"Yes, I"ve done her out of that, too," he says abysmally, "as well as sticking her in St. Louis while I stay here and can"t even drag down enough money to support her--"
"Oh, Ollie, snap out of it! That"s only being dramatic. You know darn well you will darn soon. I"ll be saying "bless you, my children, increase and multiply," inside a month if your novel goes through."
"If! Oh well. Oh h.e.l.l. I think I"ve wept on your shoulder long enough for tonight, Ted. Tell me your end of it--things breaking all right?"
Ted"s face sets into lines that seem curiously foreign and aged for the smooth surface.
"Well--you know my trouble," he brings out at last with some difficulty.
"You ought to, anyhow--we"ve talked each other over too much when we were both rather planko for you not to. I"m getting along, I think. The work--_ca marche a.s.sez bien_. And the restlessness--can be stood. That"s about all there is to say."
Both are completely serious now.
"Bon. Very glad," says Oliver in a low voice.
"I can stand it. I was awful afraid I couldn"t when I first got back.
And law interests me, really, though I"ve lost three years because of the war. And I"m working like a pious little devil with a new a.s.sortment of d.a.m.ned and when you haven"t any money you can"t go on parties in New York unless you raise gravy riding to a fine art. Only sometimes--well, you know how it is--"
Oliver nods.
"I"ll be sitting there, at night especially, in that little tin Tophet of a room on Madison Avenue, working. I _can_ work, if I do say it myself--I"m hoping to get through with school in January, now. But it gets pretty lonely, sometimes when there"s n.o.body to run into that you can really talk to--the people I used to play with in College are out of New York for the summer--even Peter"s down at Southampton most of the time or out at Star Bay--you"re in Melgrove--Sam Woodward"s married and working in Chicago--Brick Turner"s in New Mexico--I"ve dropped out of the Wall Street bunch in the cla.s.s that hang out at the Yale Club--I"m posted there anyhow, and besides they"ve all made money and I haven"t, and all they want to talk about is puts and calls. And then you remember things.
"The time my pilot and I blew into Paris when we thought we were hitting somewhere around Nancy till we saw that blessed Eiffel Tower poking out of the fog. And the Hotel de Turenne on Rue Vavin and getting up in the morning and going out for a cafe cognac breakfast, and everything being amiable and pleasant, and kidding along all the dear little ladies that sat on the _terra.s.se_ when they dropped in to talk over last evening"s affairs. I suppose I"m a sensualist--"
"Everybody is." from Oliver.
"Well, that"s another thing. Women. And love. Ollie, my son, you don"t know how very d.a.m.n lucky you are!"
"I think I do, rather," says Oliver, a little stiffly.
"You don"t. Because I"d give everything I have for what you"ve got and all you can do is worry about whether you"ll get married in six months or eight."
"I"m worrying about whether I"ll ever get married at all," from Oliver, rebelliously.
"True enough, which is where I"m glowingly sympathetic for you, though you may not notice it. But you"re one of the few people I know--officers at least--who came out of the war without stepping all through their American home ideas of morality like a clown through a fake gla.s.s window. And I"m--Freuded--if I see how or why you did."
"Don"t myself--unless you call it pure accident" says Oliver, frankly.
"Well, that"s it--women. Don"t think I"m in love but the other thing pulls pretty strong. And I want to get married all right, but what girls I know and like best are in Peter"s crowd and most of them own their own Rolls Royces--and I won"t be earning even a starvation wage for two, inside of three or four years, I suppose. And as you can"t get away from seeing and talking to women unless you go and live in a cave--well, about once every two weeks or oftener I"d like to chuck every lawbook I have out of the window on the head of the nearest cop--go across again and get some sort of a worthless job--I speak good enough French to do it if I wanted--and go to h.e.l.l like a gentleman without having to worry about it any longer. And I won"t do that because I"m through with it and the other thing is worth while. So there you are."
"So you don"t think you"re in love--eh Monsieur Billett?" Oliver puts irritatingly careful quotation marks around the verb. Ted twists a little.
"It all seems so blamed impossible," he says cryptically.
"Oh, I wouldn"t call Elinor Piper _that_ exactly." Oliver grins. "Even if she is Peter"s sister. Old Peter. She"s a nice girl."
"_A nice girl?_" Ted begins rather violently. "She"s--why she"s--" then pauses, seeing the trap.
"Oh very well--that"s all I wanted to know."
"Oh don"t look so much like a little tin Talleyrand, Ollie! I"m _not_ sure--and that"s rather more than I"d even hint to anybody else."
"Thanks, little darling." But Ted has been stung too suddenly, even by Oliver"s light touch on something which he thought was a complete and mortuary secret, to be in a mood for sarcasm.
"Oh, well, you might as well know. I suppose you do."
"All I know is that you seem to have been visiting--Peter--a good deal this summer."
"Well, it started with Peter."
"It does so often."
"Oh Lord, now I"ve _got_ to tell you. Not that there"s anything--definite--to tell." He pauses, looking at his hands.
"Well, I"ve just been telling you how I feel--sometimes. And other times--being with Elinor--she"s been so--kind. But I don"t know, Ollie, honestly I don"t, and that"s that."
"You see," he begins again, "the other thing--Oh, _Lord_, it"s so tangled up! But it"s just this. It sounds--funny--probably--coming from me--and after France and all that--but I"m not going to--pretend to myself I"m in love with a girl--just because I may--want to get married--the way lots of people do. I can"t. And I couldn"t with a girl like Elinor anyway--she"s too fine."
"She is rather fine," says Oliver appreciatively. "Selective reticence--all that."
"Well, don"t you see? And a couple of times--I"ve been nearly sure. And then something comes and I"m not again--not the way I want to be. And then--Oh, if I were, it wouldn"t be much--use--you know--"
"Why not?"
"Well, consider our relative positions--"
"Consider your grandmother"s cat! She"s a girl--you"re a man. She"s a lady--you"re certainly a gentleman--though that sounds like Jane Austen.
And--"
"And she"s--well, she isn"t the wealthiest young lady in the country, but the Pipers _are_ rich, though they never go and splurge around about it. And I"m living on scholarships and borrowed money from the family--and even after I really start working I probably won"t make enough to live on for two or three years at least. And you can"t ask a girl like that--"
"Oh, Ted, this is the twentieth century! I"m not telling you to hang up your hat and live on your wife"s private income--" "That"s fortunate,"
from Ted, rather stubbornly and with a set jaw.
"But there"s no reason on earth--if you both really loved each other and wanted to get married--why you couldn"t let her pay her share for the first few years. You know darn well you"re going to make money sometime--"
"Well--yes."
"Well, then. And Elinor"s sporting. She isn"t the kind that needs six butlers to live--she doesn"t live that way now. That"s just pride, Ted, thinking that--and a rather b.u.m variety of pride when you come down to it. I hate these people who moan around and won"t be happy unless they can do everything themselves--they"re generally the kind that give their wives a charge account at Lucile"s and ten dollars a year pocket money and go into blue fits whenever poor spouse runs fifty cents over her allowance."
Ted pauses, considering. Finally,
"No, Ollie--I don"t think I"m quite that kind of a fool. And almost thou convincest me--and all that. But--well--that isn"t the chief difficulty, after all."
"Well, what _is_?" from Oliver, annoyedly.
Ted hesitates, speaking slowly.
"Well--after the fact that I"m not sure--France," he says at last, and his mouth shuts after the word as if it never wanted to open again.
Oliver spreads both hands out hopelessly.