TLJC /~\T TToirvrri THE OUTSIDER MAURICE SAMUEL c ' 7 THE OUTSIDER THE OUTSIDER BY MAURICE SAMUEL Copyright 1921, by DUFFIELD & COMPANY All Rights Reserved Printed in U. S. A. To GERTRUDE 2138134 THE OUTSIDER THE OUTSIDER CHAPTER I THE Lapin Cuit is a minor cafe near the crossing of two illustrious streets in Paris. It misses celebrity by a few yards, but where it stands the twilight crowds pouring backwards -and forwards by the Madeleine and the Place de la Concorde never wash its doors. Only the curious and the intimate are to be found in the Lapin Cuit. The former never return and the latter never go elsewhere: which gives rise to the vexing problem "where did we get our clientele and when?" Nobody knows. From three windows of the cafe the rue Royale is visible when the curtain is lifted, but there is no point in craning your neck in the dreariness of the Lapin Cuit to watch the rue Royale. You can sit at Weber's for that and see the last warmth dying beyond the Chambre des Deputes, and fall into a dreamy content with the flying lights and the eager voices and the silk stockings and the twinkling of glasses and the careless turmoil, turning, turning, turn- ing, a flood that sparkles and splashes and puts you to sleep : you can sit outside for that, one leg crossed over the other, forgetful of your drink. But in the Lapin Cuit you take Paris for granted. There is even a snobbish superiority in preferring this dingy back room to the unsophisticated ostentation of Weber's, a subtle distinction in your civilised indifference to Babylon By Night. But few healthy people really en- joy subtle distinction for any length of time and even the habitues of the Lapin Cuit forget that there is any point 3 4 THE OUTSIDER in preferring the Lapin Cult to other cafes. So this ex- plains but in part why anybody ever came to the Lapin Cuit and, having come, stayed there or returned. But all this is mere verbiage. There are mysterious laws which govern the rise and fall of cafes in Paris. Out of the multitude of uninviting bars scattered thickly through the city, one, no better than its unwashed fellows, suddenly emerges, takes on meaning and reputation for a dozen people, flourishes obscurely, and vanishes, never to be heard of again. And the glory passes on and attacka another cafe, fifty streets off, without rhyme or reason. Sometimes the splendor fastens on and remains, and gen- erations later they indicate diverse tables and chairs af- fected by the legendary heroes of that time. But this is rare, for there, are not enough great men to go round. The average cafe rises, anxiously to accommodate a few souls and with their departure pales its ineffectual fires for ever. In the autumn of the year nineteen hundred and nine- teen, that is, towards, the close of the brief and hectic American occupation of Paris, the Lapin Cuit was known to Mortimer Long. It was a discovery, for the Lapin Cuit had remained almost unaffected during the enthusiastic Americanisation of the city: not quite unaffected, how- ever, for occasional revellers in khaki and blue stumbled after twilight into its shabby calm, were oppressed, and withdrew. The sinister blue arm-band of the M.P. was sometimes seen there. But Marius, the proprietor and waiter, did not care for random customers at night. He did not practice mixed drinks; he refused to speak bad English for anyone's amusement. He looked with dis- courteous coldness on the evening adventurer, for the day only he gave to mere money-making. In the evening he turned his cafe into a club, and in its atmosphere he rested from his labors. He liked to hear a discussion in progress, THE OUTSIDER 5 even though he did not understand a word of it, and cer- tainly the habitues did not, in the French phrase, go in sparing of the word. They talked without provocation and inexhaustibly. They did not like each other, they were not even o*ver-interested in each other, and they did not know why they came to the Lapin Cuit of evenings. But this last is one of the mysterious laws. Being of the Lapin Cuit Mortimer Long thought it proper and dignified to spend there the first evening after his demobilisation. He came in after a lonely supper at "The Hole," still full of the exultation of new liberty, but calm in his exultation. It was early. He found 110- one he knew, so he sat alone at the corner left of the door and smiled to himself and waited, and occasionally drew from his pocket the Discharge Certificate and smiled over it 'as if it were a comic drawing; then thrust it back and still smiled ; then looked at the sleeves of his civilian suit and smiled more broadly. "Harms, I am demobilised. Give me a Cointreau." "Oui, Monsieur. I congratulate you." "You can take a Cointreau for yourself, Marius." "I thank you, Monsieur." Marius raised the glass to his lips, manipulated it under his great, shaggy moustache, and said "To yours." He was glad to see Long there in civilian clothes. He did not like uniforms about the place, and yet he had to acknowl- edge that Long was of the club. "You become one of us?" "Yes, Marius; at last." "You will stay in France?" "As long as I am young, Marius." He was boisterous in his certainty of it. "Ah, you still have a long time to be young." "Let us hope it, Marius." 6 THE OUTSIDER Marius seemed to consider this for a moment, may have thought of something worth while but unsuitable, sighed, and moved off with his tray. As he went out three men came in. The first raised his hand to Long. "Ho, Mortimer. Good for you. A man at last." Long raised his hand in response and nodded. ' ' Yes, sir. Do I look more civilised ? Have a Cointreau with me, you fellows." They sat down at the table with him, the first a young man with small, dark, oriental features; by him a big, blond Englishman; and on the seat next to Long a rosy- faced old man, white-haired, with twinkling eyes. "You've never been demobilised in Paris before?" said the last. "Not to speak of, Cray. But the process is pleasant. I feel like a young king. Say, where 's the kid, Ezra?" This question he addressed to the first. "Overtime, I think. She didn't turn up for supper. I'd have come to the Hole if I'd have known. Was the operation easy?" he returned to Long's new status. "Worked like a dream. Took ten minutes to make me a new man. Here's my birth certificate." He passed the Discharge Certificate round. "Feels good, doesn't it?" said Ezra, smiling. "Feels