“Sure I am, Milly. It’ll make a different person out of me. Don’t you believe it?”
She looked at him. His eyes were bright with enthusiasm, with determination. A warm glow had spread over him at the prospect—he had never really had his chance before.
“All right,” she said finally. “We’ll go.”
They were there. The Cherbourg breakwater, a white stone snake, glittered along the sea at dawn—behind it red roofs and steeples and then small, neat hills traced with a warm, orderly pattern of toy farms. “Do you like this French arrangement?” it seemed to say. “It’s considered very charming, but if you don’t agree just shift it about—set this road here, this steeple there. It’s been done before, and it always comes out lovely in the end!”
It was Sunday morning, and Cherbourg was in flaring collars and high lace hats. Donkey carts and diminutive automobiles moved to the sound of incessant bells. Jim and Milly went ashore on a tug-boat and were inspected by customs officials and immigration authorities. Then they were free with an hour before the Paris train, and they moved out into the bright thrilling world of French blue. At a point of vantage, a pleasant square that continually throbbed with soldiers and innumerable dogs and the clack of wooden shoes, they sat down at a café.
“Du vaah,” said Jim to the waiter. He was a little disappointed when the answer came in English. After the man went for the wine he took out his two war medals and pinned them to his coat. The waiter returned with the wine, seemed not to notice the medals, made no remark. Milly wished Jim hadn’t put them on—she felt vaguely ashamed.
After another glass of wine it was time for the train. They got into the strange little third-class carriage, an engine that was out of some boy’s playroom began to puff and, in a pleasant informal way, jogged them leisurely south through the friendly lived-over land.
“What are we going to do first when we get there?” asked Milly.
“First?” Jim looked at her abstractedly and frowned. “Why, first I got to see about the job, see?” The exhilaration of the wine had passed and left him surly. “What do you want to ask so many questions for? Buy yourself a guidebook, why don’t you?”
Milly felt a slight sinking of the heart—he hadn’t grumbled at her like this since the trip was first proposed.
“It didn’t cost as much as we thought, anyhow,” she said cheerfully. “We must have over a hundred dollars left anyway.”
He grunted. Outside the window Milly’s eyes were caught by the sight of a dog drawing a legless man.
“Look!” she exclaimed. “How funny!”
“Aw, dry up. I’ve seen it all before.”
An encouraging idea occurred to her: it was in France that Jim’s nerves had gone to pieces; it was natural that he should be cross and uneasy for a few hours.
Westward through Caen, Lisieux and the rich green plains of Calvados. When they reached the third stop Jim got up and stretched himself.
“Going out on the platform,” he said gloomily. “I need to get a breath of air; hot in here.”
It was hot, but Milly didn’t mind. Her eyes were excited with all she saw—a pair of little boys in black smocks began to stare at her curiously through the windows of the carriage.
“American?” cried one of them suddenly.
“Hello,” said Milly. “What place is this?”
“Pardon?”
They came closer.
“What’s the name of this place?”
Suddenly the two boys poked each other in the stomach and went off into roars of laughter. Milly didn’t see that she had said anything funny.
There was an abrupt jerk as the train started. Milly jumped up in alarm and put her head out the carriage window.
“Jim!” she called.
She looked up and down the platform. He wasn’t there. The boys, seeing her distraught face, ran along beside the train as it moved from the station. He must have jumped for one of the rear cars. But—
“Jim!” she cried wildly. The station slid past. “Jim!”
Trying desperately to control her fright, she sank back into her seat and tried to think. Her first supposition was that he had gone to a café for a drink and missed the train—in that case she should have got off too while there was still time, for otherwise there was no telling what would happen to him. If this were one of his spells he might just go on drinking, until he had spent every cent of their money. It was unbelievably awful to imagine—but it was possible.
She waited, gave him ten, fifteen minutes to work his way up to this car—then she admitted to herself that he wasn’t on the train. A dull panic began—the sudden change in her relations to the world was so startling that she thought neither of his delinquency nor of what must be done, but only of the immediate fact that she was alone. Erratic as his protection had been, it was something. Now—why, she might sit in this strange train until it carried her to China and there was no one to care!
After a long while it occurred to her that he might have left part of the money in one of the suitcases. She took them down from the rack and went feverishly through all the clothes. In the bottom of an old pair of pants that Jim had worn on the boat she found two bright American dimes. The sight of them was somehow comforting and she clasped them tight in her hand. The bags yielded up nothing more.
An hour later, when it was dark outside, the train slid in under the yellow misty glow of the Gare du Nord. Strange, incomprehensible station cries fell on her ears, and her heart was beating loud as she wrenched at the handle of the door. She took her own bag with one hand and picked up Jim’s suitcase in the other, but it was heavy and she couldn’t get out the door with both, so in a rush of anger she left the suitcase in the carriage.
On the platform she looked left and right with the forlorn hope that he might appear, but she saw no one except a Swedish brother and sister from the boat whose tall bodies, straight and strong under the huge bundles they both carried, were hurrying out of sight. She took a quick step after them and then stopped, unable to tell them of the shameful thing that had happened to her. They had worries of their own.
With the two dimes in one hand and her suitcase in the other, Milly walked slowly along the platform. People hurried by her, baggage-smashers under forests of golf sticks, excited American girls full of the irrepressible thrill of arriving in Paris, obsequious porters from the big hotels. They were all walking and talking very fast, but Milly walked slowly because ahead of her she saw only the yellow arc of the waiting room and the door that led out of it and after that she did not know where she would go.
II
By 10 p.m. Mr. Bill Driscoll was usually weary, for by that time he had a full twelve-hour day behind him. After that he only went out with the most celebrated people. If someone had tipped off a multi-millionaire or a moving-picture director—at that time American directors were swarming over Europe looking for new locations—about Bill Driscoll, he would fortify himself with two cups of coffee, adorn his person with his new dinner coat and show them the most dangerous dives of Montmartre
