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Two Americans
by
“I must go to Paris,” he said quietly. “I have
friends–countrymen–there, who may want me now.”
“If you mean the young singer of the Rue de Frivole, you have
compromised her already. You can do her no good.”
“Madame!”
The pretty face which he had been familiar with for the past six weeks somehow seemed to change its character. Under the mask of dazzling skin he fancied he saw the high cheek-bones and square Tartar angle; the brilliant eyes were even brighter than before, but they showed more of the white than he had ever seen in them.
Nevertheless she smiled, with an equally stony revelation of her white teeth, yet said, still gently, “Forgive me if I thought our friendship justified me in being frank,–perhaps too frank for my own good.”
She stopped as if half expecting an interruption; but as he remained looking wonderingly at her, she bit her lip, and went on: “You have a great career before you. Those who help you must do so without entangling you; a chain of roses may be as impeding as lead. Until you are independent, you–who may in time compass everything yourself–will need to be helped. You know,” she added with a smile, “you have but one arm.”
“In your kindness and appreciation you have made me forget it,” he stammered. Yet he had a swift vision of the little bench at Versailles where he had NOT forgotten it, and as he glanced around the empty terrace where they stood he was struck with a fateful resemblance to it.
“And I should not remind you now of it,” she went on, “except to say that money can always take its place. As in the fairy story, the prince must have a new arm made of gold.” She stopped, and then suddenly coming closer to him said, hurriedly and almost fiercely, “Can you not see that I am advising you against my interests,–against myself? Go, then, to Paris, and go quickly, before I change my mind. Only if you do not find your friends there, remember you have always ONE here.” Before he could reply, or even understand that white face, she was gone.
He left for Paris that afternoon. He went directly to the Rue de Frivole; his old resolution to avoid Helen was blown to the winds in the prospect of losing her utterly. But the concierge only knew that mademoiselle had left a day or two after monsieur had accompanied her home. And, pointedly, there was another gentleman who had inquired eagerly–and bountifully as far as money went–for any trace of the young lady. It was a Russe. The concierge smiled to himself at Ostrander’s flushed cheek. It served this one-armed, conceited American poseur right. Mademoiselle was wiser in this SECOND affair.
Ostrander did not finish his picture. The princess sent him a cheque, which he coldly returned. Nevertheless he had acquired through his Russian patronage a local fame which stood him well with the picture dealers,–in spite of the excitement of the war. But his heart was no longer in his work; a fever of unrest seized him, which at another time might have wasted itself in mere dissipation. Some of his fellow artists had already gone into the army. After the first great reverses he offered his one arm and his military experience to that Paris which had given him a home. The old fighting instinct returned to him with a certain desperation he had never known before. In the sorties from Paris the one-armed American became famous, until a few days before the capitulation, when he was struck down by a bullet through the lung, and left in a temporary hospital. Here in the whirl and terror of Commune days he was forgotten, and when Paris revived under the republic he had disappeared as completely as his compatriot Helen.
But Miss Helen Maynard had been only obscured and not extinguished. At the first outbreak of hostilities a few Americans had still kept giddy state among the ruins of the tottering empire. A day or two after she left the Rue de Frivole she was invited by one of her wealthy former schoolmates to assist with her voice and talent at one of their extravagant entertainments. “You will understand, dear,” said Miss de Laine, with ingenious delicacy, as she eyed her old comrade’s well-worn dress, “that Poppa expects to pay you professional prices, and it may be an opening for you among our other friends.”