Told in a French Garden August, 1914

VIII

THE JOUR­NAL­IST'S STO­RY

IN A RAIL­WAY STA­TION

THE TALE OF A DANCER

On Fri­day night, just as we were fin­ish­ing din­ner--we had eat­en in­side--the Di­vorcee said: “It may not be in or­der to make the re­mark, but I can­not help say­ing that it is so strange to think that we are sit­ting here so qui­et­ly in a coun­try at war, suf­fer­ing for noth­ing, very lit­tle in­con­ve­nienced, even by the de­par­ture of all the men. The field work seems to be go­ing on just the same. Ev­ery one seems calm. It is all most un­ex­pect­ed and strange to me.”

“I don't see it that way at all,” said the Jour­nal­ist. “I feel as if I were sit­ting on a vol­cano, know­ing it was go­ing to erupt, but not know­ing at what mo­ment.”

“That I un­der­stand,” said the Di­vorcee, “but that is not ex­act­ly what I mean. I meant that, in spite of _that_ feel­ing which ev­ery one be­tween here and Paris must have, I see no out­ward signs of it.”

“They are all about us just the same,” re­marked the Doc­tor, “whether you see them or not. Did it ev­er hap­pen to you to be walk­ing in some qui­et city street, near mid­night, when all the hous­es were closed, and on­ly here and there a street lamp gleamed, and here and there a ray of light fil­tered through the shut­tered win­dow of some silent house, and to sud­den­ly re­mem­ber that in­side all these dark walls the tragedies of life were go­ing on, and that, if a sud­den wave of a ma­gi­cian's wand were to wipe away the walls, how hor­ri­fied, or how amused one would be?”

“Well,” said the Lawyer, “I have had that idea many times, but it has come to me more of­ten in some ho­tel in the moun­tains of Switzer­land. I re­mem­ber one night sit­ting on the ter­race at Mur­ren, with the Jungfrau ris­ing in bridal white­ness above the black sides of the Schwarze-​Monch, and the moon shin­ing so bright­ly over the slopes, that I could count any num­ber of iso­lat­ed lit­tle chalets perched on the ledges, and I nev­er had the feel­ing so strong­ly of life go­ing on with all its joys and griefs and crimes, in­vis­ible, but op­pres­sive.”

“I am afraid,” said the Doc­tor, “that there is enough of it go­ing on right here--if we on­ly knew it. I had an ex­am­ple this af­ter­noon. I was walk­ing through the vil­lage, when an old wom­an called to me, and asked if I were the doc­tor from the old Grange. I said I was, and she begged me to come in and see her daugh­ter-​in-​law. She was very ill, and the lo­cal doc­tor is gone. I found a young, very pret­ty girl, with a tiny ba­by, in as bad a state of hys­te­ria as I ev­er saw. But that is not the sto­ry. That I heard by de­grees. It seems the fa­ther-​in-​law, a vet­er­an of 1870, now old, and near­ly help­less, is of good fam­ily, but mar­ried, in his mid­dle age, a wom­an of the coun­try. They had one son who was sent away to school, and be­came a civ­il en­gi­neer. He mar­ried, about two years ago, this pret­ty girl whom I saw. She is Span­ish. He met her some­where in South­ern Spain, and it was a des­per­ate love match. The first child was born about six weeks be­fore the war broke out. Of course the young hus­band was in the first class mo­bi­lized. The young wife is not French. She doesn't care at all who gov­erns France, so that her man were left her in peace. I imag­ine that the old fa­ther sus­pect­ed this. He had nev­er been hap­py that his one son mar­ried a for­eign­er. The in­stant the young wife re­al­ized that her man was ex­pect­ed to put love of France be­fore love of her, she be­gan to make ev­ery ef­fort to in­duce him to go out of the coun­try. To make a long sto­ry short, the son went to his moth­er, whom he adored, made a clean breast of the sit­ua­tion, and pro­posed that, to sat­is­fy his wife, he should start with her for the Span­ish fron­tier, find­ing means to have her broth­er meet them there and take her home to her own peo­ple. He promised to make no ef­fort to cross the fron­tier him­self, and gave his word of hon­or to be with his reg­iment in time. He knew it would not be easy to do, and, in case of ac­ci­dent, he wished his moth­er to be able to ex­plain to the old vet­er­an. But the lad had count­ed with­out the spir­it that is dom­inant in ev­ery French wom­an to-​day. The moth­er lis­tened. She con­trolled her­self. She did not protest. But that night, when the young cou­ple were about to leave the house, car­ry­ing the sleep­ing ba­by, they found the old man, pis­tol in hand, with his back against the door. The words were few. The vet­er­an stat­ed that his son could on­ly pass over his dead body--that if he in­sist­ed, he would shoot him be­fore he would al­low him to pass: that nei­ther wife nor child should leave France. It was in vain that the wife, on her knees, plead­ed that she was not French--that the war did not con­cern her--that her hus­band was dear­er to her than hon­or--and so forth. The old man de­clared that in mar­ry­ing his son she be­came French, though she was a dis­grace to the name, that her son was a born French­man; that she might go, and wel­come, but that she would go with­out the child, and, of course, that end­ed the ar­gu­ment. The next morn­ing the ba­by was chris­tened, but the tale had leaked out. I sup­pose the Span­ish wife had not kept her ideas ab­so­lute­ly to her­self--and the son joined his reg­iment. The Span­ish wife is still here, but, need­less to say, she is not at all loved by her hus­band's fam­ily, who watch her like lynx­es for fear she will abduct the child, and she has de­vel­oped as neat a case of hys­ter­ical ma­nia of per­se­cu­tion as I ev­er en­coun­tered. So you see that even in this qui­et place there are tragedies be­hind the walls. But I seem to be telling a sto­ry out of my turn!”

