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In the Quarter

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> In the Quarter




and I am sure that you will understand when I say that this time I
will leave you gentlemen in undisturbed possession of the evening,
for I know how dearly men love to meet and behave like bears all by
themselves. But I shall see you all afterward at the Opera. Au
revoir then -- at the Bal Masqué. Y.D.

The first sensation to the young men was one of disappointment. But
the second was that Mademoiselle Descartes' tact had not failed her.

The triumvirate were seated upon the sideboard swinging their legs.
Rowden cast a satisfied glance at the table laid for fifteen and
flicked an imaginary speck from his immaculate shirt front.

"I think it's all right," said Elliott, noticing his look, "eh,
Clifford?"

"Is there enough champagne?" asked that youth, calculating four
quart bottles to each person.

Rowden groaned.

"Of course there is. What are you made of?"

"Human flesh," acknowledged the other meekly.

At eleven the guests began to arrive, welcomed by the triumvirs with
great state and dignity. Rowden, looking about, missed only one --
Gethryn, and he entered at the same moment.

"Just in time," said Rowden, and made the move to the table. As
Gethryn sat down, he noticed that the place on Rowden's right was
vacant, and before it stood a huge bouquet of white violets.

"Too bad she isn't here," said Rowden, glancing at Gethryn and then
at the vacant place.

"That's awfully nice of you, Rowden," cried Gethryn, with a happy
smile; "she will have a chance to thank you tonight."

He leaned over and touched his face to the flowers. As he raised his
head again, his eyes met Braith's.

"Hello!" cried Braith, cordially.

Rex did not notice how pale he was, and called back, "Hello!" with a
feeling of relief at Braith's tone. It was always so. When they were
apart for days, there weighed a cloud of constraint on Rex's mind,
which Braith's first greeting always dispelled. But it gathered again
in the next interval. It rose from a sullen deposit of self-reproach
down deep in Gethryn's own heart. He kept it covered over; but he
could not prevent the ghost-like exhalations that gathered there and
showed where it was hidden.

Speeches began rather late. Elliott made one -- and offered a toast to
"la plus jolie demoiselle de Paris," which was drunk amid great
enthusiasm and responded to by Gethryn, ending with a toast to Rowden.
Rowden's response was stiff, but most correct. The same could not be
said of Clifford's answer to the toast, "The struggling Artist --
Heaven help him!"

Towards 1 am Mr Clifford's conversation had become incoherent. But he
continued to drink toasts. He drank Yvonne's health five times, he
pledged Rowden and Gethryn and everybody else he could think of, down
to Mrs Gummidge and each separate kitten, and finally pledged himself.
By that time he had reached the lachrymose state. Tears, it seemed,
did him good. A heart-rending sob was usually the sign of reviving
intelligence.

"Well," said Gethryn, buttoning his greatcoat, "I'll see you all in
an hour -- at the Opera."

Braith was not coming with them to the Ball, so Rex shook hands and
said "Good night," and calling "Au revoir" to Rowden and the rest,
ran down stairs three at a time. He hurried into the court and after
spending five minutes shouting "Cordon!" succeeded in getting out of
the door and into the Rue Michelet. From there he turned into the
Avenue de l'Observatoire, and cutting through into the Boulevard, came
to his hôtel.

Yvonne was standing before the mirror, tying the hood of a white silk
domino under her chin. Hearing Gethryn's key in the door, she
hurriedly slipped on her little white mask and confronted him.

"Why, who is this?" cried Gethryn. "Yvonne, come and tell me who
this charming stranger is!"

"You see before you the Princess Hélène, Monsieur, she said, gravely
bending the little masked head."

"Oh, in that case, you needn't come, Yvonne, as I have an engagement
with the Princess Hélène of Troy."

"But you mustn't kiss me!" she cried, hastily placing the table
between herself and Gethryn; "you have not yet been presented. Oh,
Rex! Don't be so -- so idiotic; you spoil my dress -- there -- yes,
only one, but don't you dare to try -- Oh Rex! Now I am all in
wrinkles -- you -- you bear!"

