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THE OUTSIDER
MAURICE SAMUEL
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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 <a sophisticated wrong-doer, but rather a good
fellow, half-dissatisfied with his own transactions.
"What d'ye need, Gorman?" asked Mortimer.
"Five hundred francs till tomorrow morning. Lend it
me right now and I'll give you six hundred tomorrow
morning before ten o'clock."
Neither responded for a moment. Gorman looked des-
perate.
"I got no money, boys. I can make some right now;
not much, but some. Don't turn me down. Look here.
I'll give you my papers to hold here's my carte d'identite,
and my Discharge Certificate. You know that's worth a
darn sight more to me than five hundred francs."
Mortimer put his hand to his pocket-book slowly.
"Looka here, Long," continued Gorman eagerly, "On
my word of honor, I'll give you seven hundred francs to-
morrow morning. God's truth, an' sure as I'm sitting here
right now. ' '
"I don't want your two hundred francs, Gorman, and
I don't want your papers," said Mortimer, taking out
five one hundred franc bills. "And I don't want to know
what your deal is. I'll see you here tomorrow at the same
time. How will that do you?"
Gorman's face radiated gratitude. "You're a damn
good feller, Long, and I won't forget this favor. I can't
tell you what this deal is. But there are others I've got
THE OUTSIDER 31
my eye on. There's money to be made in Paris just now,
lots of it for the feller who knows how. And I'm be-
ginning to know. ' ' He became earnest. ' ' Listen ; if I had
ten thousand francs just now I could double it in two
days. God's truth, Long. Serious business."
"How?" asked Mortimer, curious.
"You don't believe me? You'll see. What d'ye think
I'm staying in Paris for? D'ye think I haven't got a
good job in the States? I had an agency for one of the
biggest piano manufacturers in the east. Without a word
of a lie I made money. I can make it again right here,
boys. There's fellers here making hundreds of thousands
of francs, the fellers who know what's doing. It took me
a long time to learn but I 'm gonna be one of 'em. ' '
His deadly earnest convinced Mortimer.
"I'd like to hear more about it, Gorman."
"You will, Long. It isn't every feller who'd lend me
five hundred francs like that, tho' it's nothing it ain't
a hundred dollars. And I'll put you on to straight busi-
ness, Long. There's lots of crooked business going round
now but I'm talking of straight, clean business."
"Have you had dinner, Gorman?" asked Ezra, suspi-
cious. He knew that sudden money on an empty stomach
produces much the same effect as wine does.
"No. I haven't got one centime in my pocket not one
centime. ' '
"Sit down, and have something."
"I can't. But thank you, just the same. There's a
taxi waiting for me."
"A taxi?" asked Ezra, violently.
"Yeh. I had to come down from the Place de la Re-
publique in a hurry, and without a word of a lie, I didn't
have thirty centimes for the subway. So I had to take
a taxi. He 's waiting outside to be paid. ' '
32 THE OUTSIDER
"That's economic genius," said Ezra, laughing. "Sup-
posing you hadn 't found us, or we had no money ? ' '
"I'd have kept that taxi till I found someone to pay
for it, that's all. I can always borrow twenty or thirty
francs. I can't wait now, fellers. I'll eat afterwards.
I'll be here at lunch tomorrow, Long. Thank you, a
hundred times."
He went hurriedly.
"He'll be back at noon tomorrow," said Mortimer.
"Oh, sure," agreed Ezra. "He isn't that kind."
Mortimer sat back in the chair, staring across the room.
"We were in the middle of our finances," said Ezra.
"Seven hundred, we said, didn't we."
Mortimer did not answer. Ezra looked up and saw
him staring.
"What's the center of attraction?"
Mortimer started. "Excuse me. Don't look, Ezra.
Nothing. There's somebody across there I've seen here
every time I've come to lunch, I think."
"That's not surprising. They keep their clientele here
a long time."
"I'm interested in this part of their clientele. I've never
seen her with anyone. Have you noticed her? She's al-
ways in the same place. You can look a little later, care-
lessly, you know. She's eating asparagus."
Ezra's eyes went indifferently round the room, noted
the timid brunette with the neat hat drawn down almost
to her eyebrows over an earnest, childlike face, and passed
on with the same absent look.
"I know whom you mean. That shy kid there. I've
noticed her, too."
"She intrigues me, as they say here. I'm not certain
but what she's noticed that. But she hasn't as much as
acknowledged it."
THE OUTSIDER 33
"Why don't you tell her about it?"
"I'd like to. I never get a chance. She never passes
this table. And she never looks my way when she goes
out. There 's something about her face that interests me
more than interests me, if you like. Don't you think
there's something good in that face?"
"It is a good face," said Ezra. "Quiet. "Why don't
you get to know her?"
"I'd like to," repeated Mortimer, betraying some shy-
ness, "but I can't somehow. I haven't got that beastly
art like you."
"If that's a reproach," said Ezra, smiling, "I bow to
your unsophistication. But she probably won't rebuff
you."
Mortimer was annoyed. "Don't be such a galant, friend
Ezra. I don 't like too much sophistication. You find that
kind of thing easy; you've got that kind of savoir-faire
and you're welcome to it."
"Tut-tut. I said she wouldn't rebuff you. You know
as well as I that I'd talk with more assurance if I had
your killing innocence and your infantile blue eye."
Mortimer kept his eyes intermittently on the girl.
"And don't talk rubbish."
"But it's a fact, Mortimer," continued Ezra, half-
ironically, half in earnest. "I've overdone my savoir-
faire. If I could assume your looks and your villainous
French accent I'd be a howling success. I'm too pol-
ished. You remember what Nietzsche says. 'Do you
want to flatter a man? Be embarrassed in his presence.'
Ladies are the same though you yourself are half a
fraud."
"I know it," said Mortimer. "I'm just as sophisti-
cated as you are. But I'll be hanged if I can behave
otherwise than like a gentleman to a woman even if she
34 THE OUTSIDER
doesn't expect it, even if she doesn't want it. It's no
use of my trying."
"Thank you for the implication," said Ezra, quite un-
ruffled. "Long may you preserve your virgin bashfulness.
I acknowledge the difference between us, but only beg to
point out that in effect you're better off from the sophisti-
cated point of view. I can think of five ladies you've in-
terested to every one that pretended that I interested her. ' '
"I don't believe you," said Mortimer, half sincerely.
"A fact," said Ezra. "I bet you a hundred francs to
one this particular lady already adores you."
"You're a fool," said Mortimer, angry now. "She
doesn't know I'm here."
"So much so does she know," answered Ezra, undis-
turbed, "that she would be quite pleased if I went over
and told her you wanted to make her acquaintance."
"Ezra," said Mortimer, still angry, "you mustn't dare
to do such a thing."
"Don't be absurd, man. I tell you she'd be delighted.
And I'll do it, unless you do."
"You'll do nothing of the sort. I mean that. I won't
have you go over and talk to her that way."
Ezra laughed heartily. "You're a first-class cuckoo."
"I know it," said Mortimer, his annoyance increasing.
"But that's my business. I'll get to know her in my own
way and in my own good time. ' '
"But she's finishing now. She's paying Frangois. I
don't think the poor kid's got very much money."
"No," said Mortimer. "I've seldom seen her hand
Frangois anything more than a five-franc note."
Ezra was astonished at the betrayal.
"But I wonder why she eats here, just the same. It
means a hundred francs a month for lunches. I wonder
THE OUTSIDER 35
why she doesn't take her lunch at home. She's going
now. Let's go too. Wait till she's at the door."
The girl was counting the change and seemed to be
hesitating as to the coppers she would leave on the table.
While she was drawing on her mantle and adjusting her
hat, Ezra caught Francois as he passed and paid him
quickly. There was no calculation two lunches at three
francs and a tip of fifty centimes for both. The girl
passed along the other side of the room, and went out
without looking round. Ezra noticed her profile, simple
and very childlike. She held an old bag in her right hand,
against her breast.
Both men went out as soon as she was through the door.
In the street she turned left, walking slowly, Ezra and
Mortimer a dozen steps behind her.
"The first thing that attracted me about her," said
Mortimer, "was the way she eats. Do you take notice
of the way people eat?"
"Not unless I happen to be nervous."
"I always notice people eating. As a rule I can't stand
the way the Frenchman eats or the Frenchwoman. ' '
"They are rather enthusiastic about the soup," admit-
ted Ezra, "especially on the trains, in the dining cars."
"It isn't that," explained Mortimer. "The women
here eat with a kind of cocky self-certainty, as though
people were watching and they were asserting their rights
defiantly. The way they munch "now-then-what-are-you~
going-to-do-about-it sort of munching and take an un-
abashed look round the restaurant and then firmly and
decidedly cut off another piece."
"I haven't noticed that," said Ezra.
"And above all," continued Mortimer, "every French-
woman that sits down to table takes the drinking glass and
firmly but knowingly wipes it with her napkin cleans it
36 THE OUTSIDER
deliberately and ostentatiously. I don't mind, but it's
the way they do it to let you know they're wise birds
and don't trust the hired help."
They had been walking faster than the girl ahead, and
now they were abreast of her she near the wall, Ezra
next to her. Before Mortimer knew it Ezra had raised
his hat, and said politely, "Bonjour, Mademoiselle."
She looked up, smiled timidly, and answered, "Bonjour
Monsieur."
"My friend here," said Ezra shamelessly, "wishes to
make your acquaintance. He hadn't the courage to tell
you so. It needs less courage on my part to speak for
him. Monsieur Mortimer, Mademoiselle ? "
"Carmen," she answered, offering her hand.
Mortimer changed places with Ezra and took the hand.
"I assure you, Mademoiselle Carmen, I did not ask
my friend to do this. But now it is done I am very glad.
I trust you will come and take coffee with us."
"I shall be very happy," she answered, stammering a
little.
Her diffidence pleased Mortimer infinitely. "All the
same, Ezra, I think you're no gentleman."
"Right," answered Ezra. "Did you ever hear me mak-
ing extravagant claims?"
"But you will come and take coffee with both of us just
now."
"Surely. I'll help you over the first difficult quart
d'heure. You are ungrateful, Mortimer, but my philan-
thropy is purer than all that. We'd better speak French
for the lady's sake. You will pardon my friend's oppres-
sive timidity. He is American."
"One sees that," she said, looking at Mortimer hastily.
"You see, she has been aware of your existence," said
Ezra.
THE OUTSIDER 37
Mortimer was studying with genuine pleasure the girl's
face. Academic beauty it had none ; the features were com-
monplace, but the expression of the face, he considered,
was that of an intense kindliness, a womanly goodness.
There was even more expressed in the half-timid, half-
composed outlines, a good deal of patience, self-repression,
a capacity for suffering and a history of these faculties
exercised for the sake of others. All this he thought he
saw, and was a little sceptical of himself for seeing so much.