“And a for­bid­den war sto­ry, at that,” said the Young­ster. “So to change the air--whose turn is it?”

The Jour­nal­ist puffed out his chest. “Ladies and gen­tle­men,” he said, as he rose to his feet, and struck, the tra­di­tion­al at­ti­tude of a mo­nolo­gist, “I re­gret to in­form you that you will be obliged to have a taste of my histri­on­ic pow­ers. I've got to act out part of this sto­ry--couldn't seem to tell it in any oth­er form.”

* * * * *

“Do­ra!”

A slen­der young wom­an turned at the word, so sharply spo­ken over her shoul­der, and vis­ibly paled.

She was strik­ing­ly at­trac­tive, in her mod­ish tai­lor frock, and her short tight jack­et of Per­sian lamb, with its high, col­lar of grey fur turned up to her ears.

Her sin­gu­lar­ly fair skin, her red hair, her brown eyes, with dark lash­es, and nar­row­ly pen­cilled eye­brows that were al­most black, gave her a re­mark­able look, and at first sight sug­gest­ed that Na­ture had not done it all. But a clos­er ob­ser­va­tion con­vinced one that the strange com­bi­na­tion of such hair and such eye­brows was on­ly one of those freaks by which Na­ture now and then warns the know­ing to be­ware even of mar­vel­lous beau­ty. In this case it stamped a wom­an as one who--by sev­er­al signs--might be iden­ti­fied by the ini­ti­at­ed as one of those, who, with­out rea­son or log­ic, spring now and again from most un­promis­ing soil!

She had walked the en­tire length of the sta­tion from the wide doors on the street side to the swing doors at the op­po­site end which gave en­trance to the tracks.

As she passed, no man had failed to turn and look af­ter her, as, with her well hung skirts just clear­ing the wet pave­ment, she stepped dain­ti­ly over the flag­ging, and so light­ly that nei­ther boots nor skirt were the worse for it. One sees wom­en in Paris who know that art, but it is rare in an Amer­ican.

She must have been long ac­cus­tomed to at­tract­ing mas­cu­line eyes, and no won­der, for when she stepped in­to the place she seemed to give a col­or to the at­mo­sphere, and ev­ery­thing and ev­ery­body went grey and com­mon­place be­side her.

It was a ter­ri­ble night in Novem­ber.

The snow was falling rapid­ly out­side, and the wind blew as it can blow on­ly on the New Eng­land coast.

It was the sort of night that makes one forced to be out look for­ward lov­ing­ly to home, and think pity­ing­ly of the un­for­tu­nate, while those with­in doors in­vol­un­tar­ily thank God for com­fort, and hug at what­ev­er rem­nant of hap­pi­ness liv­ing has left them.

The rail­way sta­tion was crowd­ed.

The storm had come up sud­den­ly at the close of a fair day. It was the hour, too, at which trades­peo­ple, clerks, and la­bor­ers were re­turn­ing home to the sub­urbs, and at which the steam­boat ex­press for New York was be­ing made up--al­though it was not an en­cour­ag­ing night for the lat­ter trip.

The pret­ty young wom­an with the red hair had looked through the door near the tracks, and glanced to the right, where the New York ex­press should be. The gate was still closed. She was much too ear­ly! For a sec­ond she hes­itat­ed. She glanced about quick­ly, and the look was not with­out ap­pre­hen­sion. It was ev­ident that she did not see the man who was fol­low­ing her, and who seemed to have been wait­ing for her near the out­er door. He did not speak, nor at­tract her at­ten­tion in any way. The crowd served him in that!

