THE AUTUMN CAME and Elliott decided to go to Paris for a while, partly to see how Isabel, Gray, and the children were getting on, and partly to make what he called acte de présence in the capital. Then he meant to go to London to order some new clothes and incidentally to look up some old friends. My own plan was to go straight to London, but he asked me to drive up with him to Paris, and since that is an agreeable thing to do I consented and, having done so, saw no reason why I should not spend at least a few days in Paris myself. We made the journey by easy stages, stopping at places where the food was good; Elliott had something the matter with his kidneys and drank nothing but Vichy, but always insisted on choosing my half-bottle of wine for me and, too good-natured to grudge me a pleasure he could not share, got a genuine satisfaction out of my enjoyment of a fine vintage. He was so generous that I had difficulty in persuading him to let me pay my share of the expenses. Though I grew a little tired of his stories of the great whom he had known in the past I liked the trip. Much of the country we drove through, just touched with the beginning of its autumn beauty, was very lovely. Having lunched at Fontainebleau, we did not arrive in Paris till afternoon. Elliott dropped me at my modest, old-fashioned hotel and went around the corner to the Ritz.
We had warned Isabel of our arriving, so I was not surprised to find a note from her awaiting me, but I was surprised at its contents:
Come round the moment you get in. Something terrible has happened. Don’t bring Uncle Elliott. For God’s sake come as soon as you can.
I am not less curious than anyone else, but I had to have a wash and put on a clean shirt; then I took a taxi and went around to the apartment in the Rue St. Guillaume. I was shown into the drawing-room. Isabel sprang to her feet.
“Where have you been all this time? I’ve been waiting for hours.”
It was five o’clock and, before I could answer, the butler brought in the tea-things. Isabel, her hands clenched, watched him with impatience. I couldn’t imagine what was the matter.
“I’ve only just arrived. We dawdled over lunch at Fontainebleau.”
“God, how slow he is. Maddening!” said Isabel.
The man placed the salver with the teapot and the sugar basin and the cups on the table and with what really was exasperating deliberation arranged around it plates of bread and butter, cakes, and cookies. He went out and closed the door behind him.
“Larry’s going to marry Sophie Macdonald.”
“Who’s she?”
“Don’t be so stupid,” cried Isabel, her eyes flashing with anger. That drunken slut we met at that filthy café you took us to. God knows why you took us to a place like that. Gray was disgusted.”
“Oh, you mean your Chicago friend?” I said, ignoring her unjust reproach. “How d’you know?”
“How should I know? He came and told me himself yesterday afternoon. I’ve been frantic ever since.”
“Supposing you sat down, gave me a cup of tea, and told me all about it.”
“Help yourself.”
She sat behind the tea-table and watched me irritably while I poured myself out a cup. I made myself comfortable on a small sofa by the fireplace.
“We haven’t seen so much of him lately, since we came back from Dinard, I mean; he came up there for a few days, but wouldn’t stay with us, he stayed at a hotel. He used to come down to the beach and play with the children. They’re crazy about him. We played golf at St. Briac. Gray asked him one day if he’d seen Sophie again.
“ ‘Yes, I’ve seen her several times,’ he said.
“ ‘Why?’ I asked.
“ ‘She’s an old friend,’ he said.
“ ‘If I were you I wouldn’t waste my time on her,’ I said.
“Then he smiled. You know how he smiles, as though he thought what you’d said funny, though it isn’t funny at all.”
‘But you’re not me,’ he said.
“I shrugged my shoulders and changed the conversation. I never gave the matter another thought. You can imagine my horror when he came here and told me they were going to be married.
“ ‘You can’t, Larry,’ I said. ‘You can’t.’
“ ‘I’m going to,’ he said as calmly as if he was going to have a second helping of potatoes. ‘And I want you to be very nice to her, Isabel.’
“ ‘That’s asking too much,’ I said. ‘You’re crazy. She’s bad, bad, bad.’ ”
“What makes you think that?”
I interrupted. Isabel looked at me with flashing eyes.
“She’s soused from morning till night. She goes to bed with every tough who asks her.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s bad. Quite a number of highly respected citizens get drunk and have a liking for rough trade. They’re bad habits, like biting one’s nails, but I don’t know that they’re worse than that. I call a person bad who lies and cheats and is unkind.”
“If you’re going to take her part I’ll kill you.”
“How did Larry meet her again?”
“He found her address in the phone-book. He went to see her. She was sick, and no wonder, with the life she leads. He got a doctor and had someone in to look after her. That’s how it started. He says she’s given up drink; the damned fool thinks she’s cured.”
“Have you forgotten what Larry did for Gray? He’s cured him, hasn’t he?”
“That’s different. Gray wanted to be cured. She doesn’t.”
“How d’you know?”
“Because I know women. When a woman goes to pieces like that she’s done for; she can never get back. If Sophie’s what she is, it’s because she was like that always. D’you think she’ll stick to Larry? Of course not. Sooner or later she’ll break out. It’s in her blood. It’s a brute she wants, that’s what excites her, and it’s a brute she’ll go after. She’ll lead Larry a hell of a life.”