They went for coffee to a modest two-roomed den in the
rue Boissy d'Anglas. Before and after mealtimes these
places are crowded, but now it was rather late, for they
had lingered over lunch. In the dark inner room they
found a corner, and there Mortimer placed himself so
that he could watch Carmen with a minimum of self-
betrayal.
"You are Parisienne, Miss Carmen?" asked Mortimer.
"Only since a year. I come from le Havre," she an-
swered, and then Ezra detected the soft-tongued "r" and
the flattening of the dental consonants. It was a charming
provincialism, and he was sorry that Mortimer probably
could not detect it. Mortimer, however, did find some-
thing distinctly pleasant in her voice, a vibrant physical
quality, like the fulness of the g string of a violin.
"And you have been coming long to the Hole," asked
Ezra; then, as she looked blank, Mortimer and he laughed
suddenly. "We call that restaurant the Hole."
"Why? It is a very good restaurant. One is well
there."
"Our immodest tastes stand rebuked, Mortimer. It
isn't a bad restaurant really, Miss Carmen. How long have
you been coming there."
"Oh, weeks."
"You've noticed us, haven't you?"
38 THE OUTSIDER
"Oh yes, quite often, and your lady friend as well."
"Oh." Ezra suddenly put two and two together.
' { You 're called Carmen ! " he repeated. ' ' Bless our souls. ' '
But he did not explain to Mortimer.
Carmen asked for coffee, Mortimer and Ezra for Bene-
dictines. Ezra took his drink quickly and went soon, not
to be late at the Bank. Left together, Mortimer and Car-
men were a little shy.
"I have been wanting to make your acquaintance for
some time, Miss Carmen as my friend told you. For
quite a long time, in fact."
' ' Well, I also, ' ' she confessed. * ' But I would not do it. ' '
"Then why didn't you?"
She fumbled with her fingers. "Eh "bien, I didn't want
you to think "
"To think what?"
"To think that I was a woman who made men's acquain-
tance like that." She said this with difficulty and took
to twisting her hands together, then asked, "Well, and
why didn't you come and speak to me."
"I was timid," confessed Mortimer.
"And why did you tell Mado last night that you did
not want to make my acquaintance."
Mortimer jumped in his seat. "Oh! Is that it?"
"What?"
"How long do you know Mado?"
"Not long. I saw her coming here with Monsieur Ezra.
Do you know, I made her acquaintance because I wanted
to know you."
It was curious to hear this frank confession, and mark
at the same time the shyness shown in her face and in her
uncomfortable restlessness. She seemed bold by excess of
timidity. Mortimer was touched to the quick.
THE OUTSIDER 39
"Well, vottd," he said. "We know each other at last.
I trust you are not sorry now."
"Oh no," she said in a very certain voice, and looked
him full in the face and laughed for the first time. Her
smile was a sudden warmth and friendliness. Mortimer
could not help putting his hand on her arm.
"Why did you not come with your friend in the evening,
to the Lapin Cuit. You know how glad I would have been
to see you there."
"I didn't know that at all. Beside, there were other
reasons. ' '
Mortimer decided hastily that these reasons referred to a
man, and then was annoyed with himself, and labelled his
suspicion as bad French.
"But will you come now." he asked.
"Oh, surely, if you wish me to."
"Certainly I wish it."
"And why didn't you come before?" he persisted, the
impulse of curiosity asserting itself.
"There were reasons I shall tell you later."
"No, tell me now."
"Well, if you wish to know at the Lapin Cuit they
would have noticed that I wanted to know you."
"Oh, and at the restaurant?"
"The restaurant is big, and anyone comes there, only
to eat. One comes to the cafe for the people also. But I
shall come to the Lapin Cuit now, and not any more to the
restaurant." She caught herself up on the last words.
"And why not to the restaurant?"
"It is too far from my work." The excuse was in-
vented and delivered without conviction. But Mortimer
understood ; the three francs twenty-five, as he had observed
to Ezra, was too much for a daily lunch. He wondered
40 THE OUTSIDER
now whether she had come to the restaurant for him only.
He was eager to know.
"So why did you come every day?"
"Eh bien to see you."
"And where will you go for lunch now."
"We have a lunch prepared in the atelier. I shall stay
there at noon."
In brief silence Mortimer wondered what Carmen
earned, and how she spent it. He had some notion of the
astonishing economies, the vigilance practiced by French
working people, but he had never met with the actuality.
"What do you work at, Miss Carmen?"
"In a toy factory. I make teddy bears."
"Is it hard work?"
"Oh, out," very decided, and a sigh, and a laugh. "Not
so hard, though. The dogs are just as hard, and the dolls.
All the stuffed, things, you know. It's the sewing that's
hard."
"Sewing of what?"
"Sewing the ears on, and the snouts and things. You
do it with a great big heavy needle, that hurts the hands.
But it isn't so bad."
Mortimer glanced at her hands, and she snatched them
away under the table. But he had seen them distinctly.
They were certainly not pretty hands ; clumsily constructed,
red, the fingers with shallow nails; at the joints of the
fingers there was no soft crease of skin, so that the fingers
looked swollen. Carmen looked down.
"My hands are very ugly," she said, distressed.
"I haven't seen yet," answered Mortimer, smiling at
her his own reply. It was characteristic of him that he
could not make an insincere compliment; had he said to
Carmen, "Au contraire, your hands are charming," he
would have felt a fool, and, he believed, Carmen would
THE OUTSIDER 41
have considered him a liar. Au fond, in his opinion, all
people, women included, knew whether or not they were
beautiful and false compliments were a double insult.
At the same time it was uncomfortable to avoid the truth.
Now, having avoided Carmen's hands, he wanted to make
a sincere compliment on her face; he could not find the
words, but, unknown to himself, his eyes were making it,
and Carmen was pleased with it ; all the more pleased with
it (although she hardly understood this) because he had
refused flatly to compliment her on her hands. The up-
shot was that Mortimer understood that he had pleased
her, and they smiled at each other. In this smile they
seemed to say, ""We are getting to know each other, and
to like each other."
"Monsieur Mortimer (of course she pronounced it More-
tee-mwre) I cannot stay any longer. I must return to
the atelier now. I shall be late."
"Must you go back?" he said, disappointed. The ex-
changed smile had gone like lightning through him. He
wanted her to stay.
"I must go. I confess I go unwillingly very un-
willingly."
Her soft voice paused over the words ; it was a pleasure
to her to make this confession.
"Is your atelier far?"
"It is near the Hotel de Ville. I must take the subway
now to get there in time."
"Will you get into trouble if you don't go back?"
"Oh no, but I will lose so much money."
He would have liked to say that that did not matter,
but dared not yet. He wanted to spend the whole after-
noon with her.
"Well, I will conduct you to the Metro, Miss Carmen."
"Thank you."
42 THE OUTSIDER
He went with her as far as the subway in the Place de
la Concorde.
"This evening you will be at the Lapin Cuit, n'est-ce-
pas, Miss Carmen?"
"Yes, I will come at eight o'clock."
"Good bye, Miss Carmen."
"Good bye, Monsieur More-tee-maire."
He watched her go down to the ticket window, and
turned away. His heart was joyous within him. What
a fine little girl! How simple and sincere she seemed to
him. She pleased him by her lack of ease. She pleased
him by her unabashed liking for him (he had a frank
weakness for people that liked him). He thought of her
friendly face; he thought above all of that sudden smile,
and felt again the quick pleasure it had given him. "I
like the kid, ' ' he said to himself.
He went up to his room on the first floor of the Hotel
Picault, and sat down to read. But he could not. In-
stead he stood at one of the windows and stared into the
rue St. Honore and at the dignified building opposite; be-
hind the stately door, he knew there was a noble courtyard,
and people of wealth and position slept on all four sides
of it. Further up, in the direction of Etoile, that is, was
the princely house of Rothschild, with gardens stretching
through all the way to the Champs Elysees, and a little
further on was the Palace of the President of the French
Republic, with its pretty wooden guards parading up and
down. But that was all on the opposite side of the street,
for his own side was merely respectable, shops and small
hotels and apartments.
He liked his room. It was large, double-windowed, and
well furnished. The bed stood in a recess, and the wash-
stand in a small cubicle which was really a continuation
of the recess. The window curtains were handsome and
THE OUTSIDER 43
clean, and heavy crimson portieres were drawn on either
side. There was a massive arm-chair on either side of the
fireplace. In the middle of his room was a round table
with his typewriter. By the free wall was another table
and on that a special book-case he had had constructed in
such wise that a wooden side could be Slipped in, converting
it into a box, a convenience for a travelling man who could
not stir without books.
On those shelves were the few books he had gathered in
Europe. There was naturally no system about his col-
lection; three novels of Compton Mackenzie, Fleurs du
Mai, Koenigsmarck, the poems of Verlaine, a dozen cheap
French classics, Dulac's illustrations to Sinbad le Marin,
Wundt's Principles of Folk Psychology, three volumes of
de Maupassant, and others of less importance.
It was a pleasant room to lounge in, and to work in.
On chilly evenings the leaves were already fluttering
about on the pavements of the boulevards he made himself
a wood-fire on the French system, two or three logs of
fire lying across iron supports. But this was a mild day;
the sun came in aslant through the window and the room
looked warm where the light fell.
He could not settle to any reading or writing, so he sat
for a while by the fireplace, and stirred the ashes still
there, and broke dusty chips off the dried and half burned
logs, and mused on Carmen. His first keener pleasure
having passed away, he felt vaguely pleased with life in
general, and with his own life. He felt himself already
settled in Paris, free to wander, to come and go, to browse
in the kindly indifference of the city. He looked forward
to the winter, the warmth of the room, the fire, his books ;
outside, the streets, the people, the twilight on the city,
the turmoil and the gaiety.
He woke from his meditation with a sigh, and turned
44 THE OUTSIDER
to a bundle of manuscript that lay on the table, waiting
to be typed his first job in Paris, the gift of a stray ac-
quaintance, an old Englishman by the name of Lessar.
The machine began to tap spasmodically, gathered speed
into a rain of sounds.
He hummed to himself as he worked, and at moments
threw back his head and laughed for no reason at all.
CHAPTER III
HE found Carmen waiting for him outside the Lap in
Cuit. They saw each other a long way off, and both
smiled until they met, and smiled still more as they shook
hands.
* ' We are already like old friends, ' ' said Mortimer.
"My friend Mado is going to make fun of me," she told
him. "She is inside with Monsieur Ezra."
' ' Let her, "said Mortimer. ' ' Let 's go in. "
She hung back. "Let's go to another cafe," she sug-
gested shyly.
* ' No, no, no, ' ' said Mortimer vigorously. ' ' Allans. ' '
He swung the door open and let her in first. Ezra and
Mado were there, with old Cray. Mortimer saw at once
that the last was regally drunk, his silver-grey hair dis-
hevelled, and his face red. His lips were twitching as
if with thirst.
