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