The Triflers Part 3

"I won't have it!" she burst out. "It would spoil everything. It would be like building one's own jail and employing one's own jailer.

I could n't stand that. I 'd rather be annoyed as I am than be annoyed by a chaperon."

She was silent a moment, and then she exclaimed:

"Why, I'd almost rather marry Teddy! I'd feel freer--honestly, I think I 'd feel freer with a husband than a chaperon."

"Oh, see here!" protested Monte. "You must n't do that."

"I don't propose to," she answered quietly.

"Then," he said, "the only thing left is to go away where Teddy and the others can't find you."

"Where?" she asked with interest.

"There are lots of little villages in Switzerland."

She shook her head.

"And along the Riviera."

"I love the little villages," she replied. "I love them here and at home. But it's no use."

She smiled. There was something pathetic about that smile--something that made Covington's arm muscles twitch.

"I should n't even have the aid of the taxis in the little villages,"

she said.

Monte leaned back.

"If they only had here in Paris a force of good, honest Irish cops instead of these confounded gendarmes," he mused.

She looked her astonishment at the irrelevant observation.

"You see," he explained, "it might be possible then to lay for Teddy H.

some evening and--argue with him."

"It's nice of you, Monte, to think of that," she murmured.

Monte was nice in a good many ways.

"The trouble is, they lack sentiment, these gendarmes," he concluded.

"They are altogether too law-abiding."

CHAPTER III

A SUMMONS

Monte himself had sometimes been accused of lacking sentiment; and yet, the very first thing he did when starting for his walk the next morning was to order a large bunch of violets to be sent to number sixty-four Boulevard Saint-Germain. Then, at a somewhat faster pace than usual, he followed the river to the Jardin des Tuileries, and crossed there to the Avenue des Champs elysees into the Bois.

He walked as confidently as if overnight his schedule had again been put in good running order; for, overnight, spring had come, and that was what his schedule called for in Paris. The buds, which until now had hesitated to unfold, trembled forth almost before his eyes under the influence of a sun that this morning blazed in a turquoise sky.

Perhaps they had hurried a trifle to overtake Monte.

With his shoulders well back, filling his lungs deep with the perfumed morning air, he swung along with a hearty, self-confident stride that caused many a little nursemaid to turn and look at him again.

He had sent her violets; and yet, except for the fact that he had never before sent her flowers, he could not rightly be accused of sentimentalism. He had acted on the spur of the moment, remembering only the sad, wistful smile with which she had bade him good-night when she stood at the door of the _pension_. Or perhaps he had been prompted by the fact that she was in Paris alone.

Until now it had never been possible to dissociate her completely from Aunt Kitty. Marjory had never had a separate existence of her own. To a great many people she had never been known except as Miss Dolliver's charming niece, although to Monte she had been known more particularly as a young friend of the Warrens. But, even in this more intimate capacity, he had always been relieved of any sense of responsibility because of this aunt. Wherever he met her, there was never any occasion for him to put himself out to be nice to her, because it was always understood that she could never leave Aunt Kitty even for an evening. This gave him a certain sense of security. With her he never was forced to consider either the present or the future.

Last night it had been almost like meeting her for the first time alone. It was as if in all these years he had known her only through her photograph, as one knows friends of one's friends about whom one has for long heard a great deal, without ever meeting them face to face. From the moment he first saw her in the Place de l'Opera she had made him conscious of her as, in another way, he had always been conscious of Edhart. The latter, until his death, had always remained in Monte's outer consciousness like a fixed point. Because he was so permanent, so unchanging, he dominated the rest of Monte's schedule as the north star does the mariner's course.

Each year began when Edhart bade him a smiling au revoir at the door of the Hotel des Roses; and that same year did not end, but began again, when the matter of ten or eleven months later Monte found Edhart still at the door to greet him. So it was always possible, the year round, to think of Edhart as ever standing by the door smilingly awaiting him.

This was very pleasant, and prevented Monte from getting really lonesome, and consequently from getting old. It was only in the last few weeks that he fully realized all that Edhart had done for him.

It was, in some ways, as if Edhart had come back to life again in Marjory. He had felt it the moment she had smilingly confided in him; he felt it still more when, after she bade him good-night, he had turned back into the city, not feeling alone any more. Now it was as if he were indebted to her for this morning walk, and for restoring to him his springtime Paris. It was for these things that he had sent her violets--because she had made him comfortable again. So, after all, his act had been one, not of sentimentalism, but of just plain grat.i.tude.

Monte's objection to sentiment was not based upon any of the modern schools of philosophy, which deplore it as a weakness. He took his stand upon much simpler grounds: that, as far as he had been able to observe, it did not make for content. It had been his fate to be thrown in contact with a good deal of it in its most acute stages, because the route he followed was unhappily the route also followed by those upon their honeymoon. If what he observed was sentiment at its zenith, then he did not care for it. Bridegrooms made the poorest sort of traveling companions; and that, after all, was the supreme test of men. They appeared restless, dazed, and were continually looking at their watches. Few of them were able to talk intelligently or to play a decent game of bridge.

Perhaps, too, he had been unfortunate in the result of his observations of the same pa.s.sion in its later stages; but it is certain that those were not inspiring, either. Chic Warren was an exception. He seemed fairly happy and normal, but Covington would never forget the night he spent there when Chic, Junior had the whooping-cough. He walked by Chic's side up and down the hall, up and down the hall, up and down the hall, with Chic a ghastly white and the sweat standing in beads upon his forehead. His own throat had tightened and he grew weak in the knees every time the rubber-soled nurse stole into sight. Every now and then he heard that gasping cough, and felt the spasmodic grip of Chic's fingers upon his arm. It was terrible; for weeks afterward Covington heard that cough.

At the end of an hour Covington turned back, wheeling like a soldier on parade. There had never seemed to him any reason why, when a man was entirely comfortable, as he was, he should take the risk of a change.

He had told Chic as much when sometimes the latter, over a pipe, had introduced the subject. The last time, Chic had gone a little farther than usual.

"But, man alive!" Chic had exclaimed. "A day will come when you'll be sorry."

"I don't believe it," Monte answered.

Yet it was only yesterday that he had wandered over half Paris in search of something to bring his schedule back to normal. And he had found it--in front of the Opera House at eleven o'clock at night.

Monte strode into his hotel with a snap that made the little clerk glance up in surprise.

"Any mail for me?" he inquired.

"A telephone message, monsieur."

He handed Monte an envelope. It was not often that he received telephone messages. It read as follows:--

Can't you come over? Teddy was very angry about the taxi, and I think I shall leave Paris tonight. The flowers were beautiful.

Monte felt his breath coming fast.

"How long has this been waiting for me?" he demanded.

"A half-hour, monsieur."