"How d'ye do, Long?" The old man got up and bowed
unsteadily. "Charming romance, I hear." With this he
collapsed and tried to drain something from an empty
glass.
The two girls sat together, Carmen radiant and half-
frightened, Mado with a mocking smile on her lips.
"Well, old girl, you've got him!" she whispered.
"You bet I've got him, and I won't let go," was the
whispered reply. Ezra caught the words and smiled too.
"Your little friend is very much in love with you, Mort-
imer, in advance. Has been for some time. ' '
"I'm not indifferent to her," confessed Mortimer, "and
she may know it. Come and sit next to me, Miss Carmen.
Never mind the nonsense of Mado. She is not serieuse."
45
46 THE OUTSIDER
Carmen changed over and sat next to Mortimer, but
she was still diffident.
"I'm afraid you're rather shy, Miss Carmen."
"Careful, Mortimer. That doesn't mean anything.
It's like your own gentlemanly embarrassment. It covers
what you know."
"No matter," said Mortimer. His spirits were run-
ning high. "I don't want her to be a lady. I only want
her to behave like one. Mademoiselle Carmen, I am rav-
ished to have made your acquaintance. In celebration
what will you drink?"
"Benedictine," said Cray, suddenly lifting his head.
"Coffee plain," said Carmen.
Mado was hilarious. "Do you call that celebration?
Cointreau! No coffee, Monsieur Mortimer. "
"Certainly not," said Mortimer. "Cafe afterwards,
if you like, chez-nous ' the last he added in sudden in-
spiration. His spirits went higher; his eyes sparkled.
"I mustn't," said Carmen. "I shall be drunk."
"Pooh, pooh, one Cointreau. Marius!"
Marius came through the swing-door sucking moisture
generously from his moustache.
"Who's here?" asked Mortimer, standing up and laugh-
ing. He looked round Renee and Edmond were opposite,
the latter making the best of Master's absence, and talking
earnestly with Renee; the yellow-faced girl, without the
baby this time; a few others he did not know.
"Marius take drinks to Edmond and Renee and their
friend and five Cointreaux to this table. Quick! You'll
drink at least one Cointreau this evening, to celebrate "
"You've said that before," interrupted Ezra.
"To celebrate," said Mortimer, more loudly, and smil-
ing at Carmen, "to celebrate our mutual independence."
THE OUTSIDER 47
"She doesn't understand you Mortimer," said Ezra.
"Expatiate, clarify, make it clear to simple intellects."
Marius brought the glasses and filled them as waiters
do in Paris, that is, with miraculous exactitude. The liquid
brimmed like silver to the rim of the glass a tiny drop
more and it would have run over.
"To celebrate," began Mortimer again, and lifted his
glass joyously, "to celebrate the proper and appropriate
addition to my demobilisation ; my discharge freed me from
all national obligations. Carmen this evening shall free me
from all social obligations."
"I shall pronounce the benediction," said Ezra suddenly.
"Stand up!"
Mortimer felt restraint slipping from him. Laughing
without reason he stood up, and made Carmen stand up
with him.
"Before we drink," said Ezra solemnly, "you shall repeat
and confirm; agree and promise. Carmen, you have been
chosen by my young friend, and you have chosen him. You
must understand before you accede."
"Oui, Monsieur Ezra."
"You shall promise to observe no promise. You shall
undertake the obligation to accept no obligation ; you shall
refuse in principle to love, honor or obey. Do you
promise ? ' '
"I do," said Mortimer.
"Oui, Monsieur Ezra."
"You shall further take to heart the responsibility of
irresponsibility, which is no light one. You shall not lie
about your emotions; you shall not bore each other; you
shall not believe that at any time you are anything more
to each other because of anything in the past. Do you
promise ? ' '
"I promise," said Mortimer.
48 THE OUTSIDER
"I also," said Carmen.
"Further," went on Ezra, rising on the wings of enthusi-
asm, "if I interpret the great occasion aright, you shall
meet each day as for the first time, as free as before you
spoke to each other, and therefore you shall never know
the ghastly phrase, 'to be true to each other.' You shall
ask no accounts and render none, no questions and answer
none "
"No loans and tender none," stuttered old Cray, and
laughed and hiccoughed.
"You shall love by a series of accidents," sang Ezra,
"or not at all, and he or she that suspects that the other
no longer loves, shall be the first to go. Do you under-
stand, Mortimer?"
"Yes."
' ' Do you understand, Carmen ? ' '
"Oui, Monsieur Ezra."
"Then," said Ezra, solemn again, "in the presence of
this assembly and calling the Great Spirit of Nothingness
to witness, I hereby pronounce you man and woman. ' '
"Bravo," stuttered Cray, standing up as the others sat
down. He held himself erect, racked his brain, and made
oratorical gestures, then suddenly sat down. "Bravo," he
repeated foolishly.
The others shouted with laughter.
"Bravo, Cray; your comment was illuminating," said
Ezra.
Cray grinned. "I thought I'd be able to think of some-
thing funny in time." He shook his head. "Dangerous
thing, impromptu speaking." He hiccoughed. "But I
wish I had your genius, Rich."
"I wish I had your sensations," said Ezra.
Carmen sat closer to Mortimer.
THE OUTSIDER 40
"Your friend is clever, n'est-ce-pasf" But her eyes were
all for Mortimer.
Mortimer's arm was around her.
"Yes," he said, watching her with close delight.
Mado looked with envy at Carmen, and in emulation
leaned to Ezra. Silence fell on the group for a while.
Then they whispered among themselves.
"Je t'aime, Mortimer," said Carmen, softly.
"I know it," he whispered, smiling in reply. "Pour un
jour, un mois, a jamaisf"
"Oui, Mortimer."
The same exchange was passing between Mado and Ezra.
Cray looked gloomily at one, then the other. They did
not notice him. He rose heroically. "Gobbleshyou, " he
said ironically. "Goodni'."
He made a stern effort to walk out straight, and tried
to have it that he touched the tables as he passed them not
for support, but in a sort of sprightliness. At the door he
turned round. "You only half believe yourshelves, " he
said, drunk and cynical. "Was different when I was
young. Can't make believe at my age." He shambled
out, pleased with his insight, but the young men had not
heard him.
"Carmen," said Mortimer softly. "Have you under-
stood what Ezra was talking about?"
"Oui, oui, Mortimer," she answered, understanding
only that he wanted her to have understood.
He did not believe she had understood, but he consoled
himself, thinking that it was not necessary for her to
understand. Her life was itself the spirit that he sought.
He fell into meditation on the unconscious consistency
of her life and on his own conscious efforts to amend a life
spoilt by others. He had begun badly. In his childhood
they had let him read the lives of "great men," in the
50 THE OUTSIDER
hope that he would simulate them. He had been taught
with murderous insistence that anybody with sufficient ef-
fort could achieve anything. They had encouraged in him
a secret childish conviction that he too could be a "great
man," but nobody knew how seriously he had believed it.
Other children perhaps read and regard the lives of great
men as they read and regard fables and fairy tales, find
in them a vague stimulation, but they are detached from
them. These are to them the things one reads about. But
he had taken hold of those lives and made them his own.
He too was going to astound the world. He too would
create cities in desert places.
The anguish of disillusionment came in his very early
manhood. Now, remembering the tortures through which
he had passed in the process of re-education, he cursed with
hearty simplicity the stupidity of his parents and relatives
and friends. What infernal right had they had to expect
him to be great ? "What right to be disappointed if he did
not turn out so ? Why had they tampered with his natural
outlook? He was not predisposed to vanity; the belief in
his eventual greatness had been acquired by persistent
training. How bitter had been the undoing of that belief
and, more than that, how cruel had been the path to
indifference towards the opinion of his relatives and friends !
It had been easier to reconcile himself to his obscurity than
to conjure up (as he foolishly did) the disappointment of
his friends. In the end he achieved the second by realising
that they did not in reality care; that their interest in
him, and their disappointment, were largely conversa-
tional.
Having realised this, he had cast them off from him.
They had fooled him. For their spiritual convenience, for
the sake of sustaining their own foolish and shallow in-
terest, they had stretched him on the rack, and tried to
THE OUTSIDER 51
mould him regardless of his own will. And they did
not really care. In the end he found himself completely.
Their interest was essentially meaningless; it need not
trouble him a whit.
But Carmen, he reflected, was different. She was by
nature what he had become at last by effort. She had
not been cursed with an instilled ambition and belief in
a destiny. She had never asked more than the obscurity
she had always lived in. She could pass out of life and
leave not one regret behind her. Surely it was that which,
consciously or not, made her life serene. So he meditated,
not aware of her thoughts.
Ezra, too, had fallen into thought. The cafe had become
quiet, and the quiet pleased both men. Mortimer spoke
a word now and again to Carmen, but for the most part
kept to the tenor of his thoughts.
After a while new people came into the cafe, among them
Gorman and Teddy, and their companions. Gorman made
at once for Mortimer's table, and sat down.
"Long, I've brought you your money back."
Mortimer shook himself and smiled.
"That's quicker than you thought."
"Yes," he lowered his voice. "I made some good money
today. I told you I 'd give you one hundred francs or two
hundred for that loan. I'm going to do it."
' ' I don 't want it, ' ' said Mortimer. ' ' Not now, anyway. ' '
Gorman took out a bundle of notes.
"You'd be welcome to it, Long, God's truth."
Mortimer shook his head again. "Another time, if
I need money, Gorman."
Gorman counted out five one hundred franc notes from
a bundle of perhaps twenty-five. "Here it is." He put
them in Mortimer's hand. "Don't forget. If you need
52 THE OUTSIDER
money ever, and I've got it ." He put back the other
notes. ' ' And now you can have something on me. ' '
"Not now," said Mortimer. "We're going now."
They called Marius and paid him.
"Another evening, Gorman," said Mortimer. "I'll be
here long enough. ' '
The four of them went up to the hotel. Mortimer's room
looked irresistibly cosy ; a fire was burning on the iron sup-
ports, and red lights danced on the edges of the tables and
the dresser. They took chairs on either side of the fire and
settled themselves comfortably. Both men had their pipes
going. In Mortimer's heart was ineffable content. Car-
men was on the arm of the chair, nearer the fire. The
light struck up against her throat and lips and eyelids
as she smiled down at Mortimer.
"One feels well here," she sighed. "I wish I had a
room like this. But you need flowers on the table."
Ezra raised his head lazily. "Nip that instinct of hers
in the bud, Mortimer. She wants to do things to your
room already."
"I need no flowers on the table, Carmen," said Mort-
imer. "I also tell you in advance, Carmen, that I need
no socks darning and no buttons sewing."
"Listen," she protested, almost blushing, "did I say
anything about that?"
"No, but you might be tempted."
"My friend is not like me, Carmen," explained Ezra,
waving his pipe. "Mado can darn my socks to her heart's
content, and sew on all the buttons that are fallen off.
