U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [349]
"But I like your taking an interest like that, honestly it means a great deal to me . . . I understand al about marry in haste and repent at leisure. In fact I'm not very much interested in marriage anyway . . . but . . . I don't know . . . Oh, the whole thing is very difficult."
"Never do anything difficult . . . It's never worth it," said Eleanor severely. Dick didn't say anything. She quick-ened her step to catch up with the others. Walking beside her he caught sight of her coldly chisel ed profile jiggling a little from the jolt of her high heels on the cobbles. Suddenly she turned to him laughing, "Now I won't scold you any more, Richard, ever again."
A shower was coming up. They'd hardly got back into the car before it started to rain. Going home the gimcrack Paris suburbs looked grey and gloomy in the rain. When they parted in the lobby of the Cril on J.W. let Dick understand that there would be a job for him in his office as soon as he was out of the service. Dick went home and wrote his mother about it in high spirits:
. . . It's not that everything isn't intensely interesting here in Paris or that I haven't gotten to know people quite close to what's real y going on, but wearing a uniform and always having to worry about army regulations and salut-ing and everything like that, seems to keep my mind from working. Inside I'l be in the doldrums until I get a suit of civvies on again. I've been promised a position in J. Ward Moorehouse's office here in Paris; he's a dol ar a year expert, but as soon as peace is signed he expects to start his business up again. He's an adviser on public rela-tions and publicity to big corporations like Standard Oil.
-393-It's the type of work that wil al ow me to continue my real work on the side. Everybody tel s me it's the opportunity of a lifetime. . . .
The next time he saw Miss Wil iams she smiled
broadly and came right up to him holding out her hand.
"Oh, I'm so glad, Captain Savage. J.W. says you're going to be with us . . . I'm sure it'l be an enjoyable and profitable experience for al parties."
"Wel , I don't suppose I ought to count my chickens before they're hatched," said Dick.
"Oh, they're hatched al right," said Miss Wil iams, beaming at him. In the middle of May Dick came back from Cologne
with a hangover after a party with a couple of aviators and some German girls. Going out with German girls was strictly against orders from G.H.Q. and he was nervous for fear they might have been seen conducting them-selves in a manner unbecoming to officers and gentlemen. He could stil taste the sekt with peaches in it when he got off the train at the Gare du Nord. At the office Colonel Edgecombe noticed how pale and shaky he looked and
kidded him about what a tremendous time they must be having in the occupied area. Then he sent him home to rest up. When he got to his hotel he found a pneumatique from Anne Elizabeth:
I'm staying at the Continental and must see you at
once.
He took a hot bath and went to bed and slept for sev-eral hours. When he woke up it was already dark. It was some time before he remembered Anne Elizabeth's let-ter. He was sitting on the edge of the bed sul enly buck-ling his puttees to go around and see her when there was a knock on his door. It was the elevatorman tel ing him a lady was waiting for him downstairs. The elevatorman had hardly said it before Anne Elizabeth came running down the hal . She was pale and had a red bruise on one
-394-side of her face. Something cantankerous in the way she ran immediately got on Dick's nerves. "I told them I was your sister and ran up the stairs," she said, kissing him breathlessly. Dick gave the elevatorman a couple of francs and whispered to her, "Come in. What's the mat-ter?" He left the room door half open.
"I'm in trouble . . . the N.E.R. is sending me home."
"How's that?"
"Played hookey once too often, I guess . . . I'm just as glad; they make me tired."
"How did you hurt yourself?"