U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [125]
"But Miss Hutchins, you mustn't think Don meant any-thing running off like that. He's very excitable, especial y when he drinks." She laughed and they walked on with-out saying anything more. When they got to her apartment the old concièrge
hobbled out from her box and shook hands with both of
-294-them. "Ah, madame, c'est la victoire," she said, "but it won't make my dead son come back to life, wil it?" For some reason Eveline could not think of anything to do but give her five francs and she went back muttering a sing-song, "Merci, m'sieur, madame." Up in Eveline's tiny rooms Paul seemed terribly em-barrassed. They ate everything there was to the last crumb of stale bread and talked a little vaguely. Paul sat on the edge of his chair and told her about his travels back and forth with despatches. He said how wonderful it had been for him coming abroad and seeing the army and European cities and meeting people like her and Don Stevens and that he hoped she didn't mind his not knowing much about al the things she and Don talked about. "If this real y is the beginning of peace I wonder what we'l al do, Miss Hutchins." "Oh, do cal me Eveline, Paul." "I real y do think it is the peace, Eveline, according to Wilson's Four-teen Points. I think Wilson's a great man myself in spite of al Don says, I know he's a darn sight cleverer than I am, but stil . . . maybe this is the last war there'l ever be. Gosh, think of that . . ." She hoped he'd kiss her when he left but al he did was shake hands awkwardly and say al in a breath, "I hope you won't mind if I come to see you next time I can get to Paris."
For the Peace Conference, J.W. had a suite at the
Cril on, with his blonde secretary Miss Wil iams at a desk in a little anteroom, and Morton his English valet serving tea in the late afternoon. Eveline liked dropping into the Cril on late in the afternoon after walking up the arcades of the rue de Rivoli from her office. The antiquated cor-ridors of the hotel were crowded with Americans coming and going. In J.W.'s big salon there'd be Morton stealthily handing around tea, and people in uniform and in frock
-295-coats and the cigarettesmoky air would be ful of halftold anecdotes. J.W. fascinated her, dressed in grey Scotch tweeds that always had a crease on the trousers (he'd given up wearing his Red Cross major's uniform), with such an aloof agreeable m Anner, tempered by the pre-occupied look of a very busy man always being cal ed up on the phone, receiving telegrams or notes from his secre-tary, disappearing into the embrasure of one of the win-dows that looked out on the place de la Concorde with someone for a whispered conversation, or being asked to step in to see Colonel House for a moment; and stil when he handed her a champagne cocktail just before they al went out to dinner on nights he didn't have to go to some official function, or asked if she wanted another cup of tea, she'd feel for a second in her eyes the direct glance of two boyish blue eyes with a funny candid partly hu-morous look that teased her. She wanted to know him better; Eleanor, she felt, watched them like a cat watching a mouse. After al , Eveline kept saying to herself, she hadn't any right. It wasn't as if there was anything real y between them.
When J.W. was busy they often went out with Edgar
Robbins who seemed to be a sort of assistant of J.W.'s. Eleanor couldn't abide him, said there was something in-sulting in his cynicism, but Eveline liked to hear him talk. He said the peace was going to be ghastlier than the war, said it was a good thing nobody ever asked his opinion about anything because he'd certainly land in jail if he gave it. Robbins'
favorite hangout was Freddy's up back of Montmartre. They'd sit there al evening in the smal smokycrowded rooms while Freddy, who had a big white beard like Walt Whitman, would play on the guitar and sing. Sometimes he'd get drunk and set the company up to drinks on the house. Then his wife, a cross woman who looked like a gypsy,