like a million dollars. Feels like nothing I've felt before. I 've been a civilian before, but never a civilian in Paris." There followed a silence, and then Long took up his theme again. "I'd rather be a beggar in Paris than a prince back home. The mere person in Paris is the aristocrat of the world. I 'd rather sit in this hole of a cafe and do nothing than edit the Atlantic Monthly in Boston." The old man with the twinkling eyes tapped his glass THE OUTSIDER 7 in approval. "Well said. Personally I'd rather be sober in Paris than drunk in Paradise." "That's a figure of speech, Cray," said the young man Ezra. "You've never been the first, and you'll never get a chance at the second." Only Long did not laugh. "I'm serious," he said. "This place speaks to me plainly and says 'stay right here.' I think it's the spirit of the irresponsible. There's not a soul in Paris for whose good opinion I'd spend ten cents, and there's not a soul here would spend the same sum to save me from damnation. That's why I love the place." He stopped suddenly and looked at the door. Two young women had just come in, a little French girl in a green cloak and a big blond woman with a handsome, vulgar face. They made for the table, and then followed noisy congratulations to Mortimer in English and French. "Aha, Mr. Long. The ladies won't be as kind to you as they used to be," said the blond woman. "You're a civilian now, no uniform. Only your good looks." "He doesn't want anyone to be kind to him," said old Cray. "No," said Mortimer, holding forth again when the women were seated. "I don't like the sound of the word kindness. Kindness belongs to my home town the word, I mean. It goes with gratitude and cant and responsibility. In this town people give and take with no notions of kind- ness; there's freedom here, if you like, and carelessness, and joy and merriment but to hell with kindness. ' ' Ezra sat with hands clasped on the table. Cray and he were amused at Mortimer's enthusiasm. "I'm with you for Paris," said Ezra, "and I've been in many places. I've been in many places and belong nowhere. I was a child in a dirty village in Poland, and a boy in London, and a raincoat maker in New Zealand, 8 THE OUTSIDER and a hobo in the Middle West; I belong nowhere and I'm at home in Paris." "Paris is irresponsible," said Mortimer. "And life is irresponsible. Life thrust me into the world at large. Back home they pretend that life spat me out to fit in exactly over there, with the neighbors and the Sunday School and the week-end dances, and 'How d'ye do, Mrs. Settles, I do hope your cold's better,' 'And how are you, Mrs. Bean, and when are you paying us a visit,' and Mr. Weston, the editor of the Times, and my uncle, who's a Deacon, and the rest of 'em. They want me to be a dutiful son and an ornament to the family and a lesson to the young man. And I don't wanna. Life didn't mean me to be like that." "What did life mean you to be, anyway, Mr. Long?" said the blond woman. "Life didn't mean me to be anything, Mrs. Cray," an- swered Mortimer emphatically. "Life hasn't got an aim; only families and neighbors have aims. Life meant me to be nothing at all; and the only place where nobody '11 in- terfere with my being nothing at all is here in Paris in the Lapin Cuit." He said this warmly and as with a sense of injustices long borne. "The right not to be," said Cray. "Yes. Ever since I've been on earth people have wanted me to be something. Mother wanted me to be a minister; father wanted me to be an engineer; at College the professor wanted me to be a socially conscious indi- vidual; the girl next door wanted me to be her husband. They've tried to have me a God-fearing man, a successful business-man, a good citizen and I don't want to be any- thing." THE OUTSIDER 9 "You don't feel any propensity, so to speak," inter- rupted Cray. "That's it. Never had an honest propensity of my own," said Mortimer. "At least, none that I could distinguish. But they won't understand that over there. You've got to have one; it's what they call the sense of responsibility to the Almighty, said my uncle to Society, said my Professor to the family, said my father and mother to me, intimated the lady next door though I'd never proposed to her and hadn't kissed her more than the other fellows had. Well, I 've got no sense of responsibility ; and I don't want to develop one. Which is the reason why I'm here, in Paris." "Don't insist so much, though," said Ezra, "or it'll begin to sound like a duty." "Pooh, I'm not afraid of a paradox," answered Morti- mer contemptously. "The chief thing is to be let alone, and I can't be let alone elsewhere. Nobody interferes with my conscience here. Nobody owes me anything; I don't owe anything to anybody. God doesn't worry about anybody in Paris; Society doesn't worry about me here. I can rot, write poetry, starve, get drunk, go to Church, fall in love or drop dead with the minimum of outside interference. Vive Paris!" "I think we can order new drinks now," said Cray. "Marius!" "Mado," said Ezra in French to his companion, "have you understood what Mortimer means to say?" His tone indicated doubt and some degree of derision. "Bien sur, I have understood. You take me for an imbecile?" she answered indignantly. "You lie, Mado. You did not understand a single word." They stared steadily at each other, Ezra grinning, Mado frowning in mock indignation. 10 THE OUTSIDER "He speaks English too fast for me," she confessed. "But he said he kissed the girl next door and would have to marry her. Ah, that's the way they are, les Ameri- caines. So he wants to remain in Paris." "I wonder," said Ezra, with slow malice, "whether this rapid and vulgar appraisal of the entire situation does not come a good deal nearer the point than your high falutin', Mortimer." "Very likely it gets as near," answered Mortimer, in- differently. "Excuse my sudden outbreak. It's the result of the demobilisation. Ah, there's Renee." The cafe was filling slowly. Renee was a very small girl, dark, with brilliant eyes, a delicate aquiline nose, and wonderful teeth. She came in with a yellow-faced, hungry-looking young woman, carrying a child in her arms. A group of young men and women, poorly dressed the men mostly without collars and the women in cheap cloaks sat at the corner opposite Mortimer. As a rule they drank coffee, undiluted, which is the cheapest drink and lasts longer than any