Af­ter a mo­ment's hes­ita­tion, she turned to­ward the ladies' wait­ing room, and just as she was about to en­ter, the man be­hind ad­dressed her--and the word was said so low that no one near heard it--though, by the start she gave, it might have been a pis­tol shot.

“Do­ra!”

She stood per­fect­ly still. The col­or died out of her face; but on­ly for an in­stant. She looked alarmed, then per­plexed, and then she smiled. She was ev­ident­ly a young wom­an of re­sources.

The man was a stal­wart hand­some fel­low of his class--though it was al­most im­pos­si­ble to guess what that was save that it was not that which the world la­bels by ex­te­ri­or signs “gen­tle­man.” He might eas­ily have been some sort of a me­chan­ic. He was cer­tain­ly nei­ther a clerk nor the fol­low­er of any of the un­skilled pro­fes­sions. He was sure­ly coun­try­bred, for there was a large­ness in his ex­pres­sion as well as his bear­ing that spoke dis­tinct­ly of broad vis­tas and ex­er­cise. He was tall and broad-​shoul­dered. He stood well on his feet, ham­pered as lit­tle by his six feet of height and four­teen stone weight as he was by the size of his hands. One would have eas­ily backed him to ride well and shoot straight, though he prob­ably nev­er saw the in­side of what is called a “draw­ing-​room.”

There was the fire of a mighty emo­tion in his deep-​set eyes. There were signs of a tremen­dous an­imal force in his square chin and thick neck, but it was bal­anced well by his broad brow and wide-​set eyes. He seemed at this mo­ment to hold him­self in check with a rigid stub­born­ness that an­swered for his New Eng­land ori­gin, and Pu­ri­tan an­ces­try! In­deed, at the mo­ment he ad­dressed the wom­an, but for his eyes, he might have seemed as in­dif­fer­ent as any of the stone fig­ures that up­held the iron gird­ers of the roof above him!

Still smil­ing arch­ly she moved for­ward in­to the wait­ing room and, pass­ing through the dense crowd that hung about the door, crossed the room to an open space.

With­out a word the man fol­lowed.

The room was dim­ly light­ed. The crowd that surged about them, com­ing and go­ing, and some­times press­ing close on ev­ery side, seemed not to note them. And, if they had, they would have seen noth­ing more re­mark­able than an ex­treme­ly pret­ty young wom­an con­vers­ing qui­et­ly with a big fel­low in a reefer and long boots--a rig he car­ried well.

“Do­ra!” he said again, and then had to pause to steady his voice.

Do­ra wet her red lips with the point­ed tip of her tiny tongue; swal­lowed ner­vous­ly once or twice, be­fore she spoke. She was now fac­ing him, and still smil­ing.

He kept his eyes fixed on her face. He did not re­spond to the smile. His eyes were trag­ic. He seemed to be seek­ing some­thing in her face as if he feared her mere words would not help him.

“Why, Zeke,” she said at last, when she re­al­ized that he could not get be­yond her name, “I thought you had gone home an hour ago! Why didn't you take the 5.15 train?”

“I changed my mind! To tell you the truth, I heard that you were in town this af­ter­noon. I have been watch­ing for you--for some time.”

“Well, all I can say is--you are fool­ish. Where's the good for you fret­ting your­self so? I can take care of my­self.”

“I can't get used to you be­ing about in the city streets alone.”

“How ab­surd!”

“I have been ab­surd a great many times of late--in your eyes. Our ideas don't seem to agree any more.”

“No, Zeke, they don't!”

“Why speak to me in that tone, Do­ra? Don't do it!”

He looked over her head, as if to be sure of his hold on him­self. He was ghast­ly white about his smooth-​shaven, thick lips. Both hands were thrust deep in­to his reefer pock­ets.

“What's come to you, Zeke?” she asked ner­vous­ly. His was not ex­act­ly the face one would see un­moved!

He an­swered her with­out look­ing at her. It was ev­ident he did not dare just yet. “Noth­ing much, I reck­on. I've been a bit down all day. I re­al­ly don't know why, my­self. I've had a queer pre­sen­ti­ment, as if some­thing were go­ing to hap­pen. As if some­thing ter­ri­ble were com­ing to me.”

“Well, I'm sor­ry. You've no oc­ca­sion to feel like that, I'm sure.”

“All right, if you say so. What train shall we take?”

He stretched out one hand to take the small bag she car­ried.

She shrank back in­stinc­tive­ly, and with­drew the bag. He must have felt rather than seen the move­ment, it was so slight.

