U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [356]
You suddenly turned deathly pale."
"It's nothing . . . I think I'l go home and lie down
. . . I don't think al that spaghetti and garlic agreed with me in Italy . . . maybe it's that wine."
"But perhaps I could do something about finding you a job in Paris. Are you a typist or stenographer?"
"Might make a stab at it," said Daughter bitterly. She hated Mr. Barrow. Al the way back in the taxi she couldn't get to say anything. Mr. Barrow talked and talked. When she got back to the hotel she lay down on the bed and gave herself up to thinking about Dick. She decided she'd go home. She stayed in her room and although Mr. Barrow kept cal ing up asking her out and making suggestions about possible jobs she wouldn't see him. She said she was having a bilious attack and would stay in bed. The night before she was to sail he asked her to dine with him and some friends and before she knew it she said she'd go along. He cal ed for her at six and took her for cocktails at the Ritz Bar. She'd gone out and bought herself an evening dress at the Gal eries Lafayette and was feeling fine, she was tel ing herself as she sat drinking the champagne cocktail, that if Dick should come in now she wouldn't bat an eyelash. Mr. Barrow was talk--410-ing about the Fiume situation and the difficulties the Pres-ident was having with Congress and how he feared that the whole great work of the League of Nations was in danger, when Dick came in looking very handsome in his uniform with a pale older woman in grey and a tal stout-ish lighthaired man, whom Mr. Barrow pointed out as J. Ward Moorehouse. Dick must have seen her but he
wouldn't look at her. She didn't care anymore about any-thing. They drank down their cocktails and went out. On the way up to Montmartre she let Mr. Barrow give her a long kiss on the mouth that put him in fine spirits. She didn't care; she had decided she'd kil herself.
Waiting for them at the table at the Hermitage Mr.
Barrow had reserved, was a newspaper correspondent
named Burnham and a Miss Hutchins who was a Red
Cross worker. They were very much excited about a man named Stevens who had been arrested by the Army of Oc-cupation, they thought accused of Bolshevik propaganda; he'd been courtmartialed and they were afraid he was going to be shot. Miss Hutchins was very upset and said Mr. Barrow ought to go to the President about it as soon as Mr. Wilson got back to Paris. In the meantime they had to get the execution stayed. She said Don Stevens was a newspaper man and although a radical not connected with any kind of propaganda and anyway it was horrible to shoot a man for wanting a better world. Mr. Barrow was very embarrassed and stuttered and hemmed and
hawed and said that Stevens was a very sil y young man who talked too much about things he didn't understand, but that he supposed he'd have to do the best he could to try to get him out but that after al , he hadn't shown the proper spirit. . . . That made Miss Hutchins very angry,
"But they're going to shoot him . . . suppose it had hap-pened to you . . ." she kept saying. "Can't you under-stand that we've got to save his life?" Daughter couldn't seem to think of anything to say as
-411-she didn't know what they were talking about; she sat there in the restaurant looking at the waiters and the lights and the people at the tables. Opposite there was a party of attractive looking young French officers. One of them, a tal man with a hawk nose, was looking at her. Their eyes met and she couldn't help grinning. Those boys looked as if they were having a fine time. A party of Americans dressed up like plush horses crossed the floor between her and the Frenchmen. It was Dick and the pale woman and J. Ward Moorehouse and a big middleaged woman in a
great many deep pink ruffles and emeralds. They sat down at the table next to Daughter's table where there had been
.a sign saying Reservée al evening. Everybody was intro-duced and she and Dick shook hands very formal y, as if they were the merest acquaintances. Miss Stoddard, whom she'd been so friendly with in Rome, gave