“I think it’s very probable, but I don’t know what you can do about it. He’s going into this with his eyes open.”
“I can do nothing about it, but you can.”
“I?”
“Larry likes you and he listens to what you say. You’re the only person who has any influence over him. You know the world. Go to him and tell him that he can’t make such a fool of himself. Tell him that it’ll ruin him.”
“He’ll only tell me that it’s no business of mine and he’ll be quite right.”
“But you like him, at least you’re interested in him, you can’t sit by and let him make a hopeless mess of his life.”
“Gray’s his oldest and most intimate friend. I don’t think it’ll do any good, but I should have thought Gray was the best person to speak to him.”
“Oh, Gray,” she said impatiently.
“You know it may not turn out so badly as you think. I’ve known two or three fellows, one in Spain and two in the East, who married whores, and they made them very good wives. They were grateful to their husbands, for the security they gave them, I mean, and they of course knew what pleases a man.”
“You make me tired. D’you think I sacrificed myself to let Larry fall into the hands of a raging nymphomaniac?”
“How did you sacrifice yourself?”
“I gave Larry up for the one and only reason that I didn’t want to stand in his way.”
“Come off it, Isabel. You gave him up for a square-cut diamond and a sable coat.”
The words were hardly out of my mouth when a plate of bread and butter came flying at my head. By sheer luck I caught the plate, but the bread and butter was scattered on the floor. I got up and put the plate back on the table.
“Your uncle Elliott wouldn’t have thanked you if you’d broken one of his Crown Derby plates. They were made for the third Duke of Dorset and they’re almost priceless.”
“Pick up the bread and butter,” she snapped.
“Pick it up yourself,” I said, seating myself again on the sofa.
She got up and, fuming, picked up the scattered pieces.
“And you call yourself an English gentleman,” she exclaimed, savagely.
“No, that’s a thing I’ve never done in all my life.”
“Get the hell out of here. I never want to see you again. I hate the sight of you.”
“I’m sorry for that, because the sight of you always gives me pleasure. Have you ever been told that your nose is exactly like that of the Psyche in the museum of Naples, and that’s the loveliest representation of virginal beauty that ever existed. You’ve got exquisite legs, so long and shapely, and I never cease to be surprised at them, because they were thick and lumpy when you were a girl. I can’t imagine how you’ve managed it.”
“An iron will and the grace of God,” she said angrily.
“But of course your hands are your most fascinating feature. They’re so slim and so elegant.”
“I was under the impression you thought them too big.”
“Not for your height and build. I’m always amazed at the infinite grace with which you use them. Whether by nature or by art you never make a gesture without imparting beauty to it. They’re like flowers sometimes and sometimes like birds on the wing. They’re more expressive than any words you can say. They’re like the hands of El Greco’s portraits; in fact, when I look at them I’m inclined to believe Elliott’s highly improbable story of your having an ancestor who was a Spanish grandee.”
She looked up crossly.
“What are you talking about? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
I told her about the Count de Lauria and Queen Mary’s maid of honor from whose issue in the female line Elliott traced his descent. Meanwhile Isabel contemplated her long fingers and her manicured painted nails with complacency.
“One must be descended from someone,” she said. Then with a tiny chuckle, giving me a mischievous look in which no trace of rancor remained, she added: “You lousy bastard.”
So easy is it to make a woman see reason if you only tell her the truth.
“There are moments when I don’t positively dislike you,” said Isabel.
She came and sat on the sofa beside me and, slipping her arm through mine, leant over to kiss me. I withdrew my cheek.
“I will not have my face smeared with lipstick,” I said. “If you want to kiss me, kiss me on the lips, which is what merciful Providence intended them for.”
She giggled and, her hand turning my head toward her, with her lips pressed a thin layer of paint on mine. The sensation was far from unpleasant.
“Now you’ve done that, perhaps you’ll tell me what it is you want.”
“Advice.”
“I’m quite willing to give you that, but I don’t think for a moment you’ll take it. There’s only one thing you can do and that is to make the best of a bad job.”
Flaring up again, she snatched her arm away and, getting up, flung herself into a chair on the other side of the fireplace.
“I’m not going to sit by and let Larry ruin himself. I’ll stick at nothing to prevent him from marrying that slut.”
“You won’t succeed. You see, he’s enthralled by one of the most powerful emotions that can beset the human breast.”
“You don’t mean to say you think he’s in love with her?”
“No. That would be trifling in comparison.”
“Well?”
“Have you ever read the New Testament?”
“I suppose so.”
“D’you remember how Jesus was led into the wilderness and fasted forty days? Then, when he was a-hungered, the devil came to him and said: If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But Jesus resisted the temptation. Then the devil set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down. For angels had charge of him and would bear him up. But again Jesus resisted. Then the devil took him into a high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world and said that he would give them to him if he would fall down and worship him. But Jesus said: Get thee hence, Satan. That’s the end of the story according to the good simple Matthew. But it wasn’t. The devil was sly and he came to Jesus once more and said: If thou wilt accept shame and disgrace, scourging, a crown of thorns and death on the cross, thou shalt save the human race, for greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Jesus fell. The devil laughed till his sides ached, for he knew the evil men would commit in the name of their redeemer.”
