The Triflers | Page 7

just because I'm not married-- Oh, they are stupid, Monte!"
Henri, who had been stealing in with course after course, refilled the glasses. He smiled discreetly as he saw her earnest face.
"What you need," suggested Monte, "is a sort of chaperon or secretary."
She shook her head.
"Would you like one yourself?" she demanded.
"It would be a good deal of a nuisance," he admitted; "but, after all--"
"I won't have it!" she burst out. "It would spoil everything. It would be like building one's own jail and employing one's own jailer. I could n't stand that. I 'd rather be annoyed as I am than be annoyed by a chaperon."
She was silent a moment, and then she exclaimed:
"Why, I'd almost rather marry Teddy! I'd feel freer--honestly, I think I 'd feel freer with a husband than a chaperon."
"Oh, see here!" protested Monte. "You must n't do that."
"I don't propose to," she answered quietly.
"Then," he said, "the only thing left is to go away where Teddy and the others can't find you."
"Where?" she asked with interest.
"There are lots of little villages in Switzerland."
She shook her head.
"And along the Riviera."
"I love the little villages," she replied. "I love them here and at home. But it's no use."
She smiled. There was something pathetic about that smile--something that made Covington's arm muscles twitch.
"I should n't even have the aid of the taxis in the little villages," she said.
Monte leaned back.
"If they only had here in Paris a force of good, honest Irish cops instead of these confounded gendarmes," he mused.
She looked her astonishment at the irrelevant observation.
"You see," he explained, "it might be possible then to lay for Teddy H. some evening and--argue with him."
"It's nice of you, Monte, to think of that," she murmured.
Monte was nice in a good many ways.
"The trouble is, they lack sentiment, these gendarmes," he concluded. "They are altogether too law-abiding."
CHAPTER III
A SUMMONS
Monte himself had sometimes been accused of lacking sentiment; and yet, the very first thing he did when starting for his walk the next morning was to order a large bunch of violets to be sent to number sixty-four Boulevard Saint-Germain. Then, at a somewhat faster pace than usual, he followed the river to the Jardin des Tuileries, and crossed there to the Avenue des Champs ��lys��es into the Bois.
He walked as confidently as if overnight his schedule had again been put in good running order; for, overnight, spring had come, and that was what his schedule called for in Paris. The buds, which until now had hesitated to unfold, trembled forth almost before his eyes under the influence of a sun that this morning blazed in a turquoise sky. Perhaps they had hurried a trifle to overtake Monte.
With his shoulders well back, filling his lungs deep with the perfumed morning air, he swung along with a hearty, self-confident stride that caused many a little nursemaid to turn and look at him again.
He had sent her violets; and yet, except for the fact that he had never before sent her flowers, he could not rightly be accused of sentimentalism. He had acted on the spur of the moment, remembering only the sad, wistful smile with which she had bade him good-night when she stood at the door of the pension. Or perhaps he had been prompted by the fact that she was in Paris alone.
Until now it had never been possible to dissociate her completely from Aunt Kitty. Marjory had never had a separate existence of her own. To a great many people she had never been known except as Miss Dolliver's charming niece, although to Monte she had been known more particularly as a 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