I confess to a baulked domestic instinct. Mortimer de-
spises that. I miss being a bourgeois with a fat wife and
noisy children. Mortimer is at the other end of the world.
You will put him in a frenzy if you mention socks or
THE OUTSIDER 53
laundry, if you offer female help or try to introduce the
feminine touch into his life."
''My friend has me," said Mortimer. "You have to
be very careful, Carmen. I think we'll have some coffee."
He pressed the bell over the fireplace.
"My friend," continued Ezra, mockingly, "is in eternal
terror of being mistaken for a bourgeois, or of becoming
one in fact. He would rather have holes in his stockings
than let an adoring woman darn them. He is so busy not
being bourgeois that he never has time for anything else."
"Rats," said Mortimer, refusing to be drawn. "A
bourgeois is a man who gets excited when he is called a
bourgeois. Such being the case I make no further com-
ment. ' '
The proprietor knocked gently at the door.
"Four cafes, Monsieur," said Mortimer.
"Oui, Monsieur."
"Not good enough," said Ezra. "A bourgeois is a man
that goes by conceptions."
"He is Matthew Arnold's poet," said Mortimer, "who
goes through life with appropriate emotions. ' '
"This is vieux jeu, Mortimer. I fear that a bourgeois
is merely one who loves to talk a lot about the bourgeois."
"Finally," said Mortimer, "a bourgeois is a man who
knows what bourgeois means. ' '
"This is getting too fine," protested Ezra. "Though I
know, to define true madness, what is it but to be mad
one's self?"
"I shall get a headache soon," said Mortimer, "to
prove that I am not a bourgeois."
The coffee came in dainty array on an old metal platter
that glinted in the firelight, so pretty that Mortimer en-
joyed more the fact of taking coffee than the coffee itself.
He was browsing, as if in warm broad sunlight. He
54 THE OUTSIDER
watched the dark corners of the room, the books in the
bookshelf. He felt inexpressible peace. How well Ezra
fell in with him! He never talked too much, he never
insisted on his views. He just made aimless remarks from
time to time. And the girls sat silent, smiling and pensive.
"They must have curious conceptions at home why I
want to stay in Paris," said Mortimer, suddenly amused.
"They think I want to lead a wild life; father pictures
me in a whirl of naked arms and fluttering lingerie."
"He would be disappointed if he saw you now." sug-
gested Ezra.
"Worse, frightened. A man that wants to stay in Paris
to do this must be abnormal, which is worse than wicked. ' '
He rubbed his head against Carmen's arm. "Carmen,
you are the wickedness dreamed of by my forefathers, the
Scarlet Woman, the Ancient Babylonian Horror."
Ezra laughed aloud. "It isn't nice to call her an an-
cient Babylonian Horror. How old are you, Carmen ? ' '
"Twenty-two."
"As much as that?" said Mortimer surprised. "She
looks nineteen. Poor little Carmen, valiant little Car-
men " he purred against her, like a cat, smiling all the
time.
Ezra emptied his pipe, stretched himself, and rose.
"I feel contented this evening, Mortimer; why, I don't
know; perhaps a reflection of your mood. Goodnight."
He went out with Mado. Mortimer and Carmen re-
mained wordless in their places.
The flames on the logs had died into a hundred little
leaves that played among oharred crevices. The lights
danced no more on the edge of the furniture; there was
only a still glow through all the room, darkening into the
far corners. The minutes went by, one after the other.
The sense of time weighed on Mortimer then, as it al-
THE OUTSIDER 55
ways did in contentment. He felt that this was a respite
from life, and, even as he felt it, it was passing from him
a caress and a farewell remorseless in its gentleness.
He leaned his head closer to Carmen and found rest, but
rest that hurt, like sudden physical repose after long,
agonising effort. He wanted to speak, to give utterance
to the indefinite fear that was starting up within him.
How impermanent is this happiness, he thought. There
is not time enough to say, it is mine. In its very cradle
it is oppressed by the sense of its own mortality like our-
selves, like all life. This is the sadness that haunts all
living things, that broods in the sunlight, that stands like
an eternal sentinel behind our merriment.
"Carmen," he said, and her arm went closer around him.
CHAPTER IV
Paris, October, 1919.
Dear Wilfred :
I do believe it is well over a year since we last heard
from each other, so that instead of apologising for the
delay I might as well apologise for troubling the dust on
ancient memories. But this being written almost entirely
for my personal amusement, I don't think I will apologise
at all.
You must have heard from various sources that I was
not returning to the States. There must have been a reg-
ular flutter over there when the news leaked out. Perhaps
they don't believe it yet. But if they ask you, tell them
it's true or better still, tell them that you don't know.
Somehow it displeases me to imagine them lifting their
eyebrows and saying, "Well, well, so Mortimer Long's
staying in Paris for good." Why this should displease me
is not clear except it's my old sensitiveness about other
people's making comments on my business.
But here I'm staying, old Wilfred. I have no regrets
for America, or, to be more exact, for the collection of
foolish people I knew over there. It is really astonishing
how indifferent one can become. Where you are now, I
have no doubt, you feel yourself inextricably imprisoned
in the coil of these personalities; you cannot imagine com-
plete liberation. Yet it is so easy to achieve. You realize
here, so quickly, that your disappearance creates very little
disturbance.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. If there are a few people
over there, you, old Professor Worton, and one or two
more, who do regret me, it's of no importance. You few
56
THE OUTSIDER 57
are, as a matter of fact, those people whose interest in me
I resented most the ones who were most convinced that
I had a future, the ones for whom I sacrificed any natural
dignity that I possessed to prove, if I could, that I was
not what I was.
I forgive you now, because I have given up in all peace-
fulness the intention of living up to your expectations.
Take this, if you like, as a sort of official notice that I
withdraw from the contract which you thrust on me. I
even repudiate any suggestion that I owe you this notice.
But you are welcome to it.
I am at peace in Paris. This morning I had a good
sleep in Notre Dame, and woke up to the sound of an organ.
You do not know what it means to sleep and wake up in
Notre Dame. It is unique among sensations. When I
was awake I tried to outstare one of the gargoyles. That
is a desperate experiment, and nearly as good for driving
a man to the uncertain limits of sanity as staring an
hour or two into an abyss. After a while you are not quite
sure whether you are inspecting the gargoyle so curiously
or whether that staring, grinning gargoyle is inspecting
you, and getting a deal of secret fun out of it, too. After
another little while you believe you are both gargoyles and
will stand there outstaring each other till the end of the
world. Did you ever lie flat in your bed, with your arms
straight at your side and your feet stretched out stiff and
your toes perpendicular, and hypnotise yourself into the
belief that you were dead and in a coffin? I suppose you
have done this most people do it at some time or other,
and think they are alone to do it. The sensation with the
gargoyle is much the same.
When I shook that gargoyle off (it got the better of me
in the end so much so that I was ashamed to walk away
from it, and felt it staring rigidly after me all the way
58 THE OUTSIDER
down the aisle) I went out into the sunlight and wandered
down by the river. Sunlight on the Seine! You don't
get that anywhere else. There is a special combination
and it can't be transported.
I wandered over old cobble-stoned streets and looked into
hopeless shop-windows in tangled districts near the Latin
Quarter. I had lunch somewhere up there (I am becom-
ing an expert in cheap lunches in Paris and need to)
in a miraculously small restaurant where I heard some
excellent Auvergne patois, for nothing. I didn 't understand
a word, but I enjoyed it.
After that I wandered down the quays where the books
are and bought a tattered history of Russia in French.
Why ? I have no idea. It is another form of kleptomania.
And there was something pathetic about the volume. Also
I spent half-an-hour at that stall amused by some early
nineteenth century colored drawings pinned up on the
walls of the cases, and this volume was the cheapest con-
sistent with the expectations I must have raised in the
old lady's bosom. There's a horrible rapacity about some
of these book-sellers, Anatole France notwithstanding.
They watch you from their chairs with terrifying close-
ness, so convinced that you are about to steal a book that
they almost mesmerize you into doing it.
In the afternoon I was up in the room here, and I
worked. I am almost earning my living here, by a sort
of accidental honesty, the only decent way. Yes, that
brings me back to my new-old philosophy ; this life of ours
is really an accident, and what drove me from you set of
people was the belief of yours that we can make it any-
thing else. You would be so pleasant if you hadn't always
your aims
One umpty-umpty-umpty urn
To which the whole creation moves
THE OUTSIDER 59
as Tennyson characteristically sings. You people spoil
all the purposeful purposelessness of life.
I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow, or the day
after, or next week, or the week after, or next year, or the
year after. If you knew the contentment this ignorance
means the freedom ! It is a pure wilderness as it should
be.
"Well, something too much of this. I wish you knew Car-
men instead. She is sitting opposite me just now, filled
with admiration and astonishment at the rapidity with
which I write. Her brown eyes are open with wonder. She
believes me a marvel of erudition, of ability a genius in
full. But she expects nothing from me but to be what I
am. She does not tacitly assume that I am going to do
great things and then throw the onus on me. She thinks
I am perfection as I am down to my physical appearance.
She goes the whole hog in admiration.
I've known her, in reality, about three weeks, though I
saw her often before I got to know her. Now I 've known
her three weeks I know as much as I ever shall know. She
will never protest that I do not understand her. She doesn't
know that such a thing exists, a sort of entity, "being mis-
understood" for she's never read the books.
Yes, that reminds me, too, that passion of ours for being
understood, especially as between man and woman, the
foolishest of all passions. Why the devil be understood
or try to understand anyone ? Why this indelicate prying
into each other, the effort to get the very guts out of each
other's mentality? It must have been part of your comic
belief in your own and each other's ultimate purpose in
the Great Plan bless you all over there.
To return to Carmen. She would be an education to
you people. (She hasn't the slightest notion that I am
writing about her. She couldn't for the life of her imagine
60 THE OUTSIDER
how one could write a whole page about her). She is an
education to me. She is the beloved personification of what
I have found in Paris. She is the wraith of the unattached,
the female incarnation (though that phrase reminds one
of the ineffably silly personifications of Watts) of the aim-
lessness of life. She has neither forethought nor after-
thought. She desires neither permanence nor fixation ;
neither, so to speak, a local habitation nor a name. She is
every hour what she is. It would be outside her conception
of things to understand the question ' ' Carmen, what about
next year?"
You would imagine, as you see here there, that she is
thinking about something. She isn't. She looks at the
silly model of the Eiffel Tower on the mantelpiece (she
bought me that for ten francs out of twenty I gave her two
days ago when she was broke) and meditates on that with
pleasure. Then she looks at me and meditates on me with
pleasure. Then she looks at the typewriter, and at me
again, and at the bookshelves and back at me. She looks as
tranquil and placid and immovable as a plump china shep-
herdess. But if I stretch out my hand across this table and
caress hers, and look into her eyes, with mine wide open, she
wakes slowly, and a curtain lifts from her pupils, and the
glow comes out, and a subtle change comes over her, and
the tigress awakes.
