The Triflers | Page 8

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 H?tel 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 search of something to bring his schedule back to normal. And he had found it--in front of the Opera House at eleven o'clock at night.
Monte strode into his hotel with a snap that made the little clerk glance up in surprise.
"Any mail for me?" he inquired.
"A telephone message, monsieur."
He handed Monte an envelope. It was not often that he received telephone messages. It read as follows:--
Can't you come over? Teddy was very angry about the taxi, and I think I shall leave Paris tonight. The flowers were beautiful.
Monte felt his breath coming fast.
"How long has this been waiting for me?" he demanded.
"A half-hour, monsieur."
He hurried out the door and into a taxi.
"Sixty-four Boulevard Saint-Germain--and hurry."
Leaving Paris? She had no right to do that. Edhart never left. That was the beauty of Edhart--that he remained stationary, so that he could always be found. He was quite sure that Edhart was too considerate even to die, could he have avoided it. Now Marjory was proposing to go and leave him here alone. He could not allow that. It was too early to quit Paris, anyway. It was only the first day of spring!
She came down into the gloomy pension reception-room looking as if she had