As a sort of atonement, she went to the apartment where she lived with her aunt and tried to write a letter to him, but Dick Ragland intruded himself into her thoughts. By morning the effect of his good looks had faded a little; she was inclined to write him a note that she couldn’t see him. Still, he had made her a simple appeal and she had brought it all on herself. She waited for him at half-past twelve on the appointed day.
Julia had said nothing to her aunt, who had company for luncheon and might mention his name—strange to go out with a man whose name you couldn’t mention. He was late and she waited in the hall, listening to the echolalia of chatter from the luncheon party in the dining room. At one she answered the bell.
There in the outer hall stood a man whom she thought she had never seen before. His face was dead white and erratically shaven, his soft hat was crushed bunlike on his head, his shirt collar was dirty, and all except the band of his tie was out of sight. But at the moment when she recognized the figure as Dick Ragland she perceived a change which dwarfed the others into nothing; it was in his expression. His whole face was one prolonged sneer—the lids held with difficulty from covering the fixed eyes, the drooping mouth drawn up over the upper teeth, the chin wabbling like a made-over chin in which the paraffin had run—it was a face that both expressed and inspired disgust.
“H’lo,” he muttered.
For a minute she drew back from him; then, at a sudden silence from the dining room that gave on the hall, inspired by the silence in the hall itself, she half pushed him over the threshold, stepped out herself and closed the door behind them.
“Oh-h-h!” she said in a single, shocked breath.
“Haven’t been home since yest’day. Got involve’ on a party at—”
With repugnance, she turned him around by his arm and stumbled with him down the apartment stairs, passing the concierge’s wife, who peered out at them curiously from her glass room. Then they came out into the bright sunshine of the Rue Guynemer.
Against the spring freshness of the Luxembourg Gardens opposite, he was even more grotesque. He frightened her; she looked desperately up and down the street for a taxi, but one turning the corner of the Rue de Vaugirard disregarded her signal.
“Where’ll we go lunch?” he asked.
“You’re in no shape to go to lunch. Don’t you realize? You’ve got to go home and sleep.”
“I’m all right. I get a drink I’ll be fine.”
A passing cab slowed up at her gesture.
“You go home and go to sleep. You’re not fit to go anywhere.”
As he focused his eyes on her, realizing her suddenly as something fresh, something new and lovely, something alien to the smoky and turbulent world where he had spent his recent hours, a faint current of reason flowed through him. She saw his mouth twist with vague awe, saw him make a vague attempt to stand up straight. The taxi yawned.
“Maybe you’re right. Very sorry.”
“What’s your address?”
He gave it and then tumbled into a corner, his face still struggling toward reality. Julia closed the door.
When the cab had driven off, she hurried across the street and into the Luxembourg Gardens as if someone were after her.
II
Quite by accident, she answered when he telephoned at seven that night. His voice was strained and shaking:
“I suppose there’s not much use apologizing for this morning. I didn’t know what I was doing, but that’s no excuse. But if you could let me see you for a while somewhere tomorrow—just for a minute—I’d like the chance of telling you in person how terribly sorry—”
“I’m busy tomorrow.”
“Well, Friday then, or any day.”
“I’m sorry, I’m very busy this week.”
“You mean you don’t ever want to see me again?”
“Mr. Ragland, I hardly see the use of going any further with this. Really, that thing this morning was a little too much. I’m very sorry. I hope you feel better. Good-by.”
She put him entirely out of her mind. She had not even associated his reputation with such a spectacle—a heavy drinker was someone who sat up late and drank champagne and maybe in the small hours rode home singing. This spectacle at high noon was something else again. Julia was through.
Meanwhile there were other men with whom she lunched at Ciro’s and danced in the Bois. There was a reproachful letter from Phil Hoffman in America. She liked Phil better for having been so right about this. A fortnight passed and she would have forgotten Dick Ragland, had she not heard his name mentioned with scorn in several conversations. Evidently he had done such things before.
Then, a week before she was due to sail, she ran into him in the booking department of the White Star Line. He was as handsome—she could hardly believe her eyes. He leaned with an elbow on the desk, his fine figure erect, his yellow gloves as stainless as his clear, shining eyes. His strong, gay personality had affected the clerk who served him with fascinated deference; the stenographers behind looked up for a minute and exchanged a glance. Then he saw Julia; she nodded, and with a quick, wincing change of expression he raised his hat.