other. "Bonsoir, Renee." This was the first word uttered by the blond Englishman at table. He turned round to give the salutation and looked long at the girl. "Bonsoir, old man." "Come and sit here and take a drink with me." 4 ' Too bad. My friend Edmond has already asked me to take le cafe, and I have accepted. You should see me sooner." Edmond was a quiet French youth who seldom smiled because he lacked two front teeth. He looked antagonisti- cally at the Englishman, who was ignoring him. It was known in the cafe* that Masters, the Englishman, had been casting eyes at Renee for some weeks and she was co- quetting with him. At this moment she was smiling at THE OUTSIDER 11 him with infinite coquetry in her eyes. True, she still had an attachment, but the young man was showing no fight; which inclined most of the girls to the belief that Edmond would disappear shortly from the Lapin Cuit. While this flirtation was going on the yellow-faced young woman was passing the baby round not in a spirit of pride, but as a concession to the general practice of moth- ers. The women inspected the bundle, put their fingers in the baby's mouth with a show of interest, and passed it on. Threa Frenchman sat at a corner table Frenchmen were in a minority in the Lapin Cuit and played cards. Two Americans Gorman, who was thought to be shady, and his friend Teddy, talked nose to nose near them and scribbled with a pencil on the edge of a newspaper. Two girls sat by them, content to be ignored by their com- panions, and talked over their own affairs. Mortimer let the conversation pass to old Cray, who began an incident concerning his early youth in Cali- fornia. Old Cray told stories well, making capital of an engaging stammer which imparted a graceful hesitancy to his speech. But Mortimer did not listen. He looked with a vague friendliness from one person to the other Cray, Mrs. Cray, Ezra, Mado, Masters, Gorman, Teddy, Rene"e, the yellow-faced girl with the dirty baby, the Frenchmen in the corner, Edmond, the girls whispering by Gorman and Teddy. He was thinking how little any one person in the room knew concerning the others. He knew nobody here, except Ezra Rich ; he had no idea how these men lived, what friends they had, what relatives, what hopes and ambitions, what views. Who was old Cray, there, speaking in that polished way of his? He told tales of his youth in California ; he told how he used to write for big American magazines quite credibly, for he was obviously a man of parts. He told stories of Jo- 12 THE OUTSIDER hannisburg, of Japan, of London, of palmy days of dollars and pounds. But he never told why he was in Paris at the age of sixty, without money, or hopes, or a reputation ; nor did he tell how he lived, though he never borrowed or tried to borrow money, nor ever held a job, nor ever received money from outside sources. lie never made a secret of himself, yet never told anybody anything to the point. He was drunk nine evenings out of ten with occasional in- tervals of despairing sobriety hungry two days out of three, and always consoled by the memory of happy days. He and Mrs. Cray lived in an obscure hotel in the welter of streets between the Grands Boulevards and the rue La- fayette, somewhere near the Folies Bergeres. Since they had been living there for years Mortimer presumed that they paid their rent. He was anxious for some insight into Cray's budget, for one hears of such people so often. But this interest, he confessed to himself, was not an aca- demic one. Back home, he reflected, old Cray would be a character The Evils of Drink, or The Rolling Stone. Back home you had to take up an attitude towards this man you might be severe, or charitable, or regretful, but he ob- viously called back home for some appropriate point of view. In Paris nobody had a point of view about old Cray, or his young blond wife, although Mortimer him- self thought that she belonged to the worse type of tra- ditional chorus-girl ; but that was an individual impression. And for that matter, though he had known Ezra for nearly a year who was he? A Jew born in Poland and educated everywhere else; who spoke King's English and brilliant French ; called by Mado "My little American from Montmartre" because he claimed to be an American by naturalisation and spoke French like a true Montmartrois ; he had brothers and sisters and uncles and cousins in every THE OUTSIDER 13 country of the world ; spoke at times with passionate love of his race, at times with contempt for all such instincts; longed sometimes to be part of a people, to be in a country truly his own, like Palestine, "the land of the prophets, my fathers," and sometimes repudiated with fiery indignation these base tribal passions ; and stayed in Paris with Mado. He and Mortimer liked each other, but in their friendship there was a fear of knowing each other too well, an in- stinctive retreat from too earnest a relationship. Mortimer reflected with pleasure on this distance that men kept from each other. He did not know Rich, did not want to know him. Intimacy bred interference, belief in destinies and purposes. It was pleasant to think of Rich as a detached unit of life, something more fortunate than himself, who still had ties and received letters from a family, and had obligations; something he could envy and emulate, a God-forsaken, man-forsaken clot of valiant dust, independent of all aids for the stupid society, re- ligion, friends, family Cray had come to the end of his story and was drinking. Mrs. Cray had gone. Gorman and Teddy had emerged from their calculations and were playing more attention to their companions. Renee was flirting furtively with Masters and Edmond was watching morosely. Mado was asserting her rights and making love to Rich, who watched her half amused, half indifferent. "Behave, Mado; we were talking philosophy." "La barbe, mon petit. I have been behaving all day in the atelier. Must I behave in the evening too? You will not come to the Cinema, you will not come for a walk with me. You sit here and gabble, gabble." "What do you want me to do?" "Pay more attention to me." "And if not?" 14 THE OUTSIDER "I will pay none to you. I shall get angry." The last threat was nonsense; since Mado loved Ezra helplessly, she had no recourse in the face of his occasional indifference. Still, from a spirit of kindliness, he pre- tended that if she were to be offended he would be