Clarence Budington Kelland

“ She asked herself why he should not marry Andree. She had seen the girl, talked with her, found her beautiful and sweet—even good. Maude even felt a sympathy for Andree to the extent of warning Kendall against tampering with the girl’s happiness. Her sympathies were with Andree rather than with Kendall. She had never experienced the slightest aversion for Andree, none of that aversion which a woman safe in the possession of what she terms her virtue is entitled by ruthless custom to feel for the girl who is no longer a maid. ”

“ He was at the place of meeting early and there paced back and forth before the entrance to subterranean Paris, watching the crowds and waiting with impatience. The crowd was an old story to him now, but it never quite lost its fascination, never quite laid aside that air of unreality, of foreignness, of eventfulness that made the Paris throng of those days what it was—foreign in the eyes of the foreigner and foreign in the eyes of the Parisian.... He saw a slender girl—she seemed not more than twenty—bidding farewell to a youthful soldier. ”

“ She was Andree!... Andree! The world could show but one.
What was to be the outcome? It was a question he had evaded time and again, well knowing that it must some day be faced. He did not face it now, though it urged itself upon his attention. He did not believe the world had seen a more precious thing than their love—and yet, because of his training and the imprint of heredity, that love was questionable, tainted with irregularity. It was good, sweet, pure, but it was irregular as the Middle West and Plymouth Rock perceived irregularity. ”

“ He got some happiness out of that thought; Andree was an oasis of safety for him. He was capable of distinguishing between evil and virtue, he thought, and he had studied Andree as he had never studied any other living being. From the first moment of their acquaintance he had not perceived in her one quality, one emotion, one tendency that was not sweet, womanly, kindly, lovable, springing from a heart of purity.... How could a girl, proved to his intelligence to be good, be otherwise than good? ”

“ Little Arlette had been a bit of humor in his life—no more. He had been unconscious that she was anything more. But now in her catastrophe she loomed larger and assumed significance. His was a world of symbolisms, a religion of symbolisms. As his mother saw the hand of God in every event—the hand of God interposed with direct reference to herself—so Kendall, in a minor degree, and perhaps with something of unconsciousness, was subject to the same obsession. ”

“ Kendall Ware and Andree had chosen the Place des Ternes as the most advantageous point from which to see the parade, and though it was raining a trifle when they started out, with skies which promised a drizzly day, they were not to be deterred. The little concrete oval which is the meeting-place of the Boulevard de Courcelles, the Avenue de Wagram, the Avenue des Ternes, and the rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré was already crowded. People splashed about in its shallow puddles and jostled one another between its flower-booths, which were doing a thriving business. ”

“ Arlette came shuffling into the room after Kendall’s shoes and responded to Bert’s greeting with a grin and a bob of her head.
“Arlette,” said Bert, “Monsieur Ken’s in love. You’ve had experience, eh? What’s to be done about it?”
“Eh?... In love!... Mon Dieu! What does one do about it? One makes nothing. Either one is in love or one is not.... I have been in love.” ”

“ One of the delights of Ken’s acquaintance with Andree was that each meeting with her seemed a fresh adventure; there was a sameness about these meetings. Andree always appeared just so, and conducted herself just so. He could foretell with exactitude what her every movement and gesture and word would be when she did appear. But somehow, probably unconsciously, she was able to impart to every rendezvous a freshness, an air of mystery, something elusive and elfin that made them, no matter how often repeated, always alluring, exciting, delightful. ”

“ It is a matter that nobody can decide except for himself in a particular instance. I do think, if I were a man, that I could marry your Andree without a thought....”
“But to take her out of her world—away from Paris where she is as natural and unconscious as the birds in the trees—and set her down for life in Detroit ... to be stared at and lied about and suspected ... it would make her miserable.”
“Would it make her as miserable as to lose you altogether? If she had you and your love, no matter what unpleasant things were about, wouldn’t that be better than to be left behind here alone?” ”

“ Still the alerte sounded, more terrifying than the sound of the barrage which was presently to begin. Sirens mounted on fire-engines were giving the alarm, tearing madly through the black streets, and with horrid voice commanding Paris to seek sanctuary in abri or in the tunnels of the Metropolitan.
Kendall was not frightened; he was hardly apprehensive. Even when the guns opened toward the north and he could see bright star-flashes as shrapnel burst high above, he was only exhilarated and very interested. The thing did not seem serious to him. But it was serious, he knew. ”

