The Little Moment of Happiness

by Clarence Budington Kelland

Again he turned and followed the broad boulevard up which he had walked again and again with Andree. Perhaps that was why he had come to the locality, drawn subconsciously into a region of such associations. Perhaps there had been hidden in some recess of his mind the hope that he might encounter her, and so feel her presence and sense her goodness and verify his judgment.

At the corner of the Boulevard St.-Michel and the equally broad rue Soufflot is a café whose tables and chairs crowded the sidewalk. It was still light enough to distinguish the crowd of people who patronized the place, sipping coffee from small goblets or drinking wine or that strange beverage kept in bottles which Paris believes to be lemonade.... He glanced carelessly at the café, then he stopped, peered again intently with a sudden up-leap of the pulse, for at a table near the end sat a girl in white, wearing a white tam-o’-shanter. This alone would not have halted Kendall, rather it would have urged him forward with eager haste, but the girl was not alone. A man occupied the chair at her side, bending over her with that eagerness which is not to be mistaken in a young man, that eagerness which apprises all the watching world that he is in the act of making love....

At the end of the café were a number of small potted trees reaching almost to the awning above. Kendall, unconscious that it was jealousy that dictated his movements, drew near cautiously to peer over the foliage at that adjacent table, to assure himself if it were Andree or not.... It was Andree, and her companion was Monsieur Robert, of the Comédie Française....

Quick suspicion is a natural result of the thing that the vestibule of the Presbyterian church, as Kendall knew it, stood for. Intolerance has for its favorite child Suspicion, Acute Suspicion, which convicts without trial and, if subsequent trial goes against it, asserts that the jury was tampered with. It was one of Kendall’s inheritances. He had been raised under the influence of constant suspicion. He himself had been suspected; he was used to seeing the most trivial events suspected. His mother, for instance, knew instantly that any happening which came under her eye and about which she was not fully informed meant something bad. It was never the way of that body of society in which he had been brought up to think the best when a trifle of imagination would enable it to think the worst—and to-night Kendall was peculiarly under the influence of his inheritances.... He suspected. A natural jealousy deepened his suspicion. Monsieur Robert’s profession deepened it further, and Andree’s often stated ambition to become an actress carried it to more profound depths. Suspicion may own a specious logic: Andree declared it was necessary for her to undertake a stage career. To do so it was necessary to enter the Académie. To enter the Académie it was necessary to interest the influence of some actor of prominence, and she had more than once hoped for this intervention. Ken himself had introduced her to this Monsieur Robert with that end in view.... And Jacques, perhaps in jest, perhaps in earnest, had warned him to beware of Monsieur Robert, or that handsome young actor would steal Andree from him. Hence Robert must have that sort of reputation.... And, therefore, Robert was with Andree at this moment for that purpose.... Again, what more natural and logical than that Andree should be willing to purchase her career, and that, even at this very moment, the agreement was being made.... Or, perhaps, had been made before, and he had been deceived already! Undoubtedly that was it....

The part of him inherited from his mother was in complete control now; he was narrow, certain in suspicion, hard, willing to be cruel. All that was worst in Roundhead, Puritan, Pilgrim Father was apparent in him. He had seen, and, in the instant of seeing, the pendulum of his character had swung to the uppermost point of its arc on the side opposed to tolerance, a reasonable philosophy, and the wider things toward which he had been growing since he came to France....

“Mother was right,” he said to himself, “they were all right. I’ve been fooled and I’ve been a fool.... And I thought she was good!... This damn, miserable country—if ever I can get out of it back to where decent people live....”

Almost exactly twenty-four hours ago he had held Andree in his arms, loving her and believing in her love. He remembered it, recalled the sweetness of last evening, Andree’s tender sweetness, which could have been nothing but designing and duplicity.... And now this.... He despised her and he despised himself. A beautiful dream had become a sordid reality....

How much of all this was due to a sudden perception of right and how much to boyish jealousy and a sharp hurt to a boyish heart he did not know. It did not occur to him to ask.... He had been made a fool of. He was furious with what he took to be righteous anger; what he did not know was that as soon as she passed there would come the most poignant grief he had ever known; the grief that comes only when a beautiful something has crept into one’s life to be snatched away brutally, leaving in its nest something squalid, unsightly, disgusting.

For a moment he was on the point of confronting Andree and Monsieur Robert, but he restrained himself. There would be a scene; probably he would thrash Robert—and to what good?... He glared at them a moment longer, then turned away and almost ran down the boulevard.... He was not thinking now, only suffering.

Presently he found himself repeating over and over to himself: “Andree, how could you?... Andree, how could you?...” Rage was departing, grief and disillusionment were taking its place. Presently he came to a Metro station and plunged downward. The train would carry him home faster than he could walk, and he wanted to be home, to shut himself up, to be alone. He wanted to feel that doors and walls were between him and all the world.... It was the sort of feeling which, long continued, drives men into religious orders, makes of them Trappists, Cistercians.... Shelter and silence were what Kendall wanted—to crawl away into some hiding-place where he might make the most of his suffering.