upset. Mortimer understood this by-play and liked Rich's care- less gentleness. Others might have said, "By all means get angry" this being the substance of Rich's attitude: but Rich never did this unless to tease. "No, mon petit Mado. You must not get angry with me. It is man's habit to gabble, gable in this way. You're a woman and are wiser, n'est-ce pas?" Mado looked from Rich to Mortimer, never quite sure of herself. "Ez., are you making mock of me?" She pulled his ear prettily. "No, little one! If I do that, forsake me for my hand- some friend there." Mado inspected Mortimer critically. "He'll do," she said, then she whispered into Rich's ear "but you know my friend Carmen?" "I think so," he said quite untruthfully. "She wants to know your friend. She wants to know if he already has a friend." "Gorgeous! What scruples! Mortimer, you'd think you were way back home. There's a young " Mado clapped a hand fiercely over Ezra's mouth. "Little idiot ! You mustn 't tell. ' ' Rich struggled and held Mado's hands down. "A friend of this young lady actually wants to be introduced to you introduced ! ' ' "Tell her it isn't done in our circles in Paris." "It's untrue," panted Mado. "I was fooling." THE OUTSIDER 15 "She further wants to know whether your affections are engaged at least, whether your spare time is. ' ' "She doesn't give a d !" said Mado, angrily. "Ez., I'm angry. Tu n'es pas un gentleman." "Tut, tut, little rabbit," said Ezra, soothingly. "See- ing he doesn't know her, or her name, it doesn't matter. Why doesn't she come and speak to him?" "Why should she? She isn't interested in him, or he in her." "Ha! Mortimer you've offended somebody by ig- noring her." Mado could not follow this. "It's safer to do that before you know a lady than after," said Mortimer. "My friend Mortimer is very timid," translated Ezra freely to Mado. "It is of no importance," said Mado, stubbornly. "No- body cares." "Tell your lady friend," said Mortimer, "that if I could see her without her knowing it, it would be better." Mortimer spoke indifferent French, which was at that time to be considered an asset in Paris. Ezra's faultless French gave him too plausible an air; Frenchmen and Frenchwomen were suspicious of his easy worldliness; but Mortimer's foreignness was intriguing and disarming. Perhaps the disingenuous friendliness of his blue eyes vastly different from the sophisticated courtesy in Ezra's had something to do with it. "Above all, tell your friend," added Mortimer, "that I hate complications." "You don't want to compromise yourself," suggested Mado, mockingly. "Put it that way." "Well," she answered, annoyed, "if I had a girl friend, and she were interested in you, I should certainly disillu- 16 THE OUTSIDER sion her. You are frightfully careful, you courageous man. Why don 't you say outright that you are engaged ? ' ' "Remarkable persons, these French girls," commented Mortimer, impersonally. "They will not believe that in- difference to a lady is real and absolute. You are either engaged or your taste runs to different shapes. ' ' ' ' Their views are rather plump, ' ' agreed Ezra, ' ' but not far out. It generally comes to what they say. Mado, don 't you believe that a gentleman can be quite unattached and yet indifferent to the advances of a charming lady?" Mado reflected and, fearing to be thought too naive, equivocated. "There are men like that, I suppose. But I do hope Monsieur Mortimer is not one of them." ' ' It outrages her sense of the proper, doesn 't it, Mado ? ' ' commented Ezra. "Oui, I think it is improper," she agreed, not quite understanding. "All the same," she went on, "it isn't nice of Monsieur Mortimer to say that he is afraid of a friend of mine compromising him. Does he take her for a shark, who wants to know him for the sake of his money ? Does he think her an American he won't to able to take her to the movies without marrying her? My friends are not like that." "Always concrete, Mado. You're a blessing to us ab- stract persons," said Ezra. "But there are subtler com- plications. ' ' "I don't know what you mean," said Mado, warmly, "but if you think my friends are like that, then you think that I am like that." "Good heavens, she's trying to work herself into a rage," said Ezra. "I can see it coming. Mado, I am not in the humor this evening." "Tell me one thing, Ezra. Am I very exacting?" THE OUTSIDER 17 "No, my love," he said, soothingly, "you are the soul of discretion and modesty, the very paragon of the un- ambitious but don't make a scene. It isn't polite. You must excuse her, Mortimer. She has temperament." Mortimer knew these scenes. Mado, he believed, only partially enjoyed them. To be able to make a scene was to her the proof of her place in Ezra 's affections a proof, however, still incomplete because she could never put Ezra into a rage. This, Mortimer believed, was her secret longing and ambition: to put Ezra into a rage, reduce him to violence, threaten dissolution of their bond and then to make up in a grand scene, crude but passionate. Ezra's opinion was that she got it all from a song then at the height of its popularity, and the substance of which was contained in two lines Quand on a verse des larmes On s'aime bien mieux apres, which is a Boulevard version of "0 we fell out, my wife and I, And kissed again with tears." "You're not fair, Ezra," said Mortimer. "Why don't you show a little excitement when the lady's annoyed? You 're taking the joy out of her life. ' ' "I never give her ground for annoyance," answered Ezra. "I'm all for a peaceful existence, and I'm going to get it dead or alive." Apparently, however, Mado herself was not in real fight- ing humor, for she gave up the attempt with a sigh. "You don't care what I feel, what I say, what I do," she remonstrated. ' ' You don 't care what people say about me, or my friends." "That's a sensible way to talk, mon petit," said Ezra, "when you talk like that I love you." "Poor little Mado," sympathised Mortimer. "You are 18 THE OUTSIDER really a modest little girl and all you seem to ask, like your friend, is to be allowed to love." "My friend asked nothing of the sort." "But they are modest," said Ezra, thoughtfully. "I've been the world over, and for honest, friendly devotion while it lasts commend me to these little girls in Paris. You don't want any dresses, do you Mado? And you don't want restaurants, and joy rides, and chocolates, and