Lily stood up suddenly.
“Willie,” she said, “come home and have supper with us.” And turning to Ellen she added, “Paul will be waiting for us. He must be there already.” And to Willie, “Paul is Monsieur Schneidermann, a friend of Ellen’s and mine.”
Willie rose. “I don’t know,” he said timidly. “Maybe you aren’t prepared for me. Maybe I’d be in the way. I didn’t mean to force my way in on anything when I called. It was just for the sake of old times.”
Lily, moved toward the door trailing the magnificent cloak of black and silver. She thrust her arm through his. “Come along, Willie,” she said. “No nonsense. Why, we grew up together.”
And they went out, Ellen following them in her plum-colored wrap, to the motor which bore on its polished door the crest of the Baron.
Throughout the journey Willie kept poking his head in and out of the closed motor, drinking in the sights along the way ... the hushed, shadowy mass of the Madeleine, the warm glow before Maxims’, the ghostly spaces of the Place de la Concorde, the white palaces of the Champs Elysées. Ellen in her corner remained sulky and taciturn, smoking savagely. Lily talked merrily, pointing out from time to time sights which she deemed worthy of Willie’s appreciation. He seemed not to be listening.
“It’s a wonderful place,” he kept saying over and over again. “It’s a wonderful place.” And a kind of pathetic and beautiful awe crept into his thin voice. It seemed that he had no other words than “wonderful.” He kept repeating it again and again like a drunken man holding a conversation with himself.
At Numero Dix, Rue Raynouard, Willie underwent the experience of every stranger. He entered by the unpretentious door and found himself suddenly at the top of a long, amazing stairway which led down to a drawing-room all rosy with the glow of warm light. Half-way down the stairs candles burned in sconces against the dull paneling. From below drifted the faint sound of music ... a Debussy nocturne being played with caressing fingers in the shadowy, dim-lit spaces of the drawing-room.
“Paul is here,” observed Ellen and led the way down the long stairs.
Lily followed and close at her silver heels Willie Harrison, divested now of his derby and umbrella. Half-way down, he paused for a moment and Lily, conscious that he had ceased to follow her, waited too. As she turned she saw that he was listening. There was a strange blurred look in his pale eyes ... the look of one awaking from a long sleep.