“ A man might expect help, encouragement, even dynamic career from Maude Knox. He might expect a wonderful fidelity from her. She would take an interest in his life and would want to have a finger in the shaping of his destiny. Andree would play her part in his life less obtrusively, but perhaps as powerfully by keeping alive his love and by lavishing her love upon him. She would ask nothing, demand nothing except a continuance of love and a lavishment of tenderness. ”

“ Andree addressed herself to her plate with that quaint absorption which always delighted Kendall. It touched Maude now, as everything about this appealing little girl touched her. She found herself actually growing fond of Andree as one might grow fond of a lovable child.... And yet she had a certainty that she would not find Andree altogether childlike; that in all matters appertaining to her love she would be all woman and amply potent to defend herself and her rights. ”

“ To men war is one thing—it is a grim fight, it is suffering and wounds, it is bravery and glory.... To man war, at its most, can mean only death. But to a woman who sends her man it means more, infinitely, terribly more. It means that she may be deprived of all that makes life desirable. It means that she must remain behind to fear and to suffer, and then, when the feared news arrives, to face a life that is not life, a life without love, without companionship.... ”

“ Would you forgive him?”
“Me?” said Arlette. “Ah, who can say! It is many years, and love is only a thing to remember sometimes.... But I, monsieur, was not as Mademoiselle Andree is. Oh, no. There was weight to me, and a temper of the highest. Oh yes, and I spoke many words with great readiness. It is so.... What would you? Mademoiselle Andree is not at any point the same. She is gentle and sweet, monsieur, and it may be she is forgiving. ”

“ And therefore he could conceive happiness and stand upon the brink of happiness.... To be able to perceive virtue is to be happy. It is a perception which is its own reward....
Last night he had been afraid he would never find Andree; now he was certain she would be easy to find. It was the matter of forgiveness that caused his uneasiness. He had been brutal, harsh, presenting an unlovely spectacle. It was such a spectacle of a man’s self as might prove fatal to love, for who can love the unlovely? ”

“ Now a Frenchman on a bicycle is one of the sights of the war. Somehow he never seems to master the contrivance in all its intricacies. He can ride furiously in a straight line, coattails standing out straight behind, eyes fixed and determined, jaws set. So long as he follows a bee-line all is well, but you can read on his face that he realizes the uncertainty of life. Let him be compelled to swerve from his course, to turn a corner, or even to stop the machine to alight, and there is none so rash as to prophesy what will be forthcoming. Kendall saw one stocky poilu attempt to turn around. ”

“ There were six days and a half of plowing westward through the Atlantic, days when one wore constantly his life-jacket and rather expected to hear at any moment the detonation of the defensive guns or the explosion of a torpedo against the vessel’s sides.... But at last land came into view—only to be obscured by fog that compelled the Leviathan to crawl along, feeling her way with the lead.... And then, as suddenly as it had come, the fog vanished and they were in the harbor, with the Goddess visible ahead and the sky-line of the metropolis over to the right.... Nobody left the deck. ”

“ He was in love with Andree, but—confound it all!—was it possible he could be falling in love with Maude Knox, too? He had heard that people and books asserted a man could be in love with two women at once.... If this were so, he said to himself, it would create a devilish unpleasant situation ... and a situation not without an element to cause laughter. If a man loved two girls, he would have to choose one of them. In which case he would be, at the same instant, in a state of bliss because he had won a sweetheart and in a state of heartbreak because he had been thwarted in love!... ”

“ Resident in each individual was a consciousness that beyond there lay a new world, but how new and how different none was capable of realizing. The old life, the old ways, the accustomed rules of the game of life, had been left behind and few had the vision to perceive that they were left behind forever, that nothing could again be as it had been, and that they were standing poised for a step through a doorway which led into a new era. ”

“ Paris did not know, nor did the brain of any human being know, that but three days must pass before that man of infinite patience and courage who was generalissimo of the forces which barred the path of the Hun would make his first mighty stride toward victory, a stride which should become a steady march, never flagging, never stopping, until his armies should have won the precious right to march with heads erect under that great pile which dominates their city—the Arc de Triomphe. ”