flow- ers? And cinema's good enough for you, isn't it? And all you ask at the end is to be allowed to go in peace. That's why I like you, Mado, though I'm afraid it's love for the species, too." "Remember Nietzsche's good advice," said Mortimer. " It is love for the whole human race you express in kissing your neighbor, but don't tell this to your neighbor." "Mado doesn't understand large abstract affections, like Teufelsdreck's, do you, petit Mado?" "I don't understand anything," she whispered, kissing him, "except that look in your eyes, which I adore." "Mado, I have expressly forbidden you to kiss me in the cafe. Will you never learn?" "You're right, Ezra," said Mortimer. "Their love has all the beauty of the irresponsible. They strike no bargains, they barter no obligations. Love happens to them as life happens to them, without contracts and prom- ises. Take what comes and rejoice in it if you can." "They're plucky," said Ezra. ' ' Of course they 're plucky. It takes all the pluck in the world to stand up to life by yourself without society to back you up, without marriage-licenses, or relatives, with- out even a sense of your own importance and self-righteous- ness. They carry their hunger and their heart-break with- out help. They don't protest to God or humanity." THE OUTSIDER 19 "You speak most infallibly of them, Mortimer. Mado, does anyone owe you anything?" "What?" "If I deserted you tomorrow, would you invoke the cate- goric imperative? Would you even feel a noble sense of injury. You would not. Therefore I do not desert you. ' ' "Yes," said Mortimer, kindling. "They are the true children of Paris, the heroic irresponsibles. " "I think, Mado," said Ezra, with a sly glance at Morti- mer, "you may bring your friend round tomorrow evening. This evening would be better still, but I suppose it's too late." "I am certainly in the dangerous state," admitted Mort- imer, laughing. "But tomorrow will be too late. I tell you what, we can pay Marius and go out for a walk." "Do you mind," said Masters offering his first remark to the table, "Do you mind if I come along." He said this shyly. "Of course you come along," said Mortimer, touched by a consciousness of something lonely in the Englishman. ' ' I understood that. Marius ! ' * They nodded goodnight to almost everyone in the cafe, and went out. A thin wind was coming up the quiet street. A few yards away the rue Royale was brilliant, and from the crowds that went right and left drifted the joyous confusion of sound which is of Paris alone. The group hesitated outside the door of the Lapin Cuit, then turned east to the Place de la Concorde, on which lay the mingled glamor of pale blue moonlight and violet electric light. The slender monolith in the centre of the square was ghostlike, part against the tremendous depth of the blue sky, part against the dark buildings on the further side of the river. 20 THE OUTSIDER "Allans," said Mado, "we've already seen the Concorde. ' ' She made off arm in arm with Ezra across the square, behind each of them two shadows, a distinct one that lengthened and turned as on a pivot, another squat and pallid, that went with them, changelessly sedate. Morti- mer and Masters followed. They went by the closed gates of the Tuileries to the edge of the river, and walked slowly east, towards the Latin Quarter, the four of them abreast in the lonely street. Ezra was on the right, then Mado, linked with him and Mortimer, and Masters on the left, the tallest of the four. All of them had caught in part the excite- ment which moved Mortimer. * ' I too, ' ' began Masters, ' ' think of Paris as the irrespon- sible but not as you do, Long. This is the place for men who had a sense of responsibility and failed to satisfy it. That's why I'm here. I heard Rich say that he belonged to no one and to nowhere so he lives in Paris; he never did belong to anyone or anywhere ; I did once, though. ' ' Their steps went rhythmically along when he stopped speaking. No one interrupted, because Masters so seldom spoke of himself. "I did once," he continued slowly, "but I forfeited it. I wasn't strong enough to stand my ground. Yes " he lowered his voice in a certain embarrassment, and was glad that no one was looking at him, "I was once an Englishman and knew what that kinship meant." "Every great race," he went on, after a pause, "carries with it a fringe of impotence. I was borne into that fringe. Once I got near the heart of my people, and felt the blood that beats from there. But I couldn't stay there. "For such a man as me Paris is a good place, too. There's no kinship in Paris, and there's no regret because there's THE OUTSIDER 21 no sense of time. You are here in a great anonymous ferment. Thank God nobody cares." He laughed nervously, rather ashamed of his self-rev- elation. Mortimer was uncomfortable. He feared that Masters would tell something that he would regret later; besides, he had heard enough, and felt he understood. He did not want to know what treachery had come into this man 's life. "That is not what I meant, Masters," he said, trying to divert the tendency of the conversation. ' ' I don 't think of Paris as you do, as a place to come and die in; nor, as others do, who think that to be irresponsible means to be indecent. It means rather to live without prejudices. Here I feel as I tried to feel at home and couldn't a free and unattached thing. Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. He is cursed with prenatal intentions on the part of others. Isn't it enough that I accept the burden of my life, which I never asked for? Must I in addition be responsible to parents, to relatives, to society, to God, to the Church. I don't want it. I don't want it. I reject whatever benefits these things imply and refuse the obligations. Paris has nothing to do with success or failure. I don't think of my life in terms like these. I can't conceive what success means and therefore do not understand what it is to fail. ' ' "You are much younger than I," said Masters, regret- fully, "and perhaps more fortunately constituted. If bare life is enough for you happy you." They were just then at the bridge that crosses the Seine below the Louvre. From the street-level steps lead down to the very bank of the river. They went down these steps, and walked for a while on the cobble-stone path almost on a level with the water. Little waves came across the darkness