They were together by the desk a long time and the silence was oppressive.
“Isn’t this a nuisance?” she said.
“Yes,” he said jerkily, and then: “You going by the Olympic?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I thought you might have changed.”
“Of course not,” she said coldly.
“I thought of changing; in fact, I was here to ask about it.”
“That’s absurd.”
“You don’t hate the sight of me? So it’ll make you seasick when we pass each other on the deck?”
She smiled. He seized his advantage:
“I’ve improved somewhat since we last met.”
“Don’t talk about that.”
“Well then, you have improved. You’ve got the loveliest costume on I ever saw.”
This was presumptuous, but she felt herself shimmering a little at the compliment.
“You wouldn’t consider a cup of coffee with me at the cafй next door, just to recover from this ordeal?”
How weak of her to talk to him like this, to let him make advances. It was like being under the fascination of a snake.
“I’m afraid I can’t.” Something terribly timid and vulnerable came into his face, twisting a little sinew in her heart. “Well, all right,” she shocked herself by saying.
Sitting at the sidewalk table in the sunlight, there was nothing to remind her of that awful day two weeks ago. Jekyll and Hyde. He was courteous, he was charming, he was amusing. He made her feel, oh, so attractive! He presumed on nothing.
“Have you stopped drinking?” she asked.
“Not till the fifth.”
“Oh!”
“Not until I said I’d stop. Then I’ll stop.”
When Julia rose to go, she shook her head at his suggestion of a further meeting.
“I’ll see you on the boat. After your twenty-eighth birthday.”
“All right; one more thing: It fits in with the high price of crime that I did something inexcusable to the one girl I’ve ever been in love with in my life.”
She saw him the first day on board, and then her heart sank into her shoes as she realized at last how much she wanted him. No matter what his past was, no matter what he had done. Which was not to say that she would ever let him know, but only that he moved her chemically more than anyone she had ever met, that all other men seemed pale beside him.
He was popular on the boat; she heard that he was giving a party on the night of his twenty-eighth birthday. Julia was not invited; when they met they spoke pleasantly, nothing more.
It was the day after the fifth that she found him stretched in his deck chair looking wan and white. There were wrinkles on his fine brow and around his eyes, and his hand, as he reached out for a cup of bouillon, was trembling. He was still there in the late afternoon, visibly suffering, visibly miserable. After three times around, Julia was irresistibly impelled to speak to him:
“Has the new era begun?”
He made a feeble effort to rise, but she motioned him not to and sat on the next chair.
“You look tired.”
“I’m just a little nervous. This is the first day in five years that I haven’t had a drink.”
“It’ll be better soon.”
“I know,” he said grimly.
“Don’t weaken.”
“I won’t.”
“Can’t I help you in any way? Would you like a bromide?”
“I can’t stand bromides,” he said almost crossly. “No, thanks, I mean.”
Julia stood up: “I know you feel better alone. Things will be brighter tomorrow.”
“Don’t go, if you can stand me.”
Julia sat down again.
“Sing me a song—can you sing?”
“What kind of a song?”
“Something sad—some sort of blues.”
She sang him Libby Holman’s “This is how the story ends,” in a low, soft voice.
“That’s good. Now sing another. Or sing that again.”
“All right. If you like, I’ll sing to you all afternoon.”
III
The second day in New York he called her on the phone. “I’ve missed you so,” he said. “Have you missed me?”
“I’m afraid I have,” she said reluctantly.
“Much?”
“I’ve missed you a lot. Are you better?”
“I’m all right now. I’m still just a little nervous, but I’m starting work tomorrow. When can I see you?”
“When you want.”
“This evening then. And look—say that again.”
“What?”
“That you’re afraid you have missed me.”
“I’m afraid that I have,” Julia said obediently.
“Missed me,” he added.
“I’m afraid I have missed you.”
“All right. It sounds like a song when you say it.”
“Good-by, Dick.”
“Good-by, Julia dear.”
She stayed in New York
