And so it happened that Lily Shane, one gray afternoon in the late winter, found herself for the first time in years surrounded by her countrymen. Rather weary, confused, and a little breathless, she discovered a refuge from the throng in a little alcove of the Hotel Crillon by a window which gave out upon the wide spaces of the Place de la Concorde. The white square was filled now with trophies. High on the terrace of the Tuileries gardens lay a row of shattered aeroplanes—hawklike Gothas, Fokkers like chimney swifts, all torn and battered now, their bright wings bedraggled by the mud and grease of victory. At intervals along the parapet rose great pyramids of German helmets, empty, ghastly, like the heaps of skulls strewn by Ghengis Khan to mark his triumphant progress across the face of Europe. Near the obelisk—so ancient, so withdrawn, so aloof, survivor of a dozen civilizations—the captured guns crouched together pointing their steel muzzles mutely toward the low gray sky. Some came from the great furnaces of the Krupps, some from the celebrated Skoda mills. In the circle marked by the seven proud cities of France, the statues of Lille and Strasbourg, no longer veiled in crêpe, stood impassive, buried beneath heaps of wreaths and flowers. The whole square appeared dimly through the mists that rose from the Seine. The fog hung low and gray, clinging in torn veils about the silent guns, settling low upon the pyramids of empty, skull-like helmets, caressing the hard, smooth granite of the eternal obelisk that stood aloof, mocking, ironic, silent.
Lily sat alone watching the spectacle of the square, as if conscious that in that moment she was at the very heart of the world. Behind her at a little distance moved a procession of figures, confused, grotesque, in the long crystal-hung corridors. It circulated restlessly through the big rooms, moving about the gilt furniture, past the gilt framed mirrors, brushing the heavy curtains. There were British, French, Belgians, Italians, Portuguese, triumphant Japanese, smiling secretly perhaps at the spectacle in the misty Place de la Concorde. There was, of course, a vast number of Americans, ... politicians, senators, congressmen, mere meddlers, some in neat cutaways, some in gray or blue suits. There were women among them ... a great many women, brave in mannish clothes, dominating and active in manner.
In all the crowd, so merry, so talkative over the victory, the figure of Lily, withdrawn and silent, carried an inexpressible air of loneliness. It was as if she imitated the obelisk and turned a scornful back upon the restless, gaudy spectacle. She was dressed all in black in a neat suit and a close fitting hat that covered all but a narrow band of amber hair. About her full white throat she wore a tight collar of big pearls. She was no longer young. The voluptuous curves had vanished. She was thinner and, despite the rouge on her lips and cheeks, appeared old. The youthful sparkle of her dark eyes had given place to a curious, hard brilliance. The old indolence appeared to have vanished forever. She sat upright, and at the moment the poise of her body carried a curious sense of likeness to the defiance which had been her mother’s. Yet despite all these things she was beautiful. It was impossible to deny her beauty, even though its quality of flamboyance was gone forever. The new beauty was serene, distinguished, worldly—above all else calm. Even the weariness of her face could not destroy a beauty which had to do as much with spirit as with body. She was, after all, no pretty blond thing of the sort which fades into a haggard old age. She was a fine woman, a magnificent woman, not to be overlooked even with youth gone forever.
After a time she turned away from the window and fell to watching the procession of figures. Her rouged lips were curved in the faintest of mocking smiles,—a smile which conveyed a hint of scoffing at some colossal futility, a smile above all else of sophistication and weariness, as if she were at once amused and saddened by the spectacle. Yet it was a kindly smile, tolerant, sympathetic, colored by a hint of some secret, profound, and instinctive wisdom. Motionless, she sat thus for a long time stirring only to fumble with the clasp of the silver bag that lay in her lap. No one noticed her, for she took no part in the spectacle. She sat apart, a little in the shadow, in a backwater, while the noisy tempestuous throng pushed its way through the long vista of gilded, rococo rooms.
LXXXVII
SHE must have been sitting there for half an hour when the smile vanished suddenly and the fingers fumbling with the silver bag grew still. Her face assumed an expression of rigidity, the look of one who has seen something in which he is not quite able to believe.
Moving toward her down the long vista of crystal and brocade curtains came a man. He was a big man, tall, massive, handsome in a florid way. He must have been in his middle fifties, although there was but little gray in the thick black hair which he wore rather long in a fashion calculated to attract the notice of passersby. He wore horn-rimmed spectacles and a flowing black tie in striking contrast to the gray neatness of his cutaway and checkered waistcoat. Unmistakably he was an American. His manner carried the same freedom, the identical naive simplicity which characterized the figure of the vigorous Ellen. He possessed the same overflowing vitality. Even as Lily stood, silently, with her back to the tragic spectacle of the square, the vitality overflowed suddenly in a great explosive laugh and a slap on the back of a friend he had encountered in the throng. Above the subdued murmur, the sound of his booming voice reached her.
“Well, well, well!... And what are you doing in wicked Paris? Come to fix up the peace, I suppose!”
The answer of the stranger was not audible. The pair withdrew from the path of the procession and talked for a moment. The conversation was punctuated from time to time by the sudden bursts of laughter from the man in the checkered waistcoat.
In her corner Lily leaned forward a little in order to see more clearly the figure which had fascinated her. Presently he turned, bade his friend good-by and moved away again, coming directly down the vista toward Lily. He walked with a swinging stride, and as he approached his large face beamed with satisfaction. He turned his head from side to side with a patronizing air, an air which to Lily must have been startlingly familiar. Even twenty years could not have dissipated the memory of it. It was this which identified him beyond all doubt. He beamed to right and to left. His whole figure betrayed an enormous self-satisfaction. It was impossible any longer to doubt. The man was the Governor. His success was written upon a face now grown heavy and dark.