streaked with ribbons of reflected light, 22 THE OUTSIDER and splashed ceaselessly at their feet, always on the point of making up a regnlar rhythm, then breaking into chaos again; yet always infinitely musical. "I have always thought of the Seine as something like the river of forgetfulness, " said Masters. "Amongst my people," recounted Ezra, "there is a certain religious custom which I think of now. Once a year I forget when the pious Jew comes to the river- edge and empties his pockets literally into the water. He casts his sins into the water, to be borne away to the sea." "Like city garbage," suggested Mortimer. "And as soon forgotten and accumulated again," agreed Ezra. "But friend Masters comes to cast his memories into the Seine." "This is the oldest river in the world," went on Masters, "for I don't think there's another in the world that has flowed through so much history. Not local history, but universal. If I cast my memories into any river, let it be the Seine. They will have good company." Mortimer was impatient. "You think too much of the world, Masters, and of the relations of men to each other. You think too much of history." "What's wrong in that?" "Ill tell you," said Mortimer, with sudden inspiration. "History doesn't exist." Ezra applauded by tapping his stick against the cobble- stones. "The best remark of the evening. Still, what is that thing which we call history?" "It is a disease," said Mortimer, impetuously, "like witches, fear of graveyards, and ambition. Healthy men are unconscious of history." THE OUTSIDER 23 "And professors of history are the germ-carriers of this disease?" asked Ezra. "You've hit it," said Mortimer, "and I can think of an excellent case in point." "This is all talk," said Masters, sadly, "you can enjoy words, but not live on them." "You cannot feed capons so," suggested Ezra. ' ' I don 't care what you call history, ' ' said Masters. ' ' But I feel a personal kinship with the sum total of human events; I feel as if I was meant to be part of something. And that feeling has been balked. That is all I mean." "That feeling was wrong," said Mortimer, seriously. "It means you have been educated, and to be educated means to be educated badly." Masters did not answer because he was sorry he had spoken at all. He reflected, in some bitterness, that Long was an American, to whom pride of race and history was perhaps unknown, a child in the development of the world. A burden of failure lay upon his heart. How could a stranger understand what homesickness was? How could another understand the long anguish of his exile from his own people. To be English, as he was conscious of it, was a distinct thing, a sense greater than the other five, and master of them ; and none but an Englishman could under- stand that. It was not a sense of superiority to other people, but something apart and peculiar, with its own form and flavor. And this, which was so singularly his own, his flesh and blood, he had forever forfeited. Why speak of this to others? Was not that un-English too? Was it not better to believe as Long believed, to pass into the great anonymous, even to his own consciousness. "Yes," he thought without speaking, "If I could. .But I am a disrooted being." Mortimer was out of sympathy with Masters. At that 24 THE OUTSIDER moment more than at any other time he could not fall in with the weakness of regret, with belief in destiny miscar- ried. In his heart life was at the flood. He exulted in being, independently of men and events. He wanted to shout into the night, across the broad river at the city that cared nothing for him. "Ezra, j'ai le cafard," said Mado, softly. "I want to go home." Masters spoke no more on the way home, but dwelt on his own bitterness. All the way Mado whispered continu- ously to Ezra, and laughed with him. Mortimer, like Masters, was silent, but scarce able to contain the fulness of his strength. Near the Lapin Cuit Masters left them. At the Hotel Picault, where the three of them lived, Mortimer left Ezra and Mado. "I'll see you at the Hole tomorrow, Ezra. I'm going to walk." He started back along the way they had just come, down the rue Boissy d'Anglas, into the vast enchanted square, unchanged and unchangeable in the moonlight and lamp- light. His heart sang in him. The rhythm of his foot- steps beat to a larger rhythm in his brain. He laughed. He felt life in every vein, in every vibrant cell. He was taller than the obelisk, he walked faster than birds fly. And he exulted in his loneliness. "No one knows I am here ; no one knowsithat I am walking by this river, except I, except I!" He went on with rapid footsteps by the right bank of the Seine to the first bridge, crossed the river, glancing at the darkness looming for the Latin Quarter, but unable to stop because pf the restlessness in him. He continued by the left bank, leaving on his right old houses that bent towards him. Narrow alleys opened there, THE OUTSIDER 25 leading into a still and populous darkness. He felt the life that rested there, the multitudinous hearts just then at rest Paris, Paris, Paris ; like a chorus the word rushed backwards and forwards through his mind. He saw the old towers of the Palais de Justice coming out of the darkness towards him ; he thought of the time many, many generations ago when Messieurs les Etucli- ants used to shut the gates of the Quartier Latin on the messengers of the King. He though of the tumult and the ambition that had burned there from century to century, the daring and the visioning and the hope, the passing of thousands and thousands of lives, the laughter, the mock- ery, the tenderness the river had carried them all away Paris! They were all forgotten, as was right. Near the Latin Quarter he crossed the river and the island by the two bridges and came upon the Place de la Greve, deserted, like the streets. Thence he plunged into the tortured closeness of the streets that lie between the rue de Eivoli and the Place de la Republique. Here he simply walked, walked. He cared nothing for the Hotel de Ville, for the Statue of Liberty in the Place de la Republique these were things of conscious history the deeds of men who aimed at something, and kept their eye on ancestors and posterity. The Paris he loved was the Paris of the unremembered. "I will be forgotten here like the echo of my footsteps in the streets, like my shadow on the pavement, like to- night's moonlight