The Adventures of a Modest Man. Chambers Robert William
rather glad you were not drowned," said Mr. Delancy, "but I'm not infatuated with you."
They shook hands solemnly, then Mr. Delancy walked over and joined Selden, who appeared to be fascinated by an attractive girl in Greek robes and sandals who was playing handball on the green.
"Young man," said Mr. Delancy, "there's always trouble for two in this world. That young woman with yellow hair and violet eyes who is playing handball with her sister, and who appears to hypnotize you, is here to recuperate from the loss of an elderly husband."
"A widow with yellow hair and blue eyes!" murmured Selden, entranced.
"Precisely. Your train, however, leaves to-night – unless you mean to remain here on a diet of bird-seed."
Selden smiled absently. Bird-seed had no terror for him.
"Besides," he said, "I'm rather good at handball."
A moment later he looked around, presumably for Harroll. That young man was already half-way to the jasmine-covered arbor, where a young girl sat, dry-eyed, deathly pale, staring out to sea.
The sea was blue and smiling; the soft thunder of the surf came up to her. She heard the gulls mewing in the sky and the hum of bees in the wind-stirred blossoms; she saw a crested osprey plunge into the shallows and a great tarpon fling its mass of silver into the sun. Paroquets gleaming like living jewels rustled and preened in the china-trees; black and gold butterflies, covered with pollen, crawled over and over the massed orange bloom. Ah, the mask of youth that the sly world wore to mock her! Ah, the living lie of the sky, and the false, smooth sea fawning at her feet!
Little persuasive breezes came whispering, plucking at the white hem of her robe to curry favor; the ingratiating surf purred, blinking with a million iridescent bubbles. The smug smile of nature appalled her; its hypocrisy sickened her; and she bent her dark eyes fiercely on the sea and clinched her little hands.
"Give up my dead!" she whispered. "Give up my dead!"
"Catharine!"
Dazed, she rose to her sandalled feet, the white folds of her robe falling straight and slim.
"Catharine!"
Her voiceless lips repeated his name; she swayed, steadying herself by the arm around her waist.
Then trouble for two began.
As Williams ended, I looked at him with indignation.
"As far as I can see," I said, "you are acting as attorney for the defense. That's a fine story to tell a father of two attractive daughters. You needn't repeat it to them."
"But it happened, old man – "
"Don't call me 'old man,' either. I'll explain to you why." And I did, peevishly.
After that I saw less of Williams, from choice. He has a literary way with him in telling a story – and I didn't wish Alida and Dulcima to sympathize with young Harroll and that little ninny, Catharine Delancy. So I kept clear of Williams until we arrived in Paris.
CHAPTER IV
WHEREIN A MODEST MAN IS BULLIED AND A LITERARY MAN PRACTICES STYLE
"What was your first impression of Paris, Mr. Van Twiller?" inquired the young man from East Boston, as I was lighting my cigar in the corridor of the Hôtel des Michetons after breakfast.
"The first thing I noticed," said I, "was the entire United States walking down the Boulevard des Italiens."
"And your second impression, sir?" he asked somewhat uncertainly.
"The entire United States walking back again." He lighted a cigarette and tried to appear cheerful. He knew I possessed two daughters. A man in possession of such knowledge will endure much.
Presently the stout young man from Chicago came up to request a light for his cigar. "See Paris and die, eh?" he observed with odious affability.
"I doubt that the city can be as unhealthy as that," I said coldly.
Defeated, he joined forces with the young man from East Boston, and they retired to the terrace to sit and hate me.
My daughter Alida, my daughter Dulcima, and I spent our first day in Paris "ong voitoor" as the denizen of East Boston informed me later.
"What is your first impression, Alida?" I asked, as our taxi rolled smoothly down the Avenue de l'Opera.
"Paris? An enormous blossom carved out of stone! – a huge architectural Renaissance rose with white stone petals!"
I looked at my pretty daughter with pride.
"That is what Mr. Van Dieman says," she added conscientiously.
My enthusiasm cooled at once.
"Van Dieman exaggerates," I said. "Dulcima, what do you find to characterize Paris?"
"The gowns!" she cried. "Oh, papa! did you see that girl driving past just now?"
I opened my guidebook in silence. I had seen her.
The sunshine flooded everything; the scent of flowers filled the soft air; the city was a garden, sweet with green leaves, embroidered with green grass – a garden, too, in architecture, carved out in silvery gray foliage of stone. The streets are as smooth and clean as a steamer's deck, with little clear rivulets running in gutters that seem as inviting as country brooks. It did not resemble Manhattan.
Paris!
Paris is a big city full of red-legged soldiers.
Paris is a forest of pink and white chestnut blossoms under which the inhabitants sit without their hats.
Paris is a collection of vistas; at the end of every vista is a misty masterpiece of architecture; on the summit of every monument is a masterpiece of sculpture.
Paris is a city of several millions of inhabitants, every inhabitant holding both hands out to you for a tip.
Paris is a park, smothered in foliage, under which asphalted streets lead to Paradise.
Paris is a sanitarium so skillfully conducted that nobody can tell the patients from the physicians; and all the inmates are firmly convinced that the outside world is mad.
I looked back at the gilded mass of the Opera – that great pile of stone set lightly there as the toe of a ballet-girl's satin slipper —
"What are you thinking, papa?" asked Alida.
"Nothing," I said hastily, amazed at my own frivolity. "Notice," said I, "the exquisite harmony of the sky-line. Here in Paris the Government regulates the height of buildings. Nothing inharmonious can be built; the selfishness and indifference of private ownership which in New York erects skyscrapers around our loveliest architectural remains, the City Hall, would not be tolerated here, where artistic ensemble is as necessary to people as the bread they eat."
"Dear me, where have I read that?" exclaimed Alida innocently.
I said nothing more.
We were now passing through that wing of the Louvre which faces the Carousal, and we turned sharply to the right under the little arc, and straight past the Tuileries Gardens, all blooming with tulips and hyacinths, past the quaint weather-stained statues of an epoch as dead as its own sculptors, past the long arcades of the Rivoli, under which human spiders lurk for the tourist of Cook, and out into the Place de la Concorde – the finest square in the world.
The sun glittered on the brass inlaid base on which towered the monolyth. The splashing of the great fountains filled the air with a fresh sweet sound. Round us, in a vast circle, sat the "Cities of France," with "Strasburg" smothered in crêpe and funeral wreaths, each still stone figure crowned with battlemented crowns and bearing the carved symbols of their ancient power on time-indented escutcheons, all of stone.
The fresh wet pavement blazed in the sunshine; men wheeled handcarts filled with violets or piled high with yellow jonquils and silvery hyacinths.
Violet, white, and yellow – these are the colors which Paris wears in springtime, twined in her chaplet of tender green.
I said this