His hand fell to his side.

Still, he per­sist­ed.

“I'm dead done up, Do­ra. I need my din­ner, come on!”

“Then you'd bet­ter take the 6.00 train. You've just time,” she said hur­ried­ly.

“All right. Come on!”

He laid his hand on her shoul­der with a ges­ture that was en­treat­ing. It was the first time he had touched her. A fright­ened look came in­to her eyes. He did not see it, for he was still avoid­ing her face. It was as if he were afraid of read­ing some­thing there he did not wish to know.

Her red lips had tak­en on a petu­lant ex­pres­sion--that of one who hat­ed to be “stirred up.” In a child­ish voice--which on­ly thin­ly veiled an ob­sti­nate de­ter­mi­na­tion--she pout­ed: “I'm not go­ing--yet.”

The words were said al­most un­der her breath, as if she were fear­ful of their ef­fect on him, yet was de­ter­mined to car­ry her point.

But the man on­ly sighed deeply as he replied: “I thought your danc­ing lessons were over. I hoped I was no longer to spend my evenings alone. Alone! Look­ing round at the things that are yours, and among which I feel so out of place, ex­cept when you are there to make me for­get. God! What damnable evenings I've spent there--feel­ing as if you were slip­ping fur­ther and fur­ther out of my life--as if you were gone, and I had on­ly the clothes you had worn, an odor about me some­where to con­vince me that I had not dreamed you! Some­times that faint, in­dis­tinct, eva­sive scent of you in the room has al­most driv­en me out of my head. I won­der I haven't killed you be­fore now--to be sure of you! I'm afraid of Hell, I sup­pose, or I should have.”

The wom­an did not look at all alarmed. In­deed there was a light in her am­ber eyes that spoke of a kind of grat­ifi­ca­tion in stir­ring this young gi­ant like that--this huge fel­low that could so eas­ily crush her--but did not! She knew bet­ter why than he did--but she said noth­ing.

With his eyes still fixed on space--af­ter a pause--he went on: “I was fool enough to be­lieve that that was all over, at last, that you had danced to your heart's con­tent, and that we were to be­gin the old life--the life be­fore that non­sense--over again. You were like my old Do­ra all day yes­ter­day! The Do­ra I loved and court­ed and mar­ried back there in the woods. But I might have known it wasn't fin­ished by the ache I had here,” and he struck him­self a blow over the heart with his clenched fist, “when I waked this morn­ing, and by the weight I've car­ried here all day.” And he drew a deep breath like one in pain.

The wom­an looked about as if ap­pre­hen­sive that even his pas­sion­ate un­der­tone might have at­tract­ed at­ten­tion, but on­ly a man by the ra­di­ator seemed to have no­ticed, and he had the air of be­ing not quite sober enough to un­der­stand.

There was a long pause.

The wom­an glanced ner­vous­ly at the clock.

The man was again star­ing over her head.

It was quar­ter to six. Her pre­cious min­utes were fly­ing. She must be rid of him!

“See here, Zeke, dear,” she said, in des­per­ation, speak­ing very rapid­ly un­der her breath--no fear but he would hear--“the truth is, that I'm not a bit bet­ter sat­is­fied with our sor­did kind of life than I was a year ago, when we first dis­cussed it. I'm aw­ful­ly sor­ry! You know that. But I can't change--and there is the whole truth! It's not your fault in one way--and yet in one way it is. God knows you have done ev­ery­thing you could, and more some ways than you ought. But, un­luck­ily for you, grat­ify­ing me was not the way to mend the sit­ua­tion for your­self. It is cru­el--but it is the truth! If a man wants to keep a wom­an of my dis­po­si­tion at­tached to him, he'd do far bet­ter to beat her than over-​ed­ucate her, and teach her all the beau­ties of free­dom. He should keep her ig­no­rant, rather than cul­ti­vate her imag­ina­tion, and open up the won­ders of the world to her. It's rough on chaps like you, that with all your clev­er­ness you've no in­stinct to set you right on a point like this--but it is lucky for wom­en like me--at times! You were de­ter­mined to force all this out of me, so you may as well hear the whole bru­tal truth. I'm sick of our stupid ways of life--I have been sick of it for a long time. I've passed all pow­er to pre­tend any longer. I have learned that there is a great and beau­ti­ful world with­in the reach of wom­en who are clever enough and brave enough to grasp at an op­por­tu­ni­ty, with­out look­ing for­ward or back. I want to walk bold­ly to this. I'm not afraid of the step­ping-​stones! This is re­al­ly all your fault. When you mar­ried me, five years ago, I was on­ly six­teen, and very much in love with you. Now, why didn't you make me do the house­work and drudge as all the oth­er wom­en on the farms about yours did? I'd have done it then, and will­ing­ly, even to the wash­ing and scrub­bing. I had been work­ing in a cot­ton mill. I didn't know any­thing bet­ter than to drudge. I thought that was a wom­an's lot. It didn't even seem ter­ri­ble to me. But no--you set your­self to amuse me. You brought me way up to town on a wed­ding jour­ney. For the first time in my life I saw there idle wom­en in the world, who wore soft clothes and were al­ways dressed up. You bought me fin­ery. I was clever and im­ita­tive. I pined for all the ex­cite­ment and beau­ty of city life when we were back on the farm, in the life you loved. I cried for it, as a child cries for the moon. I nev­er dreamed of get­ting it. And you sur­prised me by sell­ing the farm, and com­ing near­er the town to live. Just be­cause I had an ear for mu­sic, and could pick out tunes on the old melodeon, I must have a pi­ano and take lessons. Just be­cause my mu­sic teach­er hap­pened to be French and I showed an ap­ti­tude for study­ing, that must be grat­ified. Can you re­al­ly blame me if I want to see more of the wide world that opened up to me? Did you re­al­ly think French nov­els and mu­sic were like­ly to make a wom­an of my live­ly imag­ina­tion con­tent with her lot as wife of a me­chan­ic--how­ev­er clever?”

