14
The earth was thirsty; it poured down for three days, a slow soaking rain. Martin thought it would never stop. He walked along the lake in the Park regardless of his dripping hat. He was aching to see the boy again, to hear him say in his mother’s soft voice, “I love you, Uncle Martin.” What a mess he had made of his life; now he must steal what rightly belonged to him. He exulted in his power over Julie. Her illness was a fatality; it was her mother’s dead hand that had struck her daughter down to save her from him. A shiver ran through him; why was he so superstitious? He didn’t believe in anything—but sometimes a peculiar feeling took hold of him; there was another life far back, a mystery—something intangible. He walked hours in the rain—fighting invisible forces, cursing the conditions of his life; it all resolved itself back to the same determination. She had promised to go with him; she must keep her word.
Towards evening he rang the side-door bell at Hippolyte’s, hoping to get some news of her. The dark-skinned valet whisked off his coat, dried his dripping hair and neck, and preceded him into the Turkish room behind the shop. It was Hippolyte’s hour of rest before the night’s activity; he was lying on a divan, a picturesque figure, in a loose red silk robe. He waved Martin a welcome with his small white hand, the diamond, set in platinum on his finger, flashing rose color in the soft electric glow of the pervading red.
“Sapristi, Monsieur Steele. I was thinking of you.”
Martin dropped down in a deep chair, stretched out his legs. The aroma of coffee and a whiff of perfumed opium lent a sense of warmth to his chilled body.
“Of me? Are you in trouble again?”
His pipe-dream-visions changed into the cold reality of a check book; he had often helped the man out of his financial difficulties, he earned enormous sums, but the overhead expenses were fabulous.
“The money is nothing; it comes in and goes out like the tide. I am at the end, the compass changes. We must in Life watch for the Warning. We must train our ear to detect the direction of the wind.”
“You are superstitious?”
“We all are, if we knew its true meaning. Superstition is an intense sense of the Invisible.”
Martin drank the strong Turkish coffee, puffing at his chibouk. The man was a “hairdresser,” but that didn’t matter; Martin had no sense of class.
“My time in this business will soon be over. I was the only one for years when it was an ‘elite’ profession. Now it is vulgarized like everything else. There is a clever Russian woman who is taking all my customers; do you know why? The husbands are jealous.”
Martin laughed—he understood that; he would never allow this fascinating, purring Greek to maul his wife about.
“Mon ami, I know what you are thinking; you are wrong. They talk a great deal about the immorality of the American woman. It is not so—and it is a shame that it is not so. The French woman is honest; she have her husband, her lover; he has his wife, his mistress. Marriage is a success in France; they do not go about divorcing themselves. Here marriage is a failure, because every woman, young, middle age, old, talk of love!—it is only talk!—mon ami, talk! talk!—but she do nothing! nothing! Why! because she is afraid; the fear is in her blood from the old times in America, the fear of the ‘Scarlet Letter.’ Oh! she can love, Mon Dieu! and if by accident there is just a little false step, she make a scene, her relatives make a scene, the press make a scene, everybody make a scene. Oh! your Hawthorne did not know what harm he was doing to the future women of his country. The French authors knew better. La nouvelle Heloise—Camille, the heroines of de Maupassant, have set the women of France a glorious example.”
Martin smiled. The fellow was clever, insolent.
“Do you know how it will end?”
“No, my imagination doesn’t take me any farther.”
“Bah!—it is easy, she will go back to the pale face and the straight hair. You will see the little Puritan again. They have already forbid us the wine, the splendid opium, the tobacco, silk stockings, cosmetics, love—the whole nation will go to bed at nine o’clock—and their money will choke them.”
Martin laughed, but the man was very serious; he put his hand on Martin’s shoulder.
“Mon ami, you have been good to me. You know the Figaro has the soul of an artist; I am going to be good to you. I am going to tell you something you do not know; Mrs. Garrison will sail Saturday for England, without her husband.”