However, I oughtn't to write to you about this.
What I like about her is the tacit way she accepts what
she is. She doesn't bother as to the reason or as to the
reality or the end. If she could utter herself, she would
say, with profound conviction, "what is, is." She does
not wish to know Whither We Are Tending, or how long
she will love me, or I her, or whether I love her, in fact,
which is still incertain. (But I am not at all sure that "to
be in love" any longer represents anything so distinct to
THE OUTSIDER 61
me. I am not at all sure that I ought to use such words
to people like you, who make a whole world of circumstance
out of them.) As to imagining Carmen building a claim
on her love that is the last word in impossibility. It docs
not occur to her that when two people love (or approxi-
mately love) as we do, there is something dreadful and de-
finite and decisive to do about it, move worlds, excite friends,
and make a frightful fuss and all sorts of drastic and
eternal arrangements. It just doesn 't come into the natural
purity of her mind. She doesn't make a social epic out of
it, a tremendous and calamitous public event. " Je t'aime."
That's about her only view about it, and I think it's to
the point.
I can see a solid curiosity awakening in you, Wilfred,
or you are no friend and pupil of old Worton. You ask
already, ' ' Give me details ; how does she live ? Where was
she born? What becomes of her in the end?" For no
sufficient reason I can call up I shall tell you what I know.
She was born in Normandy, and lived there until she was
nineteen. She led a miserable life with her parents, and in
the end they sent her to an aunt in le Havre. The aunt was
only ten years older than Carmen. With this aunt she
lived until about a year ago. They fell out about the
British soldiers. Carmen's aunt appears to have been a hor-
rible sort of person. I can't go into the details as I ex-
tracted them indirectly from Carmen. She herself (the
aunt, I mean) was desperately attached to a Captain, but
she could not understand Carmen's weakness for an im-
pecunious Corporal called Harry. The word impecunious
is significant there, as officers with means had indicated
to the aunt that the niece did not displease them. The aunt
encouraged a couple or more of these officers, and insisted
fiercely to Carmen that there was no reason why she could
not be good to all of them. In the end Carmen was de-
62 THE OUTSIDER
feated, for the aunt threatened to pack her out of the
house. I can imagine the poor little provincial kid, hated
at home (she was, roundly) and lost in the whole world.
To be turned out of the house meant accepting something
worse than the aunt offered her. So she stayed with her
aunt and the British officers. As a matter of fact they seem
to have been decent fellows, because when they found out
about each other (the astute aunt got the time-table mixed
up and her nerve couldn't carry the situation off at the
last moment) two of them gave Carmen a very handsome
present before saying adieu to her.
The presents brought her to Paris one night absolutely
alone, and without a trade. I think she had about six
hundred francs in all when she got here. She got a job
first as a bonne a tout faire, a general servant, but didn't
hold that for more than a month. Then she got the grippe.
Then she worked in a restaurant near the Place de la Re-
publique and fell ill after two months of it. After that she
was a theatre attendant. Now she is working in a toy
factory.
Her average salary was two hundred francs a month (not
of course as a servant; there she got much less). How
does one live on two hundred francs a month ? The propo-
sition is simpler than it looks. One has a friend. That
is a natural and understood thing. If you don't have a
friend it means something worse the streets. Carmen
was rather fortunate. She found an American (my pre-
decessor, I might say) but he went back to America a few
months ago. His name was Jim. (Nobody has a second
name to Carmen, of course). He sent her, until very re-
cently, ten dollars every month, but that has stopped now.
That was the reason that Carmen could afford the luxury
of taking lunch in a more than modest restaurant where she
saw me for a long time before we got to know each other.
THE OUTSIDER 63
Afford is relative here. The ten dollars did not quite cover
the cost of those lunches. At her atelier the lunch only
costs one franc, so the ten dollars about covered the differ-
ence in the expense. Moreover, bread in our restaurant is
without limit, so you can make a very heavy meal of it, and
that helps to tide over the supper.
She is making two hundred and fifty francs a month at
her factory now. She pays a hundred a month for her
room. That leaves her five francs a day for food, clothing,
incidentals and accidents. I believe she can actually live
on that, bar the -clothing. For that she would have to rely
on windfalls, me in this case. Between me and Jim she has
saved over fifty francs on the road to a new dress. She
wants one for one hundred and fifty. I offered to make up
the difference, but she has suspicions concerning my im-
pecuniosity and was almost indignant at the offer. How-
ever, she has not broken into her fifty francs, and, with
me replacing Jim, she hopes to have the hundred and fifty
by December. She needs a hat in the interim. She'll do
without, she says. She keeps close tab on what I give her
and has sworn that she will never let me spend more than
a hundred francs a month on her.
I know that in your mind the instant question arises,
1 ' How do I know that I alone "... Well, I can 't put the
question without making the suspicion read unspeakably
mean and, as it were, you accordingly. Curiously, apart
from the fact that I haven't any such suspicion, the ques-
tion doesn 't trouble me. As I look at her now I am blasted
by the impudence of such thoughts. She and I never ask
any question of that kind of each other. Not yet, anyway.
Never will, I think.
Writing as an American, to an American (meaning that
I can't shake off the American figure of speech in my
thoughts) it is very hard to shut out of these pages the faint
64 THE OUTSIDER
suggestion that I want to defend Carmen and myself from
implied charges of vulgarity. In ordinary language, in the
set phrases of our conceptions, one cannot convey individ-
ual things. These phrases are like newspaper headlines,
and the conceptions lump us together.
No, I cannot say what I want to. Perhaps I had better
leave that side of the thing. You are not quite like the
others, after all. Only I am afraid that you might suspect
me of doing something grandly unconventional, and so on.
Which I'm not. I'm not doing anything at all. That's
the humor of it.
Now, on my oath, I am half continuing this letter because
it tickles me to see Carmen 's astonishment at the prodigious
length of it. And partly, I confess, I like writing without
obligation. Take it for granted that you are the only per-
son in the world that I care to write to; there's some
pleasure in telling you aimlessly all about it, and I like to
see it on paper. I tell you everything casually, if you please
(a distinction hard to catch; there's no nuance between
writing a letter and not writing it; and when it's written,
and at such length, too, you might be justified in thinking
that I wrote deliberately, in the heavy determination to ex-
plain myself).
I don't think it's fair to impose on Carmen any more.
She believes this letter to be a frightfully important docu-
ment. She's tired, and wants to talk a little to me. Be
good.
Ever yours,
Mortimer,
Paris, October, 1919.
Dear Dad :
I had your letter telling me that you had been expecting
a cable any day from Brest that I was coming back. Ap-
THE OUTSIDER 65
parently you wouldn't take me seriously when I wrote
you that I wasn't coming home, that I was staying in Paris
for good. This letter will inform you that I was demob-
ilised here about three weeks ago and I'm settling down.
It's about two years since I left home to join the army.
You mustn't think that after these two years I could put
up with home life as I used to. It took the war and the
army to tear me away from all that. And I'm not going
back.
It's no use me being foolish and sentimental about things.
You and I have quarelled often enough for you to know
what I think. It's no use writing me how glad the boys '11
be to see me, and how the Elks are planning something for
me and the rest of it. I've got no taste for all that any
more; and I won't take up the old life for the sake of the
first few pleasant days.
Your letter makes the usual joke about some pretty
French demoiselle tempting me not to stay here. I suppose
it's no use writing to you that that has nothing to do
with it, and that long before Armistice was signed my mind
was made up ? It's too long a story to tell you exactly why
I want to stay here; and I've told you the substance of it
often enough at home, I guess.
You and I are of different make; you like your home,
(quarrels and everything else included) your neighbors
and Deacon Ryan and Ben Weston and his Times; you
think that's the best way of living, happy or not, or the
only way of living that's decent. You and mother and Sis
belong to one bunch and I to another. Of course I'd lik*e
to see you now and again; but I can't pretend I want to
live at home. I can't pretend that I like to have Ben Weston
jawing all the evening about politics and his damn silly
paper, or pretend to mother that I like being in when Mrs.
Weston and Mrs. Settles call, or pretend to Sis that I want
66 THE OUTSIDER
to go to those dances at Horrocks. And that 's all there is
to do at home; except the young folks, and there isn't one
worth a nickle stays in the home town.
That's why I'm not coming home. Now you'll ask me
why I don't at least come back to the States. That's an-
other story and a longer one; or rather, it's the same story
told in a different way. It wouldn't be any use my going
into it. I'm not coming back. That's all.
You can ask Fred Ainsley to sell my Indian and the
canoe and the tent, and give him my address.
Remember me to a few folks here and there. Try and
look in an unsentimental way at my staying here. I 'm sure
you and mother and Sis got along quite comfortably with-
out me these last two years. You 've got the habit now, and
I want you to take advantage of it.
Your son,
Mortimer.
This second letter ended, Mortimer drew a deep breath
and put the pen down. These were his last letters for a
long time, so he did not begrudge the energy. He rose from
his chair, laughed at Carmen, and walked a couple of times
up and down the room to unstiffen himself. He had on an
old purple bathrobe that through astonishing vicissitudes
had accompanied him from his first camp to Paris. This
bathrobe was beloved of Carmen. She had not, she con-
fessed, ever known a man who wore a bathrobe, at least,
in her presence.
"Well, have you finished?"
"Owi, my little one."
"Tell me what you have written there."
Mortimer plumped himself in the armchair and signalled
Carmen to her perch. She knew his favorite arrangement.
"I have written a long letter to a friend to tell him he's
THE OUTSIDER 67
foolish and I'm wise. And I've written a short letter to
my father to tell him I can 't leave Paris as long as Carmen
is there."
"Ah non," she cried, "did you really write that to your
father?"
"Yes," he said, stretching up to her, and pulling her
ear. "I wrote that to him. Or, if I didn't, he thinks it
anyway."
' ' Oh, he will be angry. ' '
"That's true," confessed Mortimer. "But am I not
old enough to know what I want?"
"Yes, you already have some grey hairs."
"The devil!" He had not spoken so seriously. "Grey
hairs? I'm only twenty-five, Carmen."
"But you have some grey hairs," she persisted. "I
found them."
"Where are they? Bring me the little mirror."
She brought the shaving mirror from the wash-stand and
held i-t over his head at an angle.
"Look," she said, parting his hair with her fingers.
"Here's one grey hair, and here's another, and here's a
whole cluster of them."
He saw the glint among the dark-brown tangle.
"That's funny," he said, after a pause. "It's the first
grey hair I've seen on my head." He was silent.
"Have I made you 'angry, Mortimer?" she asked tim-
idly.
He shook his head. ' ' No, no, you didn 't put them there. ' '
"But I told you about them."