on the walls." He came at length to the Place Pigalle, now without a single reveller. This was the circle of self-conscious revelry in Paris. Men came thither from the whole world to forget the boredoms of their life. This was not the Paris he loved. He loved those sloping, choked alleys by which he was climbing now to the very summit of the hill, 26 THE OUTSIDER to the plateau of the Sacre Coeur, these twisted, illogical alleys, cottages side by side with flats, on streets cobble- stoned some hundreds of years ago, on which no carriage could venture, and even the Parisian taxi with trepidation ; here and there an outburst of neglected greenery, ancient hedges, the wood rotting, and leaning alternately into the street and the abandoned garden. Grass grows in these streets, though no plague is there. These streets are unlike any others in the world, thought Mortimer; there is only one Montmartre, and the heart of it is here; beyond all the self-consciousness and charlatanry of the small poets and futile painters and empty dramatists, there is still Montmartre, which generations have produced. These are not streets, but a sanctuary with a blasphemous and ribald hierarchy of priests. Blessed be their anonymity! He came to wooden steps between impossible houses, that could not breathe climbing fifty and sixty at a time to new levels of streets. And he came at last to the small plateau, with the unsightly Church rolling over it. On this he turned his back, and with his hands on a stone fence, stared over moonlit Paris ; distinguished, or thought he distinguished, the towers of the Notre Dame, the Tour Eiffel, the Opera, the Invalides, emerging obscurely from a black, frozen lava of roofs tangled and indistinguishable. His heart swelled within him ; this was the city he loved above all cities, his own city, the mantle of his obscurity. "I am alone," he whispered to himself. "There are all the cities of the world, swarming with peoples the great cities with their houses, over the whole world, London, and Moscow, and Pekin and New York, alive, spawning hourly, rustling eternally with the crawling of generations; and I am here alone, alone with myself, unknown to man or to God, a life that belongs to me, to me." CHAPTER II AT noon of the next day (he had come home at four in the morning and risen at eleven) Mortimer waited for Ezra in the restaurant known to themselves as "The Hole." This was one of '.he cheapest restaurants dis- pensing serviettes without special request an important distinction; in the very cheapest they do not give you a serviette unless you ask for it, and then there is a monstrous charge of sometimes as much as fifty centimes. There was a fixed price at the Hole; for three francs you were entitled to soup or hors d'oeuvres, meat, vegeta- bles, cheese and a fruit; on top of this a small bottle of red wine and bread without limit (this was before the price of bread was doubled with the removal of the bread subsidy). And then there was the tip which was de ri- gueur; twenty-five centimes was a gentlemanly modesty. You could run up a high bill, of course, seven or eight francs; beyond this it was difficult to go without an ab- normal appetite. You could begin on oysters, order a bottle of labelled wine, take chicken for your meat, and an extra dainty for desert. With pointless and deliberate ex- travagance you might even score ten francs. But for ten francs you could lunch with dignity at some dainty res- taurant on the rue Boissy d'Anglas, where the waiters do not address you in the second person singular and the lady opposite you (if she is one) does not intimate that your presence is for her a distinct pleasure. The food at the Hole was good, the service rapid, though not distinguished. Working-girls, clerks, porters, chauf- feurs and aU kinds of base mechanicals were the principal 27 28 THE OUTSIDER clientele, and with them many of the frequenters of the Lapin Cult. Ezra came at a quarter past twelve, for it took fifteen minutes to reach the Hole from the Franco-American Bank where he was then working. Mortimer and he oc- cupied a table in the large rear room, and had educated Francois, a dull Gascon, to serve them what was best in the day's menu. Ezra came in hungry, so that twenty minutes passed without conversation. "What time did you get home this morning?" "About four." "Have a good time?" "Fine. Made a ring round Paris. This is the place for enjoyment without expense." "Yes. An important consideration. We'll go into fi- nances when I'm through with this custard pie." There was a pause until he had finished desert. Then he took the place vacated by Mortimer's side, and took out his pen. "How do your finances stand?" "Nobly. I touched nearly two hundred dollars yester- day. I've got seventeen hundred francs in my pocket this one, to be exact. ' ' "Good. When do you see old Lessar about the work?" "This afternoon. He's good for three hundred a month." "Well, this is how it goes, Mortimer. Careful calcu- lation, careful living, no high-flying, plain fare and high thinking and the rest of it. Breakfast one franc. That's ample two cups of coffee and two rolls, which is better than most of the working kids here get for theirs. Lunch three francs twenty-five call it four francs with an oc- casional flutter. Same for supper. One france le cafe in the evening. Total ten francs. That's three hundred a month. Two hundred for the room. It's a sin and a THE OUTSIDER 29 shame to pay so much for a room, but there it is. That's five hundred. Laundry, cigarettes, toothpaste, shoe-polish, shoe-laces, soap, shaving-sticks, Gillette-blades, writing- paper, ink, postage-stamps, tobacco, charity, literature, newspapers, subway and surface car, occasional aperitifs or digestifs two hundred francs a month ? Irreducible mini- mum, seven hundred. Anything omitted?" Mortimer reflected. "Call it seven hundred and fifty. Here, I have seventeen hundred, seven hundred belonging to you. That 's a thousand. Three hundred a month from Lessar. I need four hundred more. That means I'm two months ahead, anyway." "Of course, that irreducible minimum is for decent liv- ing, you know," explained Ezra. "There are not many French working-girls, for instance, earning more than half of seven-hundred a month. You'd be astonished at the little you can live on." "I don't want to be astonished," said Mortimer. "But if I have to, I'll survive it, I suppose. Look, there's Gorman.'