Part 55 (1/2)

”Over the border. It is only some twenty-five miles. We can do it easily in two days; but even if it takes three--”

Even if it took a hundred, what did it matter, with her by his side?

And by his side she must remain until her credit was restored. With only one louis d'or in her pocket, she was merely a woman, with all the limitations of her s.e.x. She could not take to the open road alone.

She did not have the physical strength that dictated the law for vagabonds. She must have a man near to fight for her, or it would go hard. Even Marie would be no protection in time of war.

Dumbly she followed his pace until they reached the hotel. The place was in confusion and the proprietor at his wits' end. In the midst of it, Monte was the only one apparently unmoved.

”Pack one small hand-bag,” he ordered. ”You must leave your trunks here.”

”Yes, Monte,” she submitted.

”I'll run back to the Roses, and meet you here in a half-hour. Will you be ready?”

”Yes. Marie will come with us, of course.”

He shook his head.

”She must wait here until she can get to Paris. Find out if she has any cash.”

”I want her to come with me,” she pleaded.

”I doubt if she will want to come. Anyway, our fifty-five dollars won't stretch to her. We--we can't afford a maid.”

She flushed at his use of ”we.” Nevertheless, what he said was true enough. That sum was a mere pittance. Fate had her in a tight grip.

”Be sure to bring your pa.s.sport,” he reminded her. ”It is ten-thirty.

I 'll be here at eleven.”

Hurrying back to his room, he took what he could crowd into his pockets: his safety razor and toothbrush, a few handkerchiefs and a change of socks. One did not need much on the open road. He carried his sweater--the old crimson sweater with the black ”H”--more for her than for himself. The rest of his things he threw into his trunk and left in the care of the hotel.

She was waiting for him when he returned to the Hotel d'Angleterre.

”You were right about Marie,” she acknowledged. ”She has two brothers in the army. She has money enough for her fare to Paris, and is going as soon as possible.”

”In the meanwhile she is safe enough here. So, en avant!”

He took her bag, and they stepped out into the suns.h.i.+ne.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE CORNICE ROAD

It was the Cornice Road that he followed--the broad white road that skirts the sea at the foot of the Alpes Maritimes. As far as Monte Carlo, he had walked it alone many the time. But he had never walked it with her, so it was a new road. It was a new world too, and as far as he was concerned there was no war. The blue sky overhead gave no hint of war; neither did the Mediterranean; neither did the trees full of singing birds; neither did the gra.s.ses and flowers: and these things, with the woman at his side, comprised, for the moment, his whole world. It was the world as originally created for man and woman.

All that he was leaving behind--banks and hotels and taxis and servants and railroads--had nothing to do with the primal idea of creation.

They were all extraneous. The heavens, the earth, the waters beneath the earth, man and woman created He them. That was all. That was enough.

Once or twice, alone in his camp in the Adirondacks, Monte had sensed this fact. With a bit of food to eat, a bit of tobacco to smoke in his old brier, a bit of ground to lie down upon at night, he had marveled that men found so many other things necessary to their comfort. But, after a week or two of that, he had always grown restless, and hurried back to New York and his club and his men servants. In turn he grew restless there, and hurried on to the still finer luxuries of the German liners and the Continent.