"That's nothing. I suppose every man's first grey hairs
are discovered and pointed out by a woman."
She was genuinely distressed.
"But that doesn't matter, little one," she protested. "I
68 THE OUTSIDER
had an uncle whose hair was all white at twenty-five, and
he was a young man till he was sixty."
Mortimer shook his head, smiling. Her distress touched
him, but the grey hair was a shock to him.
"If all my hair was white, Carmen," he said, with a
heavy assumption of sentimentality, "would you love me?"
"Vas!" she said, fiercely. "I would love you if you
were bald."
He jumped in his chair. "It's more than I can say,
Carmen," he said. "I couldn't look at you if you were
bald."
She laughed genuinely. "I shall never be bald. I shall
be dead before."
"Did your uncle ever grow bald, Carmen. Or did he
go bald subsequently and preserve his youth nevertheless?"
"Dis done, are you trying to kid?" she asked. "He
didn't go bald at all."
"You never had a bald uncle then?" he inquired.
"Non, never," she said, seriously. "Really, this uncle
kept his hair although they were white. They never fell
out."
"Did he use any hair-restorer?"
She realised he was making fun of her. "I won't speak
to you any more, ' ' she sai'd. ' ' You never take me seriously. ' '
"Come, Carmen," he said, looking at his wrist-watch.
"Shall we revel? Shall we go to the cinema or shall we
play Jonchets."
"What you like, Mortimer, it's all the same to me as
long as you are there."
"No," he roared suddenly, rising from his chair.
"Don't be eternally affectionate. I can't stand that croon-
ing tone of voice." He rushed up and down the room,
Carmen after him, half laughing, half frightened.
"Non, non, then, let's play Jonchets."
THE OUTSIDER 60
"Cinema too expensive?" asked Mortimer, stopping ab-
ruptly.
"Yes. We'll go the cinema next Saturday night."
"Then we'll play Jonchets."
Jonchets is a French indoor game which might be trans-
lated as "Jack Straws." It is the ultimate in simplicity. A
little close pile of wooden objects is thrown on to the table.
The game is to lift the pieces away one by one with two
little wooden prongs, but each piece must be removed with-
out disturbing any other piece. The slightest shock to
another piece, a mere quiver, is a disqualification. A player
appropriates each piece as detached, and the one with most
pieces at the end of the game is the winner.
The very inanity of the game appealed to Mortimer. He
took the box off the mantelpiece and both of them sat down
at table. Mortimer upset the heap.
"You first, Carmen."
"Mortimer, you musn't shake the table and pretend it
was me."
"No, no. And you musn't pretend it was me who shook
the table."
"Well, you begin instead."
"No, you begin instead."
They smiled at each other. Mortimer could sense how
the mere exchange of words, even his mere presence, was to
Carmen an intense joy. The intensity of that joy, its pas-
sionate immanence, amazed him. She did not forget, not
for an instant.
He took up the wooden fork and negotiated the first scrap ;
both of them hung breathlessly over the table, Mortimer
putting his tongue out as if forgetting himself in the game.
He puffed with excitement as he detached the first piece
without accident. Carmen was hypnotised by his affected
excitement. He stopped pulling at the second fragment
70 THE OUTSIDER
and looked slyly and with profound amusement at her earn-
est face, at the eyes fixed almost in terror on the wooden
prong. She realised after a moment that the hand was
motionless, looked up at Mortimer in a mixture of re-
lief and disappointment.
"Oh, you are not playing."
"No," he said, softly, and, keeping his eyes on her, al-
lowed a curious, fixed look to come into them. A little
smile came over his lips. He stretched out his hand and
took hers very gently. Her face lit slowly. Her lips
opened and she took a deep breath. Mortimer, still smil-
ing half mockingly, stroked her hand continuously. After
a little while she could not bear it any longer. She uttered
a cry and took a swift step towards him. He sprang back,
and the mockery in his eyes became quite open.
"Ha?" He held her at arms' length.
"Mortimer," she whispered. "You mustn't."
"No," he agreed, keeping his head to one side. "I
mustn't. Now let's go back to the Jonchets."
She uttered a deep sigh as of resignation, and went back
to the table with him. "Now play seriously," she begged
him.
"As serious as serious can be," he said, gravely. Labor-
iously he played the second fragment. Slowly he drew
Carmen again into her first almost mortal absorption. Her
eyes were only on his hand and yet, by an occasional glance,
he was aware that she was mimicking with a comical in-
genuousness his every grimace, his exaggerated relief as
the fragment moved freely out of entanglement, his ex-
aggerated anguish as it entered another. Finally, the
prong in his trembling fingers suddenly disturbed the
wrong fragment, and Carmen uttered a cry of terror.
"I have lost," said Mortimer solemnly, passing a hand-
THE OUTSIDER 71
kerchief over his brow. "Your turn, Carmen. I have
only one."
She smiled joyously. "Voild!" She put her nose al-
most on the fragments as she worked on the one Mortimer
had failed on. After incredible anxieties she freed it. She
was radiant. "I've won, I've done it!" she crowed.
"It's true," he admitted. "You are younger than I, and
your nerves are better. ' '
"Don't you want to play any more?" she asked.
"No," he decided suddenly. "I'll sit and read." II >
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<m, little one."
THE OUTSIDER 75
''I think you are wrong, Carmen. It's Thursday. How
much money have you got?"
"Seven francs."
"You'd better take ten more; or let's say fifteen, till
Saturday evening."
' ' I don 't need so much, Mortimer. Only ten. ' '
He gave her fifteen, in spite of her protestations. "And
Carmen, don't buy me any postage stamps or Moroccan
cigarettes. If you do, this time I'll really throw them
away. ' '
"Oui, mon petit." Her tone was submissive now.
"Come, pauvre petit Carmen; don't be out of mood. I've
never seen you like this before."
She did not respond. He fell to thinking again; was
she seeing him too often? If this were so, it could be
arranged. If she was, indeed, reverting to trained feminine
type, it was because she had never asked in vain to see
him. It was Thursday; he would refuse to see her again
till Monday. Now she had money enough until she had
received her pay, he need not worry about her. Yes, he
would send her away this evening, though it would hurt her.
"Listen, petit Carmen. This evening you must go. I
feel as if I want to be alone."
She covered her face and began to cry. Mortimer set
his teeth and sat still, though he could not bear her crying.
"You will go now Carmen."
"Oh, Mortimer, do not be angry with me. I will not be
naughty again."
"But I am not angry with you, Carmen," he said, gently.
' ' You do not understand. I want to be alone this evening. ' '
She took her hat 'and coat quietly. Mortimer noticed,
as for the first time, how old and shabby they were and his
heart smote him for the brave little woman. He was tempted
to let her stay, it meant so much to her, but he checked this
76 THE OUTSIDER
instinct, thinking of future and greater troubles. He
helped her on with her coat and took her to the door of the
room.
"Will you be tomorrow at the Lapin Cuit, Mortimer?"
"Non, man petit, only Monday evening."
"Monday!" She started back as if stung. Mortimer
set his lips.
"Monday evening."
She stood before him as if petrified, then she mastered
herself suddenly.
"Yes, Monday evening," she repeated. "Goodnight,
Mortimer. Don't come out of the hotel."
She offered her trembling lips, and as he kissed her, she
clung to him and whispered fiercely something he could
not catch. When she was gone, he felt a strange relief
which made him thoughtful. There was something op-
pressive in Carmen's strength, of affection. He had not
meant things in this way.
An hour later an idea struck him. He turned out the
light and went to the window. Drawing the curtain aside
a little, he looked down into the street. There, in the
broad, dark doorway opposite, she was standing, her face
turned up to his window.
He turned back into the room, the beginnings of a curious
fear stirring in his heart.
CHAPTER V
BEFORE nightfall on the Saturday following, Mortimer
was walking slowly up and down the central path of the
Tuileries Gardens, tired of reading and a little tired of
himself. Throughout the length of the vista, from the
rectangle of the Louvre away to the stately Arch of
Triumph, the leaves were falling apace. The quiet wind
carried some of them across his path and he trod on them
in his walking. He watched them drifting obliquely, turn-
ing desperately as they drifted, as if in impotent protest
against their fall. He was in mute sympathy with their
protest; the last memories of summer were passing and, it
seemed, no one could do anything about it.
He remembered so well having seen two Springs in the
one year when he came to France. In the February of that
year he had seen the first buds breaking in the trees scat-
tered through the camp in North Carolina. The recollec-
tion came over him vividly. There had hardly been an in-
terval between the winter desolation in the camp, the frozen
nights 'and trees of stone, and the mildness of Spring, the
buds perching like multitudinous green swarms on the
twigs, murmuring with their myriad, myriad voices in
the sunlight. Then they had left this camp, gone North,
crossed the Atlantic in eighteen dreary days, and returned
to winter desolation in France. There, in April and May,
he had seen the process repeated, the first shrill green start-
ing on the stark branches, the first spring winds consoling
the meadows for their long tribulation. Now the leaves of
a second year were falling and his presence seemed an ac-
quiescence in the tireless process.
Assuredly there was something sadly naive about Nature,
77
78 THE OUTSIDER
or how could she go on with the farce year after year ? Did
not the trees ever remember, when the joyous buds appeared
on their branches, that only a year ago, and every year for
many years past, the same green freshness had appeared,
and only a few months ago these leaves had fallen, tattered
and sinfully old ? How did the trees find the heart to re-
joice in the Spring, knowing it was all a deception played
a thousand times over, a cruel joke with the humor long
since evaporated?
But he himself was no better, for already he looked for-
ward with longing to the Spring, to the newness and kind-
liness of air and light. Why did he look forward? Had
he not passed through many Springs and come to as many
Autumns and Winters ? Would this coming Spring be kind-
lier than all those that had preceded it ? Who could say ?
Perhaps it would. Perhaps he would not be here in Paris,
after all. His eyes went back to the book
Et qui, en Italic,
N'a son grain de folie?
Qui ne donne aux amours
Ses plus beaux jours?
And who, in Italy,
Tell me, is folly-free?
Who gives not to love's praise
His happiest days?
He looked up and saw a familiar face, stopped in aston-
ishment, and rushed forward with outstretched hand.
"Odette!"
The blond girl stopped as he had stopped, stared for a
moment, uttered a little scream, and clasped his hand in
both of hers. "Look! le petit Mortimer."
THE OUTSIDER 79
' ' What are you doing here ? When did you come ? ' ' The
questions danced on his tongue. He laughed with the sud-
den pleasure. Odette! Good old Odette! "What are you
doing in Paris?" he asked again.
"Passing through it tomorrow morning to Brussels."
' ' How long have you been here ? ' '
"Since nine o'clock this morning. I came from Bor-
deaux. ' '
"What luck!" he burst out. He laughed again and
pressed her hand. "Where are you eating tonight?"
"With my sister. She has an apartment in Neuilly."