* Gorman was at the door of the inner room, looking round narrowly. "I don't like the way he has," said Mortimer. "Yet I'm sorry for him. He's fallen into ways not properly his. He's not a bad fellow really. Neither is his pal, Teddy." Gorman saw them from the door, and came to the table. "I was looking for you fellers." "Sit down, Gorman." Gorman, tall, finely built, stood hesitant. "I ain't got much time. I came to ask you a favor, Long." He sat down. "I got a deal on, an' I need some help." "What's on?" asked Ezra. 30 THE OUTSIDER ' ' I can 't tell you, ' ' he answered, embarrassed. ' ' 'Tain 't because I don 't trust you ; but I just can 't tell you what it is. It's that kind of a deal." He drummed with his long slender fingers on the table and looked down. Both Ezra and Mortimer knew that Gorman had business dealings that he should not have had, but both of them had a kind of liking for the man. If he did wrong things they were probably not wicked ones. He was not knew by instinct that this kind of silly capriciousness pleased Carmen, and to please her he affected it. ' ' I don 't. But you haven 't won. And now be quiet and let .me read. ' ' He had no intention of reading, but he took down an Atlas and turned the pages over. Carmen sat in the arm- chair opposite, still as a mouse, watching him. He looked through a couple of continents slowly and then raised his eyes. ' ' What are you looking at ? " he asked abruptly. * ' Your grey hair, ' ' she stammered before she could invent a reply. Then she came over and, sitting on the chair, put her arms round him. "I know why you have grey hair," she whispered. "And why?" "It's because you think a lot and have no one to look after you. ' ' "Is that all?" "Yes. Because you live alone, and no one does anything for you." He looked at her intently. "Carmen," he said slowly, "you're showing the cloven hoof," which he put literally into French. "What?" 72 THE OUTSIDER "You are betraying maternal femininity. What do you mean, no one to look after me ? ' ' She looked down and would not answer. "What is the implication, young lady?" he asked, shak- ing her. She burst into swift speech. "You live alone, and you've no family or real friends and there's no one to care whether you live properly or* not, or eat properly or do any- thing." He rose from his chair and whistled. "That is the cloven hoof," he said. "You mean you want to look after me?" She did not answer. "You mean," he said, half touched, half amused, "you want to darn my socks." ' ' Yes, I would like to do that too. ' ' "Carmen, you are honestly shameless." "Darning socks as a remedy for grey hairs," he went on. "It's not original." "But look you, Mortimer," she protested, with sudden tears in her eyes. "I didn't mean to tell you about them. And you really don't live as you ought to." "Roundly," he said, stroking her hair. "You mean you want to live here too, eh ? " Her face lit brilliantly. "Oh yes." He assumed solemnity. "Carmen, forever and forever, drive that out of your head forever and forever." Her face darkened, and the tears came back. "Carmen, if I see you three evenings a week, four, it is already too much. As for seeing you every evening ! ' ' "But Mortimer, I would never, never bother you." He smiled. ' ' I know, I know, ' ' he said, obviously incred- ulous. "Your intentions are unimpeachable. Your tem- perament, dear Carmen, is your weak point." THE OUTSIDER 73 "But really I shouldn't bother you, really, really," she pleaded passionately. "Carmen, be quiet. The subject is closed. I've told you." "But Mortimer, Mado and Monsieur Ezra "The subject is closed," he repeated more firmly. "Mortimer, I mean it for your sake. You do not live as you should. You say you have to spend seven hundred francs a month; you could live just as well on four hun- dred; that is ample." "The subject is .closed," he said again, beginning to feel annoyed and, sitting down in his chair, picked a newspaper from the table and looked intently at an illustration. Car- men stood silent. "There's a beautiful woman," said Mortimer suddenly; to change the subject. "A very beautiful woman." He held the newspaper to the light and looked more closely at the photograph of an actress in a modish hat. ' ' Don 't you think so?" Carmen came around and looked quickly, then, with a swift gesture, she tore the paper from his hand and ripped it fiercely across. "I don't want you to look at her." Mortimer sat stock still with amazement, then did not know whether to laugh or be serious. He watched her crumpling the shreds in her hands, a mingled look of pain and resentment on her face. "Carmen," he said finally, very serious, "you are giving yourself away. You have shown a desire to look after me and you are showing jeal- ousy. Repent before it is too late." "I know why you don't want," she said at last. "It's because you must have another friend. ' ' Now he was genuinely annoyed. "Carmen, you are very foolish." "It is true," she insisted. "It is true." 74 THE OUTSIDER He frowned and thought for a while. He could not be- lieve that she meant her accusation. But apparently he had miscalculated a little, and it might be well to revise his letter to Wilfred in regard to Carmen. "Goodnight, Carmen. You must go now." She started, terrified. "Ah, non. I didn't mean that." "Too late now," he said, deciding to punish her. "You must go." She neither answered nor moved; only stood there with the tears in her eyes. "Very well. You're not here," he said finally and, taking up the Atlas again, sat down, determined to ignore her. A couple of minutes passed. Mortimer began to wonder whether Carmen shared Mado's weakness and wanted a scene, but his judgment denied this. This must be a case of sincere affectionate motherliness and it had to be nipped in the bud. "Carmen," he said at last. "If you promise not to speak about this again I shall forgive you, and you can sit in the chair there opposite me. If not, I shall turn you out." She came and sat down in the chair. "You won't speak about either of these things again?" he asked, firmly. "No, Mortimer." "Alright. You can come and sit here, then." She came over to his armchair, radiant again. "Ah, you are wicked, ' ' she said. "No I'm not," he answered, but he was troubled. She was not as simple as he had thought, or, rather, her sim- plicity was of another kind. "Carmen, do you need money just now?" "N