The man looked down at her as if stunned. Ar­gu­ments of that sort were a bit above the rea­son­ing of the sim­ple mas­cu­line an­imal, who seemed to be­long to that race which com­pre­hends lit­tle of the com­plex emo­tions, and looks on love as the one in­evitable pas­sion of life, and on mar­riage as its log­ical re­sult and ev­er­last­ing con­clu­sion.

It was prob­able at this mo­ment that he com­plet­ed his al­pha­bet in the great les­son of life--and spelled out painful­ly the aw­ful truth, that not all the roy­al ser­vice of wor­ship and love in a man's heart can hold a wom­an.

There was some­thing akin to a sob in his throat as he replied: “You were so young--so pret­ty! I could not bear to think that you should soil your hands for me! I want­ed to make up to you for all the hard­ships and sor­rows of your child­hood. I dreamed of be­ing moth­er and fa­ther as well as hus­band to you. I thought it would make you hap­py to owe ev­ery­thing to me--as hap­py as it made me to give. I would will­ing­ly have car­ried you ev­ery step of your life, rather than you should have tired your feet. Is that a sin in a wom­an's eyes?”

A whim­si­cal smile broke over the wom­an's face. It quiv­ered on her red lips for just a breath, as if con­scious how ill-​timed it was. “I re­al­ly like to tire my feet,” she mur­mured, and she point­ed the toe of her tiny boot, as if poised to dance, and looked down on it with ev­ident ad­mi­ra­tion.

The man caught his breath sharply.

“It's that damned danc­ing that has up­set you, Do­ra!”

“Sh! Don't swear! I do like danc­ing! I have al­ways told you so. It was you who first ad­mired it. It was you who let me learn.”

“You were my wife! I thought that meant ev­ery­thing to you that it meant to me. I loved your beau­ty be­cause it was yours; your plea­sures be­cause they gave you plea­sure. All my ideas of right and wrong in mar­riage which I learned in my fa­ther's hon­est house bent to your de­sires and hap­pi­ness.”

She looked ner­vous­ly at the clock. Ten min­utes to six.

“Do­ra--for God's sake look at me! Do­ra--you're not leav­ing me?”

It was an al­most inar­tic­ulate cry, as of a man who had fore­seen his doom, and on­ly protest­ed from some un­con­quer­able in­stinct to strug­gle!

She pat­ted his clenched hand gen­tly.

It was plain­ly ev­ident that she hat­ed the sight of suf­fer­ing, and hat­ed more not hav­ing her own way, and was pos­sessed by a re­fined kind of cow­ardice.

“Don't make a row, there's a dear boy! It is like this: I am go­ing over to New York, just for a few weeks. I would have told you yes­ter­day, on­ly I hat­ed spoil­ing a nice day. It was a nice day?--with a scene. You'll find a nice long let­ter at home--it's a sweet one, too--telling you all about it. Don't take it too hard! I am go­ing to earn fifty dol­lars a week--just fan­cy that--and don't blame me too much!”