"Oh no you're not. You're eating with me in the Rat
Mort. Do you remember Peace Night in Bordeaux ? ' '
Her eyes sparkled. "Mais zoui!"
"You're eating with me this evening," he said again.
"Tell you what; I was beginning to have the blues with
the fall of the leaves, like the young man going to the
cemetery in the poem where the depouille de nos bois was
jonche'd on the earth and the nightingale was without voice.
You and Juliette shall dine with me and my friend Ezra.
Say oui! If you say non I shall fall into a sadness, thence
into a fast, thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, thence
to a lightness and by this declension into the madness
wherein now I rave."
He delivered this rapidly and in curious French.
"Oui, oui, Mortimer. It falls wells. We were going to
have a lonely supper in the apartment. Think of that:
one evening in Paris and that spent with my sister in the
apartment."
"Let's go, Odette! We will call for my friend Ezra.
He's a nice boy. Then we'll go to Neuilly and bring Juli-
ette and we'll eat no, we'll eat at Monico's and we'll dance
afterwards; I know a place where they dance till three
80 THE OUTSIDER
in the morning. Do you remember foxtrotting in the
Allee de Tourny?"
They went out towards the rue de Rivoli. A recklessness
had descended on Mortimer; the Winter was coming and
Spring was a long, long way off. Were the last memories of
Summer to die so tamely ? Perish the thought ! One last
revel and Odette was there, the merriest boon companion
in the world.
"Taxi!" They would do everything in great style.
He was sick of penuriousness.
They climbed in, laughing like children.
' ' Hotel Pieault, rue St. Honore. And then Neuilly and
then Montmartre. Fast, chauffeur, we've only one evening
in Paris. This is how I love to see Paris sometimes, Odette,
through a taxi window. To the devil with private cars.
A man who owns a private car can fait la bombe every
evening, and there's no joy in his life. But a taxi shows
you only do it when you feel like it and have the money
by chance."
Odette put up her dainty feet against the wall opposite
and took off her hat.
"Boy!" she said, in quaint English. "Me no fait la
bombe since we dance in Bordeaux. Me serieuse. Tonight
we no sleep what?"
" I '11 say not. Here 's the hotel. ' '
He flew up two flights of stairs and burst without knock-
ing into Ezra's room. Ezra had started up on the couch,
a book in his hand.
"Ezra, put on your collar. God has sent us a merry
evening; we shall dance tonight and sing and write
poetry. ' '
Rich put his feet on the floor.
"Who's come."
"Odette, sometime of Bordeaux. She has a sister called
THE OUTSIDER 81
Juliette. Make it snappy. There's a taxi waiting down-
stairs. ' '
Rich put a finger to his nose and pretended to meditate.
A sly grin came over his face. ''Bang goes our savings,"
he said. ' ' But I never stand between a man and his dam-
nation. Have you all your money with you, pioneers,
pioneers? I'm ready."
He brushed his hair rapidly and put on a collar.
"Is she blond or brunette?"
"Odette is blonde comme les bles," answered Mortimer.
"Her sister is brunette, witty, a dancer among a thousand. "
"And the programme is?"
"Supper at Monico; dancing in the Avenue Montaigne.
Expense no object."
Rich put on his overcoat, snatched a walking-stick from
a corner and pushed Mortimer out of doors.
"I felt in the sere and yellow leaf this evening," he
said, as they ran downstairs. "I must have a shakeup
at any price. Tonight's as good a time as any. Tomorrow
we can sleep."
Mortimer pulled open the door of the taxi. "Odette
Ezra. Chauffeur, rue Theophile Gautier, twenty-five.
Fast. Will your sister be ready, Odette ? ' '
"She always is. If she isn't, all the better. She'll
come as she is."
The taxi hummed through the Place de la Concorde, and
turned up the right bank of the river. Lights were be-
ginning to spring up here and there. The chauffeur took
his instructions to heart and went at wild speed under
the trees. Mortimer sang joyously and kept time with his
stick on the window pane. Then, as his spirits rose higher,
he let down the window and shouted rather than sang at
the passer-by.
"There's something in this place that intoxicates me,
82 THE OUTSIDER
Odette," he explained, with eyes that flashed. "Paris has
turned the corner of civilisation she's overdone it and
become primitive again. There you have the secret of the
eternal process. Nature is always trying to get round
herself and only succeeds in turning round. Tarumpty-
umpty-umpty-um, tumty-diddle-dyum-tium. Do you re-
member your impromptu Mazurka on Peace night, in the
street? Sing us that song again. Listen, Ezra,"
Odette threw back her head and sang, in a ringing voice
De I'Espagne et I'Angleterre
J'ai goute, tour a tour,
Le vin et la blonde biere,
Et I'ivresse, et V amour.
J'ai vu des beaut es divines
Au pays du soleil,
Me verser de leurs mains fines
Des nectars, sans pareil.
Mais malgre tout je garde en souvenance
Ce bon pays, plain de vaillance
Sainte Russie ou le vieux vin de France,
Tout mousse d'or, se boit encore.
Mortimer hummed with her, radiant. "Le vin et la
blonde biere, Et I'ivresse, et I 'amour. Put that into
another language and it sounds grossier. Leave it in
French and a gentleman can say it, ha?"
"You could eat all the elephants in Hindustan and pick
your teeth with the spire of Strassbourg cathedral?" sug-
gested Ezra.
"I could use the cover of the Opera as a soup tureen,"
answered Mortimer fiercely, "and tickle a nostril with the
Eiffel tower to produce a sneeze that would shatter all the
THE OUTSIDER 83
windows in Paris and extinguish the illuminations on the
Woolworth building in New York. I could write poetry in
French."
" There I call your bluff," contradicted Ezra. "Drunk
or dry you couldn't write twelve lines of French verse to
scan. ' '
"At dessert," said Mortimer, magnificently, "I shall
produce twelve impeccable lines, a lyric, a love-lyric to
Odette."
"We're here," announced Odette, as the taxi slowed
down. " Wait for me here. I'll be back in a moment with
Juliette."
She sprang out and rushed up to the door. Mortimer
had taken out a notebook and a pencil and was frowning
and murmuring to himself.
"I'll show you, friend Ezra that an American, a far-
West American, can write better French than Oscar
Wilde," he said, looking up.
"I'll bet you cigars after dinner that she don't scan,"
insisted Ezra.
"A bet," said Mortimer, at once. "And now be quiet."
He continued muttering to himself then, putting his head
out of the open window, asked: "Monsieur le Chauffeur,
what's a good rhyme for masque."
The chauffeur smiled apologetically. "Mon pauvre
monsieur, I do not understand you."
"Give me some words ending in Asque."
The chauffeur labored. "Basque," he said, triumph-
antly.
"Thank you, my good friend." Mortimer thought it
over, then stuck his head from the window again. "It
won't do, Monsieur le chaff eur. She's Bearnaise."
"That's nearly Basque," said the chauffeur.
"No, no. Another word, and with two syllables, please."
84 THE OUTSIDER
The chauffeur labored again, his hat on the back of his
head. "Ma foi I'm not used to it," he said, after a few
moments. ''Make it esque or -isque and I'm your man."
"Man," said Mortimer, hotly. "There is no accuracy
in you. Asque, I must have asque."
"I can't help you, monsieur," said the chauffeur, an-
noyed. "You have an idee fixe. Tiens!" He clapped
his hands. "Casque."
"Thank you, but as a rhyme it has only one syllable."
"Well, do your best with that Monsieur for the time
being, and I will meanwhile think of another."
"Chauffeur. I see a bistro opposite. Here is five francs;
go and lubricate, and return with rhymes for masque."
"I can guarantee nothing, monsieur," said the chauffeur,
taking the five-franc note. "It may be an idiot of a pro-
prietor."
"I understand, I understand. We poets who consult
the Muse, sometimes find her an idiot, too. Go, and be
good luck thine."
The chauffeur touched his hat and made for the cafe.
"Very obliging, the French," commented Mortimer.
"And very intelligent, too. You couldn't ask a New York
chauffeur for a rhyme." He returned to his note-paper
and began to mutter again. "It's the mute e's," he com-
plained. "Ha! Fantasque!"
"Do it quietly, Mortimer. You had no right to enlist
the chauffeur's help. He might easily have been a poet."
The door of the house opened and both girls came out.
"You must wait awhile, mesdames," said Mortimer.
"The chauffeur is in the bistro opposite finding rhymes
for casque. He has quite curious habits. Have you good
appetites? This is Juliette, Ezra. More Americans have
run after Juliette than after the German army. Not so,
Juliette?"
THE OUTSIDER 85
"Possibly, but not a one caught me."
"The rebuff polite," said Ezra. "Fortunately I'm a
civilian. ' '
The chauffeur returned, happy, and with a scrap of
paper. "Monsieur," he said to Mortimer, "the proprietor
and Madame were very kind. Listen. I have a fine list
chaste, vaste, baste
"Enough," said Mortimer, "enough."
"Monsieur, I have more."
"Enough, I said masque, asque."
"Nom de Dieu," swore the chauffeur, "they've swin-
dled me. I took an extra drink for the rhymes. ' '
"No matter, chauffeur. You know the Monico? Take
us thither. Odette, Ezra, Juliette, my head is full of non-
sense; an exquisite vacuity agitates my brain, and rosy
visions dance in the dead vast and middle of my head.
Give me a cigarette."
The golden lights flew past the windows ; the wind came
in and fanned their warm faces, and in the changing light
and shadow four pairs of eyes sparkled. Odette hummed
"Hindustan" and their shoulders swayed slightly and
suggestively.
' ' They have good music at Monico 's, ' ' said Odette. ' ' You
can't tell one melody from another, except for the rhythm,
and the red decorations, I adore them. I danced there,
helas! three months ago, but the darling captain went back
home. Ah! he could dance!"
"The romance of France streams back from Bordeaux
and Brest and Saint Nazaire, ' ' said Mortimer, dramatically.
"And only we remain."
"Romance remains here," answered Ezra, whose spirits
were mounting, too. "Here in Paris, whereof Solomon
the Wise, my ancestor, wrote, saying 'Romance crieth with-
out ; she uttereth her voice in the streets, she crieth in the
86 THE OUTSIDER
chief Place of Concourse (obviously a corruption, Morti-
mer, for the Place de la Concorde) in the opening of the
gates, in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long,
ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity. ' '
"Right, right, I am rebuked," chanted Mortimer. "Ro-
mance remains; the captains and the things depart. I could
be Teuf elsdreck and hug the great city to my bosom. ' '
He collapsed suddenly into a musing. As voices and
forms and shadows and bursts of light flew by the win-
dows, a keen regret for the time that was passing descended
on him. How swiftly all things moved; the heart scarce
had time to beat fast, the blood could scarce run once
round the little veins, and the morning would be here ; and
all the wildness of the evening and all his exaltation would
be sighs. If he could only take it, hold it long enough
to have his fill.