"Bears hug -- that's a fact," he laughed. "Come, are you ready --
or I'll just -- "

"Don't you dare!" she cried, whipping off her mask and attempting an
indignant frown. She saw the big bunch of white violets in his hand
and made a diversion by asking what those were. He told her, and she
declared, delightedly, that she should carry them with Rex's roses to
the Ball.

"They shall have the preference, Monsieur," she said, teasingly.
"Oh, Rex! don't -- please -- " she entreated.

"All right, I won't," he said, drawing her wrap around her; and
Yvonne, replacing the mask and gathering up her fluffy skirts, slipped
one small gloved hand through his arm and danced down the stairs.

On the corner of the Vaugirard and the Rue de Medicis one always finds
a line of cabs, and presently they were bumping and bouncing away down
the Rue de Seine to the river.

Je fais ce que sa fantaisie
Veut m'ordonner,
Et je puis, s'il lui faut ma vie
La lui donner

sang Yvonne, deftly thrusting tierce and quarte with her fan to make
Gethryn keep his distance.

"Do you know it is snowing?" he said presently, peering out of the
window as the cab rattled across the Pont Neuf.

"Tant mieux!" cried the girl; "I shall make a snowball -- a -- "
she opened her blue eyes impressively, "a very, very large one, and
-- "

"And?"

"Drop it on the head of Mr Rowden," she announced, with cheerful
decision.

"I'll warn poor Rowden of your intention," he laughed, as the cab
rolled smoothly up the Avenue de l'Opera, across the Boulevard des
Italiens, and stopped before the glittering pile of the great Opera.

She sprang lightly to the curbstone and stood tapping her little feet
against the pavement while Gethryn fumbled about for his fare.

The steps of the Opera and the Plaza were covered with figures in
dominoes, blue, red or black, many grotesque and bizarre costumes, and
not a few sober claw hammers. The great flare of yellow light which
bathed and flooded the shifting, many-colored throng, also lent a
strangely weird effect to the now heavily falling snowflakes.
Carriages and cabs kept arriving in countless numbers. It was half
past two, and nobody who wanted to be considered anybody thought of
arriving before that hour. The people poured in a steady stream
through the portals. Groups of English and American students in their
irreproachable evening attire, groups of French students in someone
else's doubtful evening attire, crowds of rustling silken dominoes,
herds of crackling muslin dominoes, countless sad-faced Pierrots,
fewer sad-faced Capuchins, now and then a slim Mephistopheles, now and
then a fat, stolid Turk, 'Arry, Tom, and Billy, redolent of plum
pudding and Seven Dials, Gontran, Gaston and Achille, savoring of
brasseries and the Sorbonne. And then, from the carriages and fiacres:
Mademoiselle Patchouli and good old Monsieur Bonvin, Mademoiselle
Nitouche and bad young Monsieur de Sacrebleu, Mademoiselle Moineau and
Don Cæsar Imberbe; and the pink silk domino of "La Pataude" -- mais
n'importe!

Allons, Messieurs, Mesdames, to the cloak room -- to the foyer! To the
escalier! or you, Madame la Comtesse, to your box, and smooth out your
crumpled domino; as for "La Pataude," she is going to dance tonight.

Gethryn, with Yvonne clinging tightly to his arm, entered the great
vestibule and passed through the railed lanes to the broad inclined
aisle which led to the floor.

"Do you want to take a peep before we go to our box?" he asked,
leading her to the doorway.

Yvonne's little heart beat faster as she leaned over and glanced at
the dazzling spectacle.

"Come, hurry -- let us go to the box!" she whispered, dragging
Gethryn after her up the stairway.

He followed, laughing at her excitement, and in a few minutes they
found the door of their lodge and slipped in.

Gethryn lighted a cigarette and began to unstrap his field glasses.

"Take these, Yvonne," he said, handing them to her while he adjusted
her own tiny gold ones.