He didn't seem to hear! He hung his head--the veins in his fore­head swelled--there were ac­tu­al­ly tears in his eyes--and the mighty ef­fort he made to re­strain a sob was ter­ri­ble--and six feet of Amer­ican man­hood, as fine a spec­imen of the an­imal as the soil can show, an­imat­ed by a spir­it which rep­re­sent­ed well the dig­ni­ty of toil and self-​re­spect, stood bowed down with un­govern­able grief and shame be­fore a mere­ly or­na­men­tal bit of fem­inin­ity.

Fate had sim­ply per­pe­trat­ed an­oth­er of her ghast­ly pleas­antries!

The wom­an was per­plexed--nat­ural­ly! But it was ev­ident­ly the sight of her work, and not the work, it­self, that pained her.

“Don't cut up so rough, Zeke, please don't,” she went on. “I'm very fond of you--you know that--but I de­test the odor of the shop, and it is so easy for us both to es­cape it.”

He shrank as if she had struck him.

In­stinc­tive­ly he must have re­mem­bered the cot­ton mill from which he took her. A man rarely un­der­stands a wom­an's fac­ul­ty for for­get­ting--that is to say, no man of his class does.

“Doesn't it seem a bit self­ish of you,” she went on, “to ob­ject to my earn­ing near­ly three times what you can--and so eas­ily--and pret­ti­ly?”

“I want­ed you to be hap­py with what I could give you.”

“Well, I'm sor­ry, but I'm not. No use to fib about it! It is too late. Your no­tions are so queer.”

“I sup­pose it is queer to love one wom­an--and to love her so that la­bor­ing for her is hap­pi­ness! I sup­pose you do find me a queer chap, be­cause I am not will­ing that my wife--flesh of my flesh--should flaunt her­self, half dressed, to ex­cite the ad­mi­ra­tion of oth­er men--all for fifty dol­lars a week!”

“See here, Zeke, you are mak­ing too much of this! If it is the sep­ara­tion you can't stand--why come, too! I'll soon enough be get­ting my hun­dred a week, and more. That is enough for both of us. You can be with me, if that is what you mind!”

“If that is what I mind? You know bet­ter than that! Am I such a cur that you think, if there were no oth­er rea­son, I'd pose be­fore the world as the hus­band of a wom­an who owes noth­ing to him--as if I were--”

She in­ter­rupt­ed him sharply.

“What odds does it make--tell me that--which of us earns the mon­ey? To have it is the on­ly im­por­tant thing!”

The man straight­ened up--and squared his broad shoul­ders. A strange change came over him.

He laid his heavy hand on her shoul­der, and, for the first time, he spoke with a dis­re­gard for self-​con­trol, al­though he did not raise his voice.

“Look at me, Do­ra, and be sure I mean what I say. Leave me to-​day, and don't you ev­er come back to me. It may kill me to live with­out you. Well, bet­ter that than--than the oth­er! I mar­ried you to live with you--not mere­ly to have you! I've been a faith­ful hus­band to you! I shall re­main that while I live. I nev­er de­nied you any­thing I could get for you! But this I will not put up with! I thought you loved me--even if you were some­times vain, and now and then cru­el. If you're ill--if you dis­ap­point your­self, I'll be ready to take care of you--as I promised. But don't nev­er dare to come back to me oth­er­wise! Un­less you're in want and home­less, un­less you can't live, but by the la­bor of my hands, I'll nev­er sleep un­der the same roof with you again. Nev­er!”

“What non­sense, Zeke! Of course I'll come back! You won't turn me away! I on­ly want to see a lit­tle of the world, to get a few of the things you can't give me--no blame to you, ei­ther!”

He did not seem to hear her.

Al­most as if speak­ing to him­self, he went on: “I've feared for some time you didn't love me. I didn't want to be­lieve it. I was a cow­ard. I shut my eyes. I took what you gave me--I daren't think of this--which has come to me! I dared not! God pun­ish­es idol­atry! He has pun­ished mine. Be sure you're not mak­ing a mis­take, Do­ra! There may be oth­er men will ad­mire you, my girl--will any of them love you as I do? There's nev­er a minute I'm not con­scious of you, sleep­ing or wak­ing. Think again, Do­ra, be­fore you leave me!”

“I can't, Zeke. I've signed a con­tract. I couldn't re­con­sid­er if I want­ed to. It's just sev­en min­utes to train time. Kiss me--there's a dear lad--and don't row me any more!”

She raised her­self on tip toes and ap­proached her red lips to his face--lips of an in­tense col­or to go with the marked pal­lor of the rest of the face, and which sure­ly were nev­er of­fered to him in vain be­fore--but he was be­yond their se­duc­tion at last.

“You've de­cid­ed?” he said.

“Of course!”

