U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [96]
She had on a new dress she'd bought at Paquin's with some money her father had sent her for her birthday, and it was a relief after the uniform. They were through eating before they had real y gotten started talking. Eveline wanted to try to get him to talk about himself.
-226-After dinner they went to Maxim's, but that was ful up with brawling drunken aviators, and the rumpus seemed to scare J.W. so that Eveline suggested to him that they go down to her place and have a glass of wine. When they got to the quai de la Tournel e, just as they were stepping out of J.W.'s staffcar she caught sight of Don Stevens walking down the street. For a second she hoped he
wouldn't see them, but he turned around and ran back. He had a young fel ow with him in a private's uniform whose name was Johnson. They al went up and sat
around glumly in her parlor. She and J.W. couldn't seem to talk about anything but Eleanor, and the other two sat glumly in their chairs looking embarrassed until J.W. got to his feet, went down to his staffcar, and left.
"God damn it, if there's anything I hate it's a Cross Red Major," broke out Don as soon as the door closed behind J.W.
Eveline was angry. "Wel , it's no worse than being a fake Quaker," she said icily.
"You must forgive our intruding, Miss Hutchins," mumbled the doughboy who had a blonde Swedish look.
"We wanted to get you to come out to a café or some-thing, but it's too late now," started Don crossly. The doughboy interrupted him, "I hope, Miss Hutchins, you don't mind our intruding, I mean my intruding . . . I begged Don to bring me along. He's talked so much about you and it's a year since I've seen a real nice Amer-ican girl." He had a deferential way of talking and a whiny Min-nesota accent that Eveline hated at first, but by the time he excused himself and left she liked him and stood up for him when Don said, "He's an awful sweet guy but there's something sappy about him. I was afraid you wouldn't like him." She wouldn't let Don spend the night with her as he'd expected and he went away looking very sul en.
-227-In October Eleanor came back with a lot of antique Italian painted panels she'd picked up for a song. In the Red Cross office there were more people than were needed for the work and she and Eleanor and J.W. took a tour of the Red Cross canteens in the east of France in a staffcar. It was a wonderful trip, the weather was good for a won-der, almost like American October, they had lunch and dinner at regimental headquarters and army corps head-quarters and divisional headquarters everywhere, and al the young officers were so nice to them, and J.W. was in such a good humor and kept them laughing al the time, and they saw field batteries firing and an airplane duel and sausage bal oons and heard the shriek of an arrivé. It was during that trip that Eveline began to notice for the first time something cool in Eleanor's manner that hurt her; they'd been such' good friends the first week Eleanor had gotten back from Rome.
Back in Paris it suddenly got very exciting, so many people they knew turned up, Eveline's brother George who was an interpreter at the headquarters of the S.O.S. and a Mr. Robbins, a friend of J.W.'s who was always drunk and had a very funny way of talking and Jerry Burnham and a lot of newspaper men and Major Apple-ton who was now a Colonel. They had little dinners and parties and the main difficulty was sorting out ranks and getting hold of people who mixed