Yvonne's cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled under the little mask,
as she leaned over the velvet railing and gazed at the bewildering
spectacle below. Great puffs of hot, perfumed air bore the crash of
two orchestras to their ears, mixed with the distant clatter and whirl
of the dancers, and the shouts and cries of the maskers.

At the end of the floor, screened by banks of palms, sat the
musicians, and round about, rising tier upon tier, the glittering
boxes were filled with the elite of the demimonde, who ogled and
gossiped and sighed, entirely content with the material and social
barriers which separate those who dance for ten francs from those who
look on for a hundred.

But there were others there who should not by any means be confounded
with their sisters of the "half-world."

The Faubourg St Germain, the Champs Elysées, and the Parc Monceau were
possibly represented among those muffled and disguised beauties, who
began the evening with their fans so handy in case of need. Ah, well
-- now they lay their fans down quite out of reach in case of
emergency, and who shall say if disappointment lurks under these
dainty dominoes, that there is so little to bring a blush to modest
cheeks -- alas! few emergencies.

And you over there -- you of the "American Colony," who are tossed
like shuttlecocks in the social whirl, you, in your well-appointed
masks and silks, it is all very new and exciting -- yes, but why
should you come? American women, brought up to think clean thoughts
and see with innocent eyes, to exact a respectful homage from men and
enjoy a personal dignity and independence unknown to women anywhere
else -- why do you want to come here? Do you not know that the
foundations of that liberty which makes you envied in the old world
are laid in the respect and confidence of men? Undermine that, become
wise and cynical, learn the meaning of doubtful words and gestures
whose significance you never need have suspected, meet men on the same
ground where they may any day meet fast women of the continent, and
fix at that moment on your free limbs the same chains which corrupt
society has forged for the women of Europe.

Yvonne leaned back in her box with a little gasp.

"But I can't make out anyone at all," she said; "it's all a great,
sparkling sea of color."

"Try the field glasses," replied Gethryn, giving them to her again,
at the same time opening her big plumy fan and waving it to and fro
beside the flushed cheek.

Presently she cried out, "Oh, look! There is Mr Elliott and Mr
Rowden, and I think Mr Clifford -- but I hope not."

He leaned forward and swept the floor with the field glass.

"It's Clifford, sure enough," he muttered; "what on earth induces
him to dance in that set?"

It was Clifford.

At that moment he was addressing Elliott in pleading, though hazy,
phrases.

"Come 'long, Elliott, don't be so -- so uncomf't'ble 'n' p'tic'lar!
W't's use of be'ng shnobbish?" he urged, clinging hilariously to his
partner, a pigeon-toed ballet girl. But Elliott only laughed and said:

"No; waltzes are all I care for. No quadrille for me -- "

The crash of the orchestra drowned his voice, and Clifford, turning
and bowing gravely to his partner, and then to his vis-à-vis, began to
perform such antics and cut such pigeonwings that his pigeon-toed
partner glared at him through the slits of her mask in envious
astonishment. The door was dotted with numerous circles of maskers,
ten or fifteen deep, all watching and applauding the capers of the
hilarious couples in the middle.

But Clifford's set soon attracted a large and enthusiastic audience,
who were connoisseurs enough to distinguish a voluntary dancer from a
hired one; and when the last thundering chords of Offenbach's "March
into Hell" scattered the throng into a delirious waltz, Clifford
reeled heavily into the side scenes and sat down, rather unexpectedly,
in the lap of Mademoiselle Nitouche, who had crept in there with the
Baron Silberstein for a nice, quiet view of a genuine cancan.

Mademoiselle did not think it funny, but the Baron did, and when she
boxed Clifford's ears he thought it funnier still.

Rowden and Elliot, who were laboriously waltzing with a twin pair of
flat-footed Watteau Shepherdesses, immediately ran to his assistance;
and later, with a plentiful application of cold water and still colder
air, restored Mr Clifford to his usual spirits.

