Suddenly she snatched it from him and tossed it into the river. He watched it fall; then stared at her quietly. Like a naughty child, appalled by her own impishness, she returned his stare.
“Two francs fifty banged for nothing!” She closed up the distance between them, snuggling against him like a puppy asking his forgiveness.
“Meester Deek, you can be provoking. I got up this morning intending to be so fascinating. Everything goes wrong.—And as for that berth,” she made her voice small and repentant, “I was only trying to be sweet to you.”
“I, too, was trying to be decent.” He covered her hand. “How is it? I counted so much on this—this experiment, or whatever you call it. We’re not getting on very well.”
“We’re not.” She lifted her face sadly. In an instant the cloud vanished. The gray seas in her eyes splashed over with merriment. “It’ll be all right when we get out of Paris. You see if it isn’t! Quite soon now my niceness will commence.”
“Then let’s get out now.”
They ran down to the landing and caught a steamer setting out for Sèvres. From Sèvres they took a tram to Versailles. It was late in the afternoon when they got back to Paris with scarcely sufficient time to dine and pack.
All day he had been wondering whether, in her opinion, her niceness had commenced. They had enjoyed themselves. She had taken his arm. She had treated him as though she claimed him. But they had broken no new ground. He felt increasingly that the old familiarities had lost their meaning while the new familiarities were withheld. She was still passionless. She allowed and she incited, but she never responded. When they had arrived at the farthest point that they had reached in their New York experience, she either halted or turned back. She played at a thing which to him was as earnest as life and death. He had once found a dedication which read about as follows: “To the woman with the dead soul and the beautiful white body.” There were times when the words seemed to have been written for her.
At the station he searched in vain for an empty carriage. At last he had to enter one which was already occupied. Their companion was a French naval officer, who had a slight acquaintance with English, of which he was exceedingly proud. He informed them that he was going to Marseilles to join his ship; since Marseilles was several hours beyond Avignon, all hope that they would have any privacy was at an end. They had been in crowds and public places ever since they had met; now this stranger insisted on joining in their conversation. He addressed himself almost exclusively to Desire; under the flattering battery of his attentions she grew animated. Finding himself excluded, Teddy looked out of the window at the pollarded trees and flying country. He felt like the dull and superseded husband of a Guy de Maupassant story.
Night fell. When it was time to hood the lamp, the stranger still kept them separate by his gallantry in inviting her to change comers with him, that she might steady herself while she slept by slipping her arms through the loops which he had hung from the baggage-rack.