The Triflers | Page 8

young friend of the Warrens. But, even in this
more intimate capacity, he had always been relieved of any sense of
responsibility because of this aunt. Wherever he met her, there was
never any occasion for him to put himself out to be nice to her, because
it was always understood that she could never leave Aunt Kitty even
for an evening. This gave him a certain sense of security. With her he
never was forced to consider either the present or the future.
Last night it had been almost like meeting her for the first time alone. It
was as if in all these years he had known her only through her
photograph, as one knows friends of one's friends about whom one has
for long heard a great deal, without ever meeting them face to face.
From the moment he first saw her in the Place de l'Opera she had made
him conscious of her as, in another way, he had always been conscious
of Edhart. The latter, until his death, had always remained in Monte's
outer consciousness like a fixed point. Because he was so permanent,
so unchanging, he dominated the rest of Monte's schedule as the north
star does the mariner's course.
Each year began when Edhart bade him a smiling au revoir at the door
of the Hôtel des Roses; and that same year did not end, but began again,
when the matter of ten or eleven months later Monte found Edhart still
at the door to greet him. So it was always possible, the year round, to
think of Edhart as ever standing by the door smilingly awaiting him.
This was very pleasant, and prevented Monte from getting really
lonesome, and consequently from getting old. It was only in the last
few weeks that he fully realized all that Edhart had done for him.
It was, in some ways, as if Edhart had come back to life again in
Marjory. He had felt it the moment she had smilingly confided in him;
he felt it still more when, after she bade him good-night, he had turned
back into the city, not feeling alone any more. Now it was as if he were
indebted to her for this morning walk, and for restoring to him his

springtime Paris. It was for these things that he had sent her
violets--because she had made him comfortable again. So, after all, his
act had been one, not of sentimentalism, but of just plain gratitude.
Monte's objection to sentiment was not based upon any of the modern
schools of philosophy, which deplore it as a weakness. He took his
stand upon much simpler grounds: that, as far as he had been able to
observe, it did not make for content. It had been his fate to be thrown in
contact with a good deal of it in its most acute stages, because the route
he followed was unhappily the route also followed by those upon their
honeymoon. If what he observed was sentiment at its zenith, then he
did not care for it. Bridegrooms made the poorest sort of traveling
companions; and that, after all, was the supreme test of men. They
appeared restless, dazed, and were continually looking at their watches.
Few of them were able to talk intelligently or to play a decent game of
bridge.
Perhaps, too, he had been unfortunate in the result of his observations
of the same passion in its later stages; but it is certain that those were
not inspiring, either. Chic Warren was an exception. He seemed fairly
happy and normal, but Covington would never forget the night he spent
there when Chic, Junior had the whooping-cough. He walked by Chic's
side up and down the hall, up and down the hall, up and down the hall,
with Chic a ghastly white and the sweat standing in beads upon his
forehead. His own throat had tightened and he grew weak in the knees
every time the rubber-soled nurse stole into sight. Every now and then
he heard that gasping cough, and felt the spasmodic grip of Chic's
fingers upon his arm. It was terrible; for weeks afterward Covington
heard that cough.
At the end of an hour Covington turned back, wheeling like a soldier on
parade. There had never seemed to him any reason why, when a man
was entirely comfortable, as he was, he should take the risk of a change.
He had told Chic as much when sometimes the latter, over a pipe, had
introduced the subject. The last time, Chic had gone a little farther than
usual.
"But, man alive!" Chic had exclaimed. "A day will come when you'll

be sorry."
"I don't believe it," Monte answered.
Yet it was only yesterday that he had wandered over half Paris in