"You're not a beauty, you know," said Rowden, looking at Clifford's
hair, which was soaked into little points and curls; "you're
certainly no beauty, but I think you're all right now -- don't you,
Elliott? "

"Certainly," laughed the triumvir, producing a little silver
pocket-comb and presenting it to the woebegone Clifford, who
immediately brought out a hand glass and proceeded to construct a
"bang" of wonderful seductiveness.

In ten minutes they sallied forth from the dressing room and wended
their way through the throngs of masks to the center of the floor.
They passed Thaxton and Rhodes, who, each with a pretty nun upon his
arm, were trying to persuade Bulfinch into taking the third nun, who
might have been the Mother Superior or possibly a resuscitated 14th
century abbess.

"No," he was saying, while he blinked painfully at the ci-devant
abbess, "I can't go that; upon my word, don't ask me, fellows -- I --
I can't."

"Oh, come," urged Rhodes, "what's the odds?"

"You can take her and I'll take yours," began the wily little man,
but neither Rhodes nor Thaxton waited to argue longer.

"No catacombs for me," growled Bulfinch, eyeing the retreating nuns,
but catching sight of the triumvirate, his face regained its bird-like
felicity of expression.

"Glad to see you -- indeed I am! That Colossus is too disinterested
in securing partners for his friends; he is, I assure you. If you're
looking for a Louis Quatorze partner, warranted genuine, go to
Rhodes."

"Rex ought to be here by this time," said Rowden; "look in the
boxes on that side and Clifford and I will do the same on this."

"No need," cried Elliott, "I see him with a white domino there in
the second tier. Look! he's waving his hand to us and so is the
domino."

"Come along," said Clifford, pushing his way toward the foyer,
"I'll find them in a moment. Let me see," -- a few minutes later,
pausing outside a row of white and gilt doors -- "let me see, seventh
box, second tier -- here we are," he added, rapping loudly.

Yvonne ran and opened the door.

"Bon soir, Messieurs," she said, with a demure curtsy.

Clifford gallantly kissed the little glove and then shook hands with
Gethryn.

"How is it on the floor?" asked the latter, as Elliott and Rowden
came forward to the edge of the box. "I want to take Yvonne out for a
turn and perhaps a waltz, if it isn't too crowded."

"Oh, it's pretty rough just now, but it will be better in half an
hour," replied Rowden, barricading the champagne from Clifford.

"We saw you dancing, Mr Clifford," observed Yvonne, with a wicked
glance at him from under her mask.

Clifford blushed.

"I -- I don't make an ass of myself but once a year, you know," he
said, with a deprecatory look at Elliott.

"Oh," murmured the latter, doubtfully, "glad to hear it."

Clifford gazed at him in meek reproof and then made a flank movement
upon the champagne, but was again neatly foiled by Rowden.

Yvonne looked serious, but presently leaned over and filled one of the
long-stemmed goblets.

"Only one, Mr Clifford; one for you to drink my health, but you must
promise me truthfully not to take any more wine this evening!"

Clifford promised with great promptness, and taking the glass from her
hand with a low bow, sprang recklessly upon the edge of the box and
raised the goblet.

"A la plus belle demoiselle de Paris!" he cried, with all the
strength of his lungs, and drained the goblet.

A shout from the crowd below answered his toast. A thousand faces were
turned upward, and people leaned over their boxes, and looked at the
party from all parts of the house.

Mademoiselle Nitouche turned to Monsieur de Sacrebleu.

"What audacity!" she murmured.

Mademoiselle Goujon smiled at the Baron Silberstein.

"Tiens!" she cried, "the gayety has begun, I hope."

Little Miss Ducely whispered to Lieutenant Faucon:

"Those are American students," she sighed; "how jolly they seem to
be, especially Mr Clifford! I wonder if she is so pretty!"

Half a dozen riotous Frenchmen in the box opposite jumped to their
feet and waved their goblets at Clifford.

"A la plus jolie femme du monde!" they roared.

Clifford seized another glass and filled it.

"She is here!" he shouted, and sprang to the edge again. But Gethryn
pulled him down.