“All right! Good-​bye, then! You promised to cleave to me through thick and thin 'till death did us part.' I'll have no halfway busi­ness,” and he turned on his heel, and with­out look­ing back he pushed his way through the crowd, which chat­ted and fussed and nev­er even not­ed the pass­ing of a bro­ken heart.

The pret­ty crea­ture watched him out of sight.

There was a hu­mor­ous pout on her lips. But she seemed so sure of her man! He would come back, of course--when she called him--if she ev­er did! Prob­ably she liked him bet­ter at that mo­ment than she had liked him in two years. He had op­posed her. He had de­fied her pow­er over him. He had once more be­come a man to con­quer--if she ev­er had time!

But just now there was some­thing more im­por­tant. That train! It was three min­utes to the sched­ule time.

As he dis­ap­peared in­to the crowd she drew a breath of re­lief, and hur­ried out of the wait­ing room and pushed her way to the plat­form, along which she hur­ried to the par­lor car, where she seat­ed her­self com­fort­ably, as if no man with a bro­ken life had been set down that day against her record.

To be sure, she could not quite rid her­self of thoughts of his face, but the rec­ol­lec­tion rather flat­tered her, and did not in the least pre­vent her notic­ing the looks of ad­mi­ra­tion with which two men on the op­po­site side of the car were re­gard­ing her.

Once or twice she glanced out of the win­dow, ap­par­ent­ly al­ter­nate­ly ex­pect­ing and dread­ing to see her stal­wart hus­band come sprint­ing down the plat­form for the kiss he had re­fused.

He didn't come!

She was re­lieved as the train start­ed--yet she hat­ed to feel he could re­al­ly let her go like that!

She nev­er guessed at the depth of suf­fer­ing she had brought him. How could she ap­pre­ci­ate what she could nev­er feel? She nev­er dreamed that as the train pulled out in­to the storm he stood at the end of the sta­tion, and watched it slow­ly round the curve un­der the bridge and pass out of sight. No one was near to see him turn aside, and rest his arms against the brick wall, to bury his face in them, and sob like a child, ut­ter­ly obliv­ious of the storm that beat up­on him.

* * * * *

And he sat down.

“Come on,” yelled the Young­ster, “where's the claque?” And he be­gan to ap­plaud fu­ri­ous­ly.

“Oh, if there is a claque, the rest of us don't need to ex­ert our­selves,” said the Lawyer, in­do­lent­ly.

“But I say,” asked the Young­ster, af­ter the Jour­nal­ist had made his best bow. “I AM dis­ap­point­ed. Was that all?”

“My good­ness,” com­ment­ed the Doc­tor, as he light­ed a fresh cigar. “Isn't that enough?”

“Not for _me_,” replied the Young­ster. “I want to know about her _de­but_. Was she a suc­cess?”

“Of course,” an­swered the Jour­nal­ist. “That sort al­ways is.”

“And I want to know,” in­sist­ed the Young­ster, “what be­came of him?”

“Why,” ejac­ulat­ed the Sculp­tor, “of course he cut his big brown throat!”

“Not a bit of it,” said the Crit­ic. “He prob­ably went up to New York, and hung round the stage door.”

“Un­til she called in the po­lice, and had him ar­rest­ed as a com­mon nui­sance,” added the Lawyer.

“I'll bet my mi­cro­scope he didn't,” laughed the Doc­tor.

“And you won't lose your lens,” replied the Jour­nal­ist. “He nev­er did a bloom­ing thing--that is, he didn't if he ex­ist­ed.”

“Oh, my eyes,” said the Young­ster. “I am dis­ap­point­ed again. I thought that was a si­mon-​pure news­pa­per yarn--one of your re­porter's dodges--re­al jour­nalese!”

“She is true enough,” an­swered the Jour­nal­ist, “and her feet are true, and so is her red hair, and, un­less she is a liar, and most ac­tress­es are, so is he and her ori­gin, but as for the way she cut him out--well, I had to make that up. It is bet­ter than any of the six tales she told as many in­ter­view­ers, in strict se­cre­cy, in the days when she was col­lect­ing hearts and jew­els and mid­night sup­pers in New York.”

“Is she still there?” asked the Young­ster, “be­cause if she is, I'll go back and take a look at Do­ra my­self--af­ter the war!”

“Well, Young­ster,” laughed the Jour­nal­ist, “it will have to be 'af­ter the war,' as you will prob­ably have to go to Berlin to find her.”

“That's all right!” re­tort­ed the Young­ster. “I _am_ go­ing--with the Al­lied armies.”

We all jumped up.

“No!” cried the Di­vorcee. “No!!”

