She went up to her office and tried to look as if she’d been there all day. At a little before six she walked up the street to the Crillon and went up to see J.W. Everything was as usual there, Miss Williams looking chilly and yellowhaired at her desk, Morton stealthily handing around tea and petit fours, J.W. deep in talk with a personage in a cutaway in the embrasure of the window, halfhidden by the heavy champagnecolored drapes, Eleanor in a pearlgrey afternoon dress Eveline had never seen before, chatting chirpily with three young staffofficers in front of the fireplace. Eveline had a cup of tea and talked about something or other with Eleanor for a moment, then she said she had an engagement and left.
In the anteroom she caught Miss Williams’ eye as she passed. She stopped by her desk a moment: “Busy as ever, Miss Williams,” she said.
“It’s better to be busy,” she said. “It keeps a person out of mischief… It seems to me that in Paris they waste a great deal of time… I never imagined that there could be a place where people could sit around idle so much of the time.”
“The French value their leisure more than anything.”
“Leisure’s all right if you have something to do with it… but this social life wastes so much of our time… People come to lunch and stay all afternoon, I don’t know what we can do about it… it makes a very difficult situation.” Miss Williams looked hard at Eveline. “I don’t suppose you have much to do down at the Red Cross any more, do you, Miss Hutchins?”
Eveline smiled sweetly. “No, we just live for our leisure like the French.”
She walked across the wide asphalt spaces of the place de la Concorde, without knowing quite what to do with herself, and turned up the Champs Elysées where the horsechestnuts were just coming into flower. The general strike seemed to be about over, because there were a few cabs on the streets. She sat down on a bench and a cadaverous looking individual in a frock coat sat down beside her and tried to pick her up. She got up and walked as fast as she could. At the Rond Point she had to stop to wait for a bunch of French mounted artillery and two seventyfives to go past before she could cross the street. The cadaverous man was beside her; he turned and held out his hand, tipping his hat as he did so, as if he was an old friend. She muttered, “Oh, it’s just too tiresome,” and got into a horsecab that was standing by the curb. She almost thought the man was going to get in too, but he just stood looking after her scowling as the cab drove off following the guns as if she was part of the regiment. Once at home she made herself some cocoa on the gasstove and went lonely to bed with a book.
Next evening when she got back to her apartment Paul was waiting for her, wearing a new uniform and with a resplendent shine on his knobtoed shoes. “Why, Paul, you look as if you’d been through a washing machine.” “A friend of mine’s a sergeant in the quartermaster’s stores… coughed up a new outfit.” “You look too beautiful for words.” “You mean you do, Eveline.”
They went over to the boulevards and had dinner on the salmon-colored plush seats among the Pompeian columns at Noël Peters’ to the accompaniment of slithery violinmusic. Paul had his month’s pay and commutation of rations in his pocket and felt fine. They talked about what they’d do when they got back to America. Paul said his dad wanted him to go into a grain broker’s office in Minneapolis, but he wanted to try his luck in New York. He thought a young feller ought to try a lot of things before he settled down at a business so that he could find out what he was fitted for. Eveline said she didn’t know what she wanted to do. She didn’t want to do anything she’d done before, she knew that, maybe she’d like to live in Paris.
“I didn’t like it much in Paris before,” Paul said, “but like this, goin’ out with you, I like it fine.” Eveline teased him, “Oh, I don’t think you like me much, you never act as if you did.” “But jeeze, Eveline, you know so much and you’ve been around so much. It’s mighty nice of you to let me come around at all, honestly I’ll appreciate it all my life.”
“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t be like that… I hate people to be humble,” Eveline broke out angrily.
They went on eating in silence. They were eating asparagus with grated cheese on it. Paul took several gulps of wine and looked at her in a hurt dumb way she hated. “Oh, I feel like a party tonight,” she said a little later. “I’ve been so miserable all day, Paul… I’ll tell you about it sometime… you know the kind of feeling when everything you’ve wanted crumbles in your fingers as you grasp it.” “All right, Eveline,” Paul said, banging with his fist on the table, “let’s cheer up and have a big time.”
When they were drinking coffee the orchestra began to play polkas and people began to dance among the table encouraged by cries of Ah Polkaah aaah from the violinist. It was a fine sight to see the middleaged diners whirling around under the beaming eyes of the stout Italian headwaiter who seemed to feel that la gaité was coming back to Paree at last. Paul and Eveline forgot themselves and tried to dance it too. Paul was very awkward, but having his arms around her made her feel better somehow, made her forget the scaring loneliness she felt.
When the polka had subsided a little Paul paid the fat check and they went out arm in arm, pressing close against each other like all the Paris lovers, to stroll on the boulevards in the May evening that smelt of wine and hot rolls and wild strawberries. They felt lightheaded. Eveline kept smiling. “Come on, let’s have a big time,” whispered Paul occasionally as if to keep his courage up. “I was just thinking what my friends ud think if they saw me walking up the boulevard arm in arm with a drunken doughboy,” Eveline said. “No, honest, I’m not drunk,” said Paul. “I can drink a lot more than you think. And I won’t be in the army much longer, not if this peace treaty goes through.” “Oh, I don’t care,” said Eveline, “I don’t care what happens.”
They heard music in another café and saw the shadows of dancers passing across the windows upstairs. “Let’s go up there,” said Eveline. They went in and upstairs to the dancehall that was a long room full of mirrors. There Eveline said she wanted to drink some Rhine wine. They studied the card a long while and finally with a funny sideways look at Paul, she suggested liebefraumilch. Paul got red, “I wish I had a liebe frau,” he said. “Why probably you have… one in every port,” said Eveline. He shook his head.
Next time they danced he held her very tight. He didn’t seem so awkward as he had before. “I feel pretty lonely myself, these days,” said Eveline when they sat down again. “You, lonely… with the whole of the Peace Conference running after you, and the A.E.F. too… Why, Don told me you’re a dangerous woman.” She shrugged her shoulders, “When did Don find that out? Maybe you could be dangerous too, Paul.”
Next time they danced she put her cheek against his. When the music stopped he looked as if he was going to kiss her, but he didn’t. “This is the most wonderful evening I ever had in my life,” he said, “I wish I was the kind of guy you really wanted to have take you out.” “Maybe you could get to be, Paul… you seem to be learning fast…. No, but we’re acting silly… I hate ogling and flirting around… I guess I want the moon… maybe I want to get married and have a baby.” Paul was embarrassed. They sat silent watching the other dancers. Eveline saw a young French soldier lean over and kiss the little girl he was dancing with on the lips; kissing, they kept on dancing. Eveline wished she was that girl. “Let’s have a little more wine,” she said to Paul. “Do you think we’d better? All right, what the hec, we’ve having a big time.”