"That's too dangerous," he laughed; "you could easily fall."

"Oh, pshaw!" cried Clifford, draining the glass, and shaking it at
the opposite box.

Yvonne put her hand on Gethryn's arm.

"Don't let him have any more," she whispered.

"Give us the goblet!" yelled the Frenchmen.

"Le voila!" shouted Clifford, and stepping back, hurled the glass
with all his strength across the glittering gulf. It fell with a crash
in the box it was aimed at, and a howl of applause went up from the
floor.

Yvonne laughed nervously, but coming to the edge of the box buried her
mask in her bouquet and looked down.

"A rose! A rose!" cried the maskers below; "a rose from the most
charming demoiselle in Paris!"

She half turned to Gethryn, but suddenly stepping forward, seized a
handful of flowers from the middle of the bouquet and flung them into
the crowd.

There was a shout and a scramble, and then she tore the bouquet end
from end, sending a shower of white buds into the throng.

"None for me?" sighed Clifford, watching the fast-dwindling bouquet.

She laughed brightly as she tossed the last handful below, and then
turned and leaned over Gethryn's chair.

"You destructive little wretch!" he laughed, "this is not the
season for the Battle of Flowers. But white roses mean nothing, so I'm
not jealous."

"Ah, mon ami, I saved the red rose for you," she whispered; and
fastened it upon his breast.

And at his whispered answer her cheeks flushed crimson under the white
mask. But she sprang up laughing.

"I would so like to go onto the floor," she cried, pulling him to
his feet, and coaxing him with a simply irresistible look; "don't you
think we might -- just for a minute, Mr Rowden?" she pleaded. "I
don't mind a crowd -- indeed I don't, and I am masked so perfectly."

"What's the harm, Rex?" said Rowden; "she is well masked."

"And when we return it will be time for supper, won't it?"

"Yes, I should think so!" murmured Clifford.

"Where do we go then?"

"Maison Dorée."

"Come along, then, Mademoiselle Destructiveness!" cried Gethryn,
tossing his mask and field glass onto a chair, where they were
appropriated by Clifford, who spent the next half hour in staring
across at good old Colonel Toddlum and his frisky companion -- an
attention which drove the poor old gentleman almost frantic with
suspicion, for he was a married man, bless his soul! -- and a
pew-holder in the American Church.

"My love," said the frisky one, "who is the gentleman in the black
mask who stares?"

"I don't know," muttered the dear old man, in a cold sweat, "I
don't know, but I wish I did."

And the frisky one shrugged her shoulders and smiled at the mask.

"What are they looking at?" whispered Yvonne, as she tripped along,
holding very tightly to Gethryn's arm.

"Only a quadrille -- `La Pataude' is dancing. Do you want to see
it?"

She nodded, and they approached the circle in the middle of which `La
Pataude' and `Grille d'Egout' were holding high carnival. At every
ostentatious display of hosiery the crowd roared.

"Brava! Bis!" cried an absinthe-soaked old gentleman; "vive La
Pataude!"

For answer the lady dexterously raised his hat from his head with the
point of her satin slipper.

The crowd roared again. "Brava! Brava, La Pataude!"

Yvonne turned away.

"I don't like it. I don't find it amusing," she said, faintly.

Gethryn's hand closed on hers.

"Nor I," he said.

"But you and your friends used to go to the students' ball at
`Bullier's,"' she began, a little reproachfully.

"Only as Nouveaux, and then, as a rule, the high-jinks are pretty
genuine there -- at least, with the students. We used to go to keep
cool in spring and hear the music; to keep warm in winter; and amuse
ourselves at Carnival time."

"But -- Mr Clifford knows all the girls at `Bullier's.' Do -- do
you?"

"Some."

"How many?" she said, pettishly.

"None -- now."

A pause. Yvonne was looking down.

"See here, little goose, I never cared about any of that crowd, and I
haven't been to the Bullier since -- since last May."

She turned her face up to his; tears were stealing down from under her
mask.