“But I am. Where's the good of keep­ing it se­cret? I en­list­ed the day I went to Paris the first time--so did the Doc­tor, so did the Crit­ic, and so did _he_, the in­no­cent look­ing old black­guard,” and he seized the Jour­nal­ist by both shoul­ders and shook him well. “He thought we wouldn't find it out.”

“Oh, well,” said the Jour­nal­ist, “when one has seen three wars, one may as well see one more.--This will sure­ly be my last.”

“Any­way,” cried the Young­ster, “we'll see it all round--the Doc­tor in the Field Am­bu­lance, me in the air, the Crit­ic is go­ing to lug lit­ters, and as for the Jour­nal­ist--well, I'll bet it's se­cret ser­vice for him! Oh, I know you are not go­ing to tell, but I saw you com­ing out of the En­glish Em­bassy, and I'll bet my ma­chine you've a tick­et for Lon­don, and a let­ter to the Chief in your pock­et.”

“Bet away,” said the Crit­ic.

“What'd I tell you--what'd I tell you? He speaks ev­ery God-​blessed lan­guage go­ing, and if it wasn't that, he'd tell fast enough.”

“Nev­er mind,” said the Trained Nurse, “so that he goes some­where--with the rest of us.”

“You--YOU?” ex­claimed the Di­vorcee.

“Why not? I was trained for this sort of thing. This is my chance.”

“And the rest of us?”

The Doc­tor in­ter­vened. “See here, this is forty-​eight hours or more ear­li­er than I meant this mat­ter to come up. I might have known the Young­ster could not hold his tongue.”

“I've been burst­ing for three days.”

“Well, you've burst now, and I hope you are con­tent. There is noth­ing to wor­ry about, yet. We fel­lows are leav­ing Septem­ber 1st. The roads are all clear, and it was my idea that we should all start for Paris to­geth­er ear­ly next Tues­day morn­ing. I don't know what the rest of you want to do, but I ad­vise _you_,” turn­ing to the Di­vorcee, “to go back to the States. You would not be a bit of good here. You may be there.”

“You are quite right,” she replied sad­ly. “I'd be worse than no good. I'd need 'first aid,' at the first shot.”

“I'm go­ing with her,” said the Sculp­tor. “I'd be more use­less than she would.” And he turned a ques­tion­ing look at the Lawyer.

“I must go back. I've busi­ness to at­tend to. Any­way, I'd be an en­cum­brance here. I may be use­ful there. Who knows?”

As for me, ev­ery one knew what I pro­posed to do, and that left ev­ery one ac­count­ed for ex­cept the Vi­olin­ist. He had been in his fa­vorite at­ti­tude by the tree, just as he had been on that evening when it had been pro­posed to “tell sto­ries,” gaz­ing first at one and then at an­oth­er, as the hur­ried con­ver­sa­tion went on.

“Well,” he said, find­ing all eyes turned on him, “I am go­ing to Lon­don with the Jour­nal­ist--if he is re­al­ly go­ing.”

“All right, I am,” was the re­ply.

“And from Lon­don I shall get to St. Pe­ters­burg. I have a dream that out of all this some­thing may hap­pen to Poland. If it does, I pro­pose to be there. I'll be no good at hold­ing a gun--I could nev­er fire one. But if, by some mir­acle, there comes out of this any chance for the 'Fair Land of Poland' to crawl out, or be dragged out, from un­der the feet of the in­vad­er--well, I'll go _home_--and--and--”

He hes­itat­ed.

“And grow up with the coun­try,” shout­ed the Young­ster. “Bul­ly for you.”

“I may on­ly go back to fid­dle over the ru­ins. But who knows? At all events, I'll go back and car­ry with me all that your coun­try had done for three gen­er­ations of my fam­ily. They'll need it.”

“Well,” said the Doc­tor, “that is all set­tled. Enough for to-​night. We'll still have one or two, and it may be three days left to­geth­er. Let us make the most of them. They will nev­er come again.”

“And to think what a love­ly sum­mer we had planned,” sighed the Di­vorcee.

“Tush!” ejac­ulat­ed the Doc­tor. “We had a love­ly time all last year. As for this sum­mer, I imag­ine that it has been far fin­er than what we planned. Any­way, let us be thank­ful that it was _this_ sum­mer that we all found one an­oth­er again.”

“Bet­ter go to bed,” cried the Crit­ic; “the Doc­tor is get­ting sen­ti­men­tal--a bad sign in an army sur­geon.”

“I don't know,” re­marked the Trained Nurse; “I've seen those that were more sen­ti­men­tal than the Jour­nal­ist, and none the worse for it.”