WALTER E. HOUGHTON, JR.
In Pace Conquiescare
Toward midnight, Paul Duval emerged from 355 McDougal Street, quietly closed the battered door behind him, and descended the steps. He slouched along the street, with the brim of his felt hat, which dangled over his ears, flapping up and down to the rhythm of his stride. Probably, he thought, some one would take him for a murderer or a burglar—although, to be sure, such people use automobiles in this twentieth century. Paul was especially conscious that the policeman leaning against a post of the elevated railway, did peer at him searchingly, whistled something, and twirled his stick meditatively. But perhaps all this was fancy, aided by the dim light of the arcs.
It was, however, likely that Paul carried with him a remnant of the atmosphere of the death-chamber he had just left—the green-walled room in the rear of 355 where Hanaré Tierens had died—and that the remembrance of this most recent experience created in his mind a marked sensitiveness to ghostly things such as policemen and Greenwich Village arc-lights. That calm, livid face, with its peculiarly French nose, had passed through some experience of which Paul, at least, knew nothing. He still felt the pressure of Hanaré’s hand, which he had held until the last moment. It had relaxed and become dead. What a world of truth and wonder was there in that moment, that relaxation!
Few men, Paul thought, had ever passed through emotions such as his own had been. It was bad enough to see one’s old friend and adviser die; to feel a hand relax, the way Hanaré’s had; to realize that it belonged no longer to a friend or an adviser. This, Paul reflected, was bad enough. But there had also been a girl—Hanaré’s daughter; a girl whom Paul had passionately loved for the last five years; a girl whose drawn, white face stood out now in his memory, like a ghost, to aggravate the torture in his heart. These two had sat facing each other during the last hours, when the doctor had gone, and the rest of the house was asleep. They had not exchanged a word. The tragedy had been heightened by the silence. Paul had expressed his love too often for her to be able to forget, even at this time, the intensity of his passion. And once, when their eyes met, he knew that in her young heart one more sorrow had thus been added to her present burden—a sympathy for him, and a feeling of almost shame that she could not respond to his love.
Then there had been a frightful kind of mental telepathy which carried even his most involuntary thoughts over to her. How could he help thinking that since she was now alone, without her father, she might accept him as a lover and a protector? How could he avoid extending his sympathy for her distress into a conviction that, since she needed comfort, some overt expression of his love was justified? Indeed, once when she had laid her head in despair upon the dying man’s breast, Paul had stretched out his hand and stroked her hair. She had, then, taken his hand in hers, pressed it, and released it. The situation only seemed to strengthen the barrier between them, and to make them even more intensely conscious of it.
These thoughts flowed slowly through Paul’s mind, now that he was out on the street, walking toward his apartment. He cursed himself for his selfishness and for bringing into a death-chamber such passions and emotions, thereby to heighten a young girl’s distress. What if they were the passions of a lifetime! What if they had caused him inexpressible suffering! He was none the less a selfish brute, immersed in his own selfishness.
Upon passing a quick-lunch room, he decided to enliven his tired mind by indulging in some coffee and doughnuts. He opened the door, walked past the shiny, white-topped tables, and approached the counter. Here he was at once surprised by the beauty of the girl’s face, which confronted him, and which stood out against the background of coffee containers, cups, saucers, shredded wheat boxes, and the like, as though an inhabitant of his dreams had been transposed to this earthly environment. Paul, who was sleepy and dazed, stared at her until she was forced to drop her lashes and hide from him the blue depths of her eyes.
“I am Paul Duval,” he said, in his absent-minded way, “and I should like some coffee.”