“Because the day after peace is signed I take off Uncle Sam’s livery… The only time in my life time has ever dragged on my hands has been since I’ve been in the army.”
“I got to meet a friend of yours in Rome,” said Eleanor, looking at him sideways. Dick felt chilly all over. “Who was that?” he asked. It was an effort to keep his voice steady. “That little Texas girl… she’s a cute little thing. She said you were engaged!” Eleanor’s voice was cool and probing like a dentist’s tool.
“She exaggerated a little,” he gave a little dry laugh, “as Mark Twain said when they reported his death.” Dick felt that he was blushing furiously.
“I hope so… You see, Richard… I’m old enough to be, well at least your maiden aunt. She’s a cute little thing… but you oughtn’t to marry just yet, of course it’s none of my business… an unsuitable marriage has been the ruination of many a promising young fellow… I shouldn’t say this.”
“But I like your taking an interest like that, honestly it means a great deal to me… I understand all about marry in haste and repent at leisure. In fact I’m not very much interested in marriage anyway… but… I don’t know… Oh, the whole thing is very difficult.”
“Never do anything difficult… It’s never worth it,” said Eleanor severely. Dick didn’t say anything. She quickened her step to catch up with the others. Walking beside her he caught sight of her coldly chiselled profile jiggling a little from the jolt of her high heels on the cobbles. Suddenly she turned to him laughing, “Now I won’t scold you any more, Richard, ever again.”
A shower was coming up. They’d hardly got back into the car before it started to rain. Going home the gimcrack Paris suburbs looked grey and gloomy in the rain. When they parted in the lobby of the Crillon J.W. let Dick understand that there would be a job for him in his office as soon as he was out of the service. Dick went home and wrote his mother about it in high spirits:
… It’s not that everything isn’t intensely interesting here in Paris or that I haven’t gotten to know people quite close to what’s really going on, but wearing a uniform and always having to worry about army regulations and saluting and everything like that, seems to keep my mind from working. Inside I’ll be in the doldrums until I get a suit of civvies on again. I’ve been promised a position in J. Ward Moorehouse’s office here in Paris; he’s a dollar a year expert, but as soon as peace is signed he expects to start his business up again. He’s an adviser on public relations and publicity to big corporations like Standard Oil. It’s the type of work that will allow me to continue my real work on the side. Everybody tells me it’s the opportunity of a lifetime….
The next time he saw Miss Williams she smiled broadly and came right up to him holding our her hand. “Oh, I’m so glad, Captain Savage. J.W. says you’re gong to be with us… I’m sure it’ll be an enjoyable and profitable experience for all parties.”
“Well, I don’t suppose I ought to count my chickens before they’re hatched,” said Dick. “Oh, they’re hatched all right,” said Miss Williams, beaming at him.
In the middle of May Dick came back from Cologne with a hangover after a party with a couple of aviators and some German girls. Going out with German girls was strictly against orders from G.H.Q. and he was nervous for fear they might have been seen conducting themselves in a manner unbecoming to officers and gentlemen. He could still taste the sekt with peaches in it when he got off the train at the Gare du Nord. At the office Colonel Edgecombe noticed how pale and shaky he looked and kidded him about what a tremendous time they must be having in the occupied area. Then he sent him home to rest up. When he got to his hotel he found a pneumatique from Anne Elizabeth:
I’m staying at the Continental and must see you at once.
He took a hot bath and went to bed and slept for several hours. When he woke up it was already dark. It was some time before he remembered Anne Elizabeth’s letter. He was sitting on the edge of the bed sullenly buckling his puttees to go around and see her when there was a knock on his door. It was the elevatorman telling him a lady was waiting for him downstairs. The elevatorman had hardly said it before Anne Elizabeth came running down the hall. She was pale and had a red bruise on one side of her face. Something cantankerous in the way she ran immediately got on Dick’s nerves. “I told them I was your sister and ran up the stairs,” she said, kissing him breathlessly. Dick gave the elevatorman a couple of francs and whispered to her, “Come in. What’s the matter?” He left the room door half open.
“I’m in trouble… the N.E.R. is sending me home.”
“How’s that?”
“Played hookey once too often, I guess… I’m just as glad; they make me tired.”
“How did you hurt yourself?”
“Horse fell with me down at Ostia… I’ve been having the time of my life riding Italian cavalry horses… they’ll take anything.”
Dick was looking her hard in the face trying to make her out. “Well,” he said, “is it all right?… I’ve got to know… I’m worried sick about it.”
She threw herself face down on the bed. Dick tiptoed over and gently closed the door. She had her head stuck into her elbow and was sobbing. He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to get her to look at him. She suddenly got up and began walking around the room. “Nothing does any good… I’m going to have the baby… Oh, I’m so worried about Dad. I’m afraid it’ll kill him if he finds out… Oh, you’re so mean… you’re so mean.”
“But, Anne Elizabeth, do be reasonable… Can’t we go on being friends? I’ve just been offered a very fine position when I get out of the service, but I can’t take a wife and child at this stage of the game, you must understand that… and if you want to get married there are plenty of fellows who’d give their eyeteeth to marry you… You know how popular you are… I don’t think marriage means anything anyway.”
She sat down in a chair and immediately got up again. She was laughing: “If Dad or Buster was here it would be a shotgun wedding, I guess… but that wouldn’t help much.” Her hysterical laugh got on his nerves; he was shaking from the effort to control himself and talk reasonably.
“Why not G. H. Barrow? He’s a prominent man and has money… He’s crazy about you, told me so himself when I met him at the Crillon the other day… After all, we have to be sensible about things… It’s no more my fault than it is yours… if you’d taken proper precautions….”
She took her hat off and smoothed her hair in the mirror. Then she poured some water out in his washbasin, washed her face and smoothed her hair again. Dick was hoping she’d go, everything she did drove him crazy. There were tears in her eyes when she came up to him. “Give me a kiss, Dick… don’t worry about me… I’ll work things out somehow.”
“I’m sure it’s not too late for an operation,” said Dick. “I’ll find out an address tomorrow and drop you a line to the Continental… Anne Elizabeth… it’s splendid of you to be so splendid about this.”
She shook her head, whispered goodby and hurried out of the room.
“Well, that’s that,” said Dick aloud to himself. He felt terribly sorry about Anne Elizabeth. Gee, I’m glad I’m not a girl, he kept thinking. He had a splitting headache. He locked his door, got undressed and put out the light. When he opened the window a gust of raw rainy air came into the room and made him feel better. It was just like Ed said, you couldn’t do anything without making other people miserable. A hell of a rotten world. The streets in front of the Gare St. Lazare shone like canals where the streetlamps were reflected in them. There were still people on the pavements, a man calling I’n TRANsigeant, twangy honk of taxicabs. He thought of Anne Elizabeth going home alone in a taxicab through the wet streets. He wished he had a great many lives so that he might have spent one of them with Anne Elizabeth. Might write a poem about that and send it to her. And the smell of the little cyclamens. In the café opposite the waiters were turning the chairs upside down and setting them on the tables. He wished he had a great many lives so that he might be a waiter in a café turning the chairs upside down. The iron shutters clanked as they came down. Now was the time the women came out on the streets, walking back and forth, stopping, loitering, walking back and forth, and those young toughs with skin the color of mushrooms. He began to shiver. He got into bed, the sheets had a clammy glaze on them. All the same Paris was no place to go to bed alone, no place to go home alone in a honking taxi, in the heartbreak of honking taxis. Poor Anne Elizabeth. Poor Dick. He lay shivering between the clammy sheets, his eyes were pinned open with safetypins.