U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [315]
Next morning when J.W. found he had to bathe out of
-315-a basin he made a face and said, "I hope you don't mind roughing it this way, dear little girl."
They went over across the Rhone to Nîmes for lunch
riding through Arles and Avignon on the way, then they turned back to the Rhone and got into Lyons late at night. They had supper sent up to their room in the hotel and took hot baths and drank hot wine again. When the waiter had taken away the tray Eveline threw herself on J.W.'s lap and began to kiss him. It was a long time before she'd let him go to sleep.
Next morning it was raining hard. They waited around a couple of hours hoping it would stop. J.W. was preoccu-pied and tried to get Paris on the phone, but without any luck. Eveline sat in the dreary hotel salon reading old copies of l'Illustration. She wished she was back in Paris too. Final y they decided to start.
The rain went down to a drizzle but the roads were
in bad shape and by dark they hadn't gotten any further than Nevers. J.W. was getting the sniffles and started taking quinine to ward off a cold. He got adjoining rooms with a bath between in the hotel at Nevers, so that night they slept in separate beds. At supper Eveline tried to get him talking about the peace conference, but he said, "Why talk shop, we'l be back there soon enough, why not talk about ourselves and each other." When they got near Paris, J.W. began to get nervous. His nose had begun to run. At Fontainebleau they had a fine lunch. J.W. went in from there on the train, leaving the chauffeur to take Eveline home to the rue de Bussy and then deliver his baggage at the Cril on afterward. Eveline felt pretty forlorn riding in al alone through the suburbs of Paris. She was remembering how excited she'd been when they'd al been seeing her off at the Gare de Lyons a few days before and decided she was very un-happy indeed. Next day she went around to the Cril on at about the
-316-usual time in the afternoon. There was nobody in J.W.s anteroom but Miss Wil iams, his secretary. She stared Eveline right in the face with such cold hostile eyes that Eveline immediately thought she must know something. She said Mr. Moorehouse had a bad cold and fever and wasn't seeing anybody.
"Wel , I'l write him a little note," said Eveline. "No, I'l cal him up later. Don't you think that's the idea, Miss Wil iams?" Miss Wil iams nodded her head dryly.
"Very wel ," she said.
Eveline lingered. "You see, I've just come back from leave . . . I came back a couple of days early because there was so much sightseeing I wanted to do near Paris. Isn't the weather miserable?"
Miss Wil iams puckered her forehead thoughtful y
and took a step towards her. "Very . . . It's most unfor-tunate, Miss Hutchins, that Mr. Moorehouse should have gotten this cold at this moment. We have a number of important matters pending. And the way things are at the Peace Conference the situation changes every minute so that constant watchfulness is necessary . . . We think it is a very important moment from every point of
view . . . Too bad Mr. Moorehouse should get laid up just now. We feel very badly about it, al of us. He feels just terribly about it."
"I'm so sorry," said Eveline, "I do hope he'l be better tomorrow."
"The doctor says he wil . . . but it's very unfortu-nate." Eveline stood hesitating. She didn't know what to say. Then she caught sight of a little gold star that Miss Wil-liams wore on a brooch. Eveline wanted to make friends.
"Oh, Miss Wil iams," she said, "I didn't know you lost anyone dear to you." Miss Wil iams's face got more chil y and pinched than ever. She seemed to be fumbling for something to say. "Er . . . my brother was in the navy,"
-317-she said and walked over to her desk where she