"Why, Yvonne!" he began, but she clung to his shoulder, as the
orchestra broke into a waltz.

"Don't speak to me, Rex -- but dance! Dance!"

They danced until the last bar of music ceased with a thundering
crash.

"Tired?" he asked, still holding her.

She smiled breathlessly and stepped back, but stopped short, with a
little cry.

"Oh! I'm caught -- there, on your coat!"

He leaned over her to detach the shred of silk.

"Where is it? Oh! Here!"

And they both laughed and looked at each other, for she had been held
by the little golden clasp, the fleur-de-lis.

"You see," he said, "it will always draw me to you."

But a shadow fell on her fair face, and she sighed as she gently took
his arm.

When they entered their box, Clifford was still tormenting the poor
Colonel.

"Old dog thinks I know him," he grinned, as Yvonne and Rex came in.
Yvonne flung off her mask and began to fan herself.

"Time for supper, you know," suggested Clifford.

Yvonne lay back in her chair, smiling and slowly waving the great
plumes to and fro.

"Who are those people in the next box?" she asked him. "They do
make such a noise."

"There are only two, both masked."

"But they have unmasked now. There are their velvets on the edge of
the box. I'm going to take a peep," she whispered, rising and leaning
across the railing.

"Don't; I wouldn't -- " began Gethryn, but he was too late.

Yvonne leaned across the gilded cornice and instantly fell back in her
chair, deathly pale.

"My God! Are you ill, Yvonne?"

"Oh, Rex, Rex, take me away -- home -- "

Then came a loud hammering on the box door. A harsh, strident voice
called, "Yvonne! Yvonne!"

Clifford thoughtlessly threw it open, and a woman in evening dress,
very decolletée, swept by him into the box, with a waft of sickly
scented air.

Yvonne leaned heavily on Gethryn's shoulder; the woman stopped in
front of them.

"Ah! here you are, then!"

Yvonne's face was ghastly.

"Nina," she whispered, "why did you come?"

"Because I wanted to make you a little surprise," sneered the woman;
"a pleasant little surprise. We love each other enough, I hope." She
stamped her foot.

"Go," said Yvonne, looking half dead.

"Go!" mimicked the other. "But certainly! Only first you must
introduce me to these gentlemen who are so kind to you."

"You will leave the box," said Gethryn, in a low voice, holding open
the door.

The woman turned on him. She was evidently in a prostitute's tantrum
of malicious deviltry. Presently she would begin to lash herself into
a wild rage.

"Ah! this is the one!" she sneered, and raising her voice, she
called, "Mannie, Mannie, come in here, quick!"

A sidling step approached from the next box, and the face of Mr
Emanuel Pick appeared at the door.

"This is the one," cried the woman, shrilly. "Isn't he pretty?"

Mr Pick looked insolently at Gethryn and opened his mouth, but he did
not say anything, for Rex took him by the throat and kicked him
headlong into his own box. Then he locked the door, and taking out the
key, returned and presented it to the woman.

"Follow him!" he said, and quietly, but forcibly, urged her toward
the lobby.

"Mannie! Mannie!" she shrieked, in a voice choked by rage and
dissipation, "come and kill him! He's insulting me!"

Getting no response, she began to pour forth shriek upon shriek,
mingled with oaths and ravings. "I shall speak to my sister! Who
dares prevent me from speaking to my sister! You -- " she glared at
Yvonne and ground her teeth. "You, the good one. You! the mother's
pet! Ran away from home! Took up with an English hog!"

Yvonne sprang to her feet again.

"Leave the box," she gasped.

"Ha! ha! Mais oui! leave the box! and let her dance while her mother
lies dying!"

Yvonne gave a cry.

"Ah! Ah!" said her sister, suddenly speaking very slowly, nodding at
every word. "Ah! Ah! go back to your room and see what is there -- in
the room of your lover -- the little letter from Vernon. She wants
you. She wants you. That is because you are so good. She does not want
me. No, it is you who must come to see her die. I -- I dance at the
Carnival!"

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