U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [316]
damask in her trunk, J.W. was up and around again. It seemed to Eveline that Eleanor had something cold and sarcastic in her manner of speaking she'd never had be-fore. When she went to the Cril on to tea Miss Wil iams would hardly speak to Eveline, but put herself out to be polite to Eleanor. Even Morton, the valet, seemed to make the same difference. J.W. from time to time gave her a furtive squeeze of the hand, but they never got to go out alone any more. Eveline began to think of going home to America, but the thought of going back to Santa Fé or to any kind of life she'd lived before was hideous to her. She wrote J.W. long uneasy notes every day tel -ing him how unhappy she was, but he never mentioned them when she saw him. When she asked him once why he didn't ever write her a few words he said quickly, "I never write personal letters," and changed the subject. In the end of April Don Stevens turned up in Paris. He was in civilian clothes as he'd resigned from the re-construction unit. He asked Eveline to put him up as he was broke. Eveline was afraid of the concièrge and of what Eleanor or J.W. might say if they found out, but she felt desperate and bitter and didn't care much what happened anyway; so she said al right, she'd put him up but he wasn't to tel anybody where he was stay-ing. Don teased her about her bourgeois ideas, said those sorts of things wouldn't matter after the revolution, that the first test of strength was coming on the first of May.
-318-He made her read L'Humanité and took her up to the rue du Croissant to show her the little restaurant where Jaurès had been assassinated.
One day a tal longfaced young man in some kind of a uniform came into the office and turned out to be Freddy Seargeant, who had just got a job in the Near East Re-lief and was al excited about going Out to Constantinople. Eveline was delighted to see him, but after she'd been with him al afternoon she began to feel that the old talk about the theater and decoration and pattern and color and form didn't mean much to her any more. Freddy was in ecstasy about being in Paris, and the little children sailing boats in the ponds in the Tuileries gardens, and the helmets of the Garde Republicaine turned out to salute the King and Queen of the Belgians who happened to be going up the rue de Rivoli when they passed.
Eveline felt mean and teased him about not having gone through with it as a C.O.; he explained that a friend had gotten him into the camouflage service before he knew it and that he didn't care about politics anyway, and that before he could do anything the war was over and he was discharged. They tried to get Eleanor to go out to din-ner with them, but she had a mysterious engagement to dine with J.W. and some people from the quai d'Orsay, and couldn't come. Eveline went with Freddy to the
Opera Comique to see Pélléas but she felt fidgety al through it and almost slapped him when she saw he was crying at the end. Having an orange water ice at the Café
Néapolitain afterwards, she upset Freddy terribly by say-ing Debussy was old hat, and he took her home glumly in a taxi. At the last minute she relented and tried to be nice to him; she promised to go out to Chartres with him the next Sunday.
It was stil dark when Freddy turned up Sunday morn-ing. They went out and got some coffee sleepily from an old woman who had a little stand in the doorway op--319-posite. They stil had an hour before train time and Freddy suggested they go and get Eleanor up. He'd so looked forward to going to Chartres with both of them, he said; it would be old times al over again, he hated to think how life was drawing them al apart. So they got into a cab and went down to the quai de la Tournel e. The great question was how to get in the house as the street door was locked and there was no concièrge. Freddy