“ One could readily imagine Maude playing golf or swimming or driving a car furiously and capably; it was impossible to imagine Andree doing any of these things. Andree was utterly feminine. One could be pals with Maude; with Andree, Kendall felt one could be bare acquaintance or sweetheart—nothing else.... One felt that Andree would give and give and give, asking only love in return: Maude would give and give, but would demand, as American women do, a like amount of giving in return. ”

“ They were in terror, but there was no fresh revolution.... And so they cowered about the subway entrances, men, women, boys, girls, wailing children in arms, ready to descend into the cold dampness of the tube at the first note of the alerte.
It was the first time Kendall had seen this thing, and it went to his heart. He felt an uprush of rage against the Hun who wrought thus inhumanly, thus without that sportsmanship which has lifted war from its mire of blood and horror and degradation, to paint it with the glamour of chivalry and heroism.... ”

“ Kendall’s heart was warmed by the little courtesy. It was a sort of welcome to him. It surprised him, rather, for in America one does not expect assistance to leap to one from a crowd of strangers. He was soon to learn that it was different in France; that all Paris seemed to be on the lookout to be of service to American soldiers, on the lookout almost to the point of embarrassment. He was to discover that the heart of France had a very special niche set aside for Americans. Even though it had already a saying, “Tous les Américaines sont fous,” it loved them for their very madness.... ”

“ It was not alone that they were to be set down in an alien land, amid a people speaking a tongue which was meaningless to them, and living their lives according to a manner which seemed good to them—and which was good to them and to all who saw it with clear eyes and open mind—but because they were about to become a part of events through which no soul can pass without being so modified and molded as to emerge a different soul, detached, unrelated, cut off by experience and knowledge from the soul that had been. ”

“ Love was for men and women; continence was for monks. Well, then? To love might be a sin for a monk, but even on this point she doubtless was lenient; for a man not to love was a sin. He was not realizing his duty to achieve happiness. Love was love. It was good. It carried no burden of evil.
“The good God—He make the yo’ng man and the yo’ng girl, and He tell them to love.... It is true. Then one must obey the good God,” she said, seriously.
Here was rather a new religion to Kendall, but, somehow, it did not seem absurd, nor did her utterance of it touch upon the sacrilegious. ”

“ Kendall left his glass untouched while his eyes fixed themselves on the street, now becoming ever more rapidly hidden by the dusk. Many people were passing, habitués of the Quartier Latin; young men in uniform with girls on their arms, skylarking, humming the chorus of “Madelon”; old women making a last effort of the day to sell bright-colored Rintintins and Ninettes fabricated out of worsteds, those quaint little charms which were all the rage in Paris, and which were supposed to make one safe from Big Bertha and the bomb of the air raid. ”

“ It’s awful to think of a million girls who have got to be old maids! They don’t want to be, but they’ve got to be.... War has taken from them the husbands they never had.”
“I’ve thought of that,” he said.
“It means these girls have lost more than life—they have had killed for them the possibility of living.... They can never have homes and families.... The future is nothing but a stretch of years for them—lonesome years without happiness and without sorrow.”
“I suppose it is as hard to be deprived of sorrow as it is of happiness,” said Kendall, slowly. ”

“ To her a foreigner had been a sort of freak of nature, a distressing accident. Anybody who was not English had been guilty of some sort of obscure offense against nature. Of course there were degrees of foreignness—some, as the Chinese, were more guilty than others—but it was a difference in degree and that was all. This was a basic fact to her, a part of her, and, without consciously instructing Kendall, she had impressed her way of thinking upon him until it was his own. He did not think of marriage with Andree any more than he would have thought of eating a rose.... ”

“ Moreover they would find a world which had resolved itself into genuineness, a world which was true, because war had stripped it of pretense.
The American soul is a peculiar affair. It is circumscribed by environment, by inherited prejudices. It is, for the most part, incapable of comprehending itself, much less the soul of another people of another temperament and genius, ripened by plenitude of years and by a hundred generations of genius which has studied the art of living. The American soul is a living thing imprisoned in a cage of concealments. ”