Isabel looked at me indignantly.
“Where on earth did you get that?”
“Nowhere. I’ve invented it on the spur of the moment.”
“I think it’s idiotic and blasphemous.”
“I only wanted to suggest to you that self-sacrifice is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even lust and hunger are trifling. It whirls its victim to destruction in the highest affirmation of his personality. The object doesn’t matter; it may be worthwhile or it may be worthless. No wine is so intoxicating, no love so shattering, no vice so compelling. When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself? At best he can only sacrifice his only begotten son.”
“Oh, Christ, how you bore me,” said Isabel.
I paid no attention.
“How can you suppose that common sense or prudence will have any effect on Larry when he’s in the grip of a passion like that? You don’t know what he’s been seeking all these years. I don’t know either, I only suspect. All these years of labor, all these experiences he garnered weigh nothing in the balance now they’re set against his desire—oh, it’s more than a desire, his urgent, clamorous need to save the soul of a wanton woman whom he’d known as an innocent child. I think you’re right, I think he’s undertaking a hopeless job; with his acute sensibility he’ll suffer the tortures of the damned; his life’s work, whatever it may be, will remain undone. The ignoble Paris killed Achilles by shooting an arrow in his heel. Larry lacks just that touch of ruthlessness that even the saint must have to win his halo.”
“I love him,” said Isabel. “God knows, I ask nothing of him. I expect nothing. No one could love anyone more unselfishly than I love him. He’s going to be so unhappy.”
She began to cry and, thinking it would do her good, I let her be. I diverted myself idly with the idea that had sprung so unexpectedly into my mind. I played with it. I couldn’t but surmise that the devil, looking at the cruel wars that Christianity has occasioned, the persecutions, the tortures Christian has inflicted on Christian, the unkindness, the hypocrisy, the intolerance, must consider the balance sheet with complacency. And when he remembers that it has laid upon mankind the bitter burden of the sense of sin that has darkened the beauty of the starry night and cast a baleful shadow on the passing pleasures of a world to be enjoyed, he must chuckle as he murmurs: give the devil his due.
Presently Isabel took a handkerchief from her bag and a mirror and, looking at herself, carefully wiped the corners of her eyes.
“Damned sympathetic, aren’t you?” she snapped.
I looked at her pensively, but did not answer. She powdered her face and painted her lips.
“You said just now you suspected what he’s been after all these years. What did you mean?”
“I can only guess, you know, and I may be quite wrong. I think he’s been seeking for a philosophy, or maybe a religion, and a rule of life that’ll satisfy both his head and his heart.”
Isabel considered this for a moment. She sighed.
“Don’t you think it’s very strange that a country boy from Marvin, Illinois, should have a notion like that?”
“No stranger than that Luther Burbank who was born on a farm in Massachusetts should have produced a seedless orange or that Henry Ford who was born on a farm in Michigan should have invented a Tin Lizzie.”
“But those are practical things. That’s in the American tradition.”
I laughed.
“Can anything in the world be more practical than to learn how to live to best advantage?”
Isabel gave a gesture of lassitude.
“You don’t want to lose Larry altogether, do you?”
She shook her head.
“You know how loyal he is: if you won’t have anything to do with his wife he won’t have anything to do with you. If you’ve got any sense you’ll make friends with Sophie. You’ll forget the past and be as nice to her as you can be when you like. She’s going to be married and I suppose she’s buying some clothes. Why don’t you offer to go shopping with her? I think she’d jump at it.”
Isabel listened to me with narrowed eyes. She seemed intent upon what I was saying. For a moment she pondered, but I could not guess what was passing through her mind. Then she surprised me.
“Will you ask her to lunch? It would be rather awkward for me after what I said to Larry yesterday.”
“Will you behave if I do?”
“Like an angel of light,” she answered with her most engaging smile.
“I’ll fix it up right away.”
There was a phone in the room. I soon found Sophie’s number, and after the usual delay which those who use the French telephone learn to put up with patiently, I got her. I mentioned my name.
“I’ve just arrived in Paris,” I said, “and heard that you and Larry are going to be married. I want to congratulate you. I hope you’ll be very happy.” I smothered a cry as Isabel, who was standing by me, gave the soft of my arm a vicious pinch. “I’m only here for a very short time and I wonder if you and Larry will come and lunch with me the day after tomorrow at the Ritz. I’m asking Gray and Isabel and Elliott Templeton.”
“I’ll ask Larry. He’s here now.” There was a pause. “Yes, we shall be glad to.”
I fixed an hour, made a civil remark, and replaced the receiver on its stand. I caught an expression in Isabel’s eyes that caused me some misgiving.
“What are you thinking?” I asked her. “I don’t quite like the look of you.”
“I’m sorry; I thought that was the one thing about me you did like.”
“You haven’t got some nefarious scheme that you’re hatching, Isabel?”
She opened her eyes wide.
“I promise you I haven’t. As a matter of fact I’m terribly curious to see what Sophie looks like now Larry has reformed her. All I hope is that she won’t come to the Ritz with a mask of paint on her face.”