The roaring Boulevard de la Madeleine went by, clamor
and kaleidoscope, wheels and lamps and laughing faces,
and leaves shaking green-gold; and then the long dark
Chaussee d ' Antin and the purring climb of the rue Blanche.
The taxi stopped and a courteous chasseur opened the
door.
' ' The prologue is over, ' ' said Mortimer, paying the chauf-
feur, "now is the feast and the third act of the imperial
theme."
The crimson rooms of the Monico, behind the curtained
and shuttered windows, glowed to greet them. The tables
were still half guestless, but the world was arriving, young
men, bearded men, American officers, princely in their uni-
forms, ladies with bare shoulders and abashless brows,
shining like the bald heads of some of their companions.
The orchestra was still as they came in; glasses clicked
and waitresses like dolls, all smiles and spotless pinafores,
went automatically from table to table.
THE OUTSIDER 87
They found a good place in a corner, at an angle of
mirrors. Mortimer took the carte with a lordly gesture.
"Once upon a time, Odette," he said, "it was my am-
bition to take dinner thus ' and with one hand he cov-
ered the prices while he showed her the menu. "Since
then I have realised my ambition and tonight we shall
repeat it."
"Mon vieux, we have all been there," answered Odette.
"And we'll be there again, with God's help. "What shall
we start on?"
The waitress stood attentive at the corner of the table,
her head cocked on one side, as if waiting for pleasant
news. Mortimer rolled the menu off like a poem. ' ' Some-
thing solid this evening," he said. "We have a hard
night's work seven hours of dancing, what? Oh, listen."
The orchestra was playing "Allah's Holiday." He sprang
up. "Ezra, order the dinner and wait for the wine until
I come back. Odette, a moi!"
Odette was almost as tall as Mortimer, but strong and
infinitely supple. She danced like a whirlwind, terrific
even in calmness. There was a fixed smile on her lips,
intense almost to fierceness, but her body, intoxicated and
intoxicating, laughed freely in movement. Hysteria
mounted into Mortimer's brain
The music stopped and Mortimer woke. "God bless the
niggers," he said, as he went back to the table. "But my
opinion is that David'danced a fox-trot in front of the Ark ;
what's your opinion, Ezra?"
"I've ordered a Hors-d'oeuvre, varic, preceded by cock-
tail," answered Ezra. "Then chicken fricasse and lobster
salade. Then Gruyere and fruit. David did a pas seul
before the Ark, of course, dancing being then in its celibacy.
What wine are we going to drink? Champagne?"
88 THE OUTSIDER
"You are vulgar, Ezra. Champagne is the common-
place of Croesus. What do the ladies suggest?"
"A simple Chdblis," suggested Juliette.
' ' No, no, ' ' said Ezra. ' ' I never could tolerate that wine
since Browning made it rhyme with Rabelais."
"St. Emilion," said Odette.
"I have it," said Mortimer, hitting the table. "Asti!
Asti Spumante, the sunshine of Italy, the warm smiles
"Asti," interrupted Ezra. "Let it be Asti without
further description. Asti on ice. And, Mortimer, drink
well. At dessert you shall read a love-poem to Odette. ' '
* ' Have no fear. I work like Wordsworth ; I get the lines
in my head first. Has anyone here ever got drunk on
Astif Erstwhile the Cossack got drunk on Vodka, the
German on beer, the American on cocktails, but the prince
still gets drunk on Asti. Oh to roam beneath the stars
when you're drunk on Asti."
"Drink cocktails and be sick," agreed Juliette. "Drink
Asti and die though I've never drunk Asti."
"My test of drinks," said Ezra, "is like Heine's the
nose. You remember*
Der Rheinwein gldnzt noch immer wie Gold
Im griinen Romerglase,
Und trinkt man etwelche Schoppen zu viel,
So steigt er in die Nose.
In die Nose steigt ein Prickeln so suss
Man kann sich vor Wonne nicht lassen.
I always tell a good wine by the singing in my nose."
"There's something in it," said Mortimer, considering.
"In your theory, I mean. Also all good singing is done
through the nose, though I don't know that that remark
is at all relevant. But there's a limitation to the theory;
THE OUTSIDER 89
it's absurd to say, 'I'm beginning to get drunk, my nose
is going round.' '
"Change it to 'growing round' and it sounds better,"
said Ezra. "That's the feeling. It becomes a nose like
Cyrano's. Nay, there's something detached and imper-
sonal in my nose when I'm nearly drunk."
"But you can't say my nose is going round," said Mort-
imer, insistently. "Going round where? It's ridiculous.
Here come the cocktails of my native land. The tiny
lemon tints the liquid with its pallid saffron hue. Let's
drink and be damned."
With the cocktails came the first course and the eating
began. Then came the Asti, and the waitress began to open
the first bottle.
1 ( What a theme for a sculptor, ' ' said Mortimer. ' ' Wait-
ress opening a bottle of Asti. Look at the tense features,
the expectation. Waitress, bring a second bottle ; we never
wait between drinks. Ah, the Boston! A moi, Odette!"
The cork came out with a pistol crack as they left the
table to dance; when they came back a second bottle was
leaning its head languorously against the first in the ice-
pail. Ezra filled the champagne-glasses.
"A fool of a man," he observed slowly, as he went ten-
derly from glass to glass, "has said that the test of cham-
pagne is to let it stand in a glass. If it still bubbles at the
end of six weeks it was good champagne. What a moral !
What folly! Wisdom testing life and finding it good
too late. The eternal theme. It inspires me. Mortimer,
a toast."
Mortimer rose, disdainful of public attention. He lifted
his glass.
"I drink," he said with dignity, "to first and last
things, to the dear and ineffable impulses of our immemorial
heritage, of forgotten ages and generations yet to be; I
90 THE OUTSIDER
drink to the immortal spirit which, from end to end of the
universe, with pomp and music as at the coming of kings,
trembling through spaces lightless arid lonely as the tre-
mendous dreams of poets, unfettered as they as it no,
as they."
"Sit down, Mortimer. The waiters '11 think you're call-
ing them."
Mortimer sat down. "I drink to that anyway," he said
firmly. "You can drink to whatever you like. Person-
filly I think that mine's entitled to two drinks."
The glasses clinked. After the first sip all four looked
up at each other, then went back to their glasses.
"Exquisite," said Odette. "The first glass is like the
memory of a caress."
" Ah, " said Mortimer. ' * Wait till the last glass. ' '
"It is a good wine," said Ezra. "I speak before my
nose. ' '
"Beneath it," suggested Mortimer.
"My nose, like Heine's" explained Ezra, "doesn't speak
before the second or third glass. But it 's sentence is final. ' '
"When the glass is empty," said Mortimer, "the ghost
of the Asti haunts the little place under the tongue and
waits for its brothers."
Ezra, with his mouth full, refilled the glasses.
"The wine keeps good company. This fricassee was made
for it. I confess naively I do enjoy eating chicken fric-
assee and drinking Asti Spumante."
Odette nodded eagerly. "I understand you, monsieur
Ezra. First, it's so pleasant to chew the one and to drink
the other. They fill the mouth so; then their passage to
the stomach is so comfortable. And afterwards they pack
in so comfortably, so snugly, into your stomach, and radiate
sympathy. Isn't that what you mean?"
"I do mean that, and something more," said Ezra,
THE OUTSIDER 01
drinking again. "When I eat and drink well I am reduced
to common mortality ; I come out of the insufferable lone-
liness of my individuality. I take on dear and vulgar
attributes; I grow friendly to the world in general. I
respect large families; I hear again the Virgin's Prayer,
and I pray for her, too. Oh the marriages I could have
contracted when drunk."
' ' That 's woman 's old privilege, ' ' said Juliette, ' ' to make
a man drunk and marry him."
"Ah, one did that once to me," recounted Ezra, "but
she got stung. I got so drunk that while she was away
for a moment the impulse came over me, and I proposed
to somebody else. But it didn't matter, because the next
morning I couldn't quite remember whom I had proposed
to."
"That would never happen to me," said Mortimer,
shaking his head. "Because I'm never so sober as when
I'm drunk. The woman who exercised her old privilege
on me would back a loser." He emptied his third glass.
"I grow sentimental, perhaps maudlin; but my sense of
mathematics stays. My senses are drunk, but my mind
stands at a distance and speaks in accents clear."
"That's your fatal illusion," said Ezra, laughing. "It
was mine. You feel logical when you're drunk; you feel
as though you understood everything, from the binomial
to the innermost emotions of the persons you are drinking
with; you feel omniscient, coldly, immaculately analytical.
But you're not; you're only drunk."
"How's your nose. Ezra."
Ezra tapped it thoughtfully \fith his forefinger, frowned,
arid then looked up happily. ' ' The first tender detachment
is already there, ' ' he announced. ' ' I feel a sort of growing
unfeelingness in my nose. She is asserting a faintly glow-
ing independence."
92 THE OUTSIDER
s .
^Mortimer felt his own nose carefuUy for a little while.
"My nose is teetotal, I think. I'm beginning to feel
friendly, but my nose is unmoved."
VThe first effects of the wine were indeed coming over
hflh; there was gladness in his heart as he looked round
the room; there was a special warmth on the crimson
walls and on the faces of the men and women. Voices were
receding from him. The room and its occupants took on
a certain sublety of being, a fine tone and coloring not
hitherto observable. He marked these symptoms in him-
self with distinct and deliberate satisfaction, and noted
with pride that he was keeping check on them; he was
even slightly gleeful, as though the wine was trying to
fool him and was failing.
' ' If all the world could be made drunk simultaneously ! ' '
said Ezra with a sigh, from a distance. "Imagine the
civilising result."
"It couldn't be," objected Mortimer. "If we were
drunk here at midnight it would be mid-day at Waikiki.
It isn't the same sensation, drunk at noon and drunk at
midnight."
"Imagine a simultaneous and world-wide drunk," con-
tinued Ezra, "the boundaries of people crossed by one
throb. Nations will embrace; diplomats will send words
of love from country to country at war. Think of it!"
"It could be done," suddenly agreed Mortimer. "Set
the clocks as for daylight saving; fool them into thinking
it's midnight the world over. Mustn't do it at once,
though. Half-an-hour every year, so they won't notice
it. In twenty-years or so you'll be all set; meanwhile
perfect your organisation. It's an inspiration, Ezra. You
can repeal the dry-laws by that time, or get a Papal dis-
pensation for the occasion."
THE OUTSIDER 93
"Why are the glasses empty?" asked Ezra. "Juliette,
fill the glasses; I feel too inspired."
Juliette's face was flushed, red blood through the brown
skin. Under her brows her eyes were wide and lustrous.
Odette's blond skin was tinged with color. She leaned
her head on Juliette 's shoulder, and laughed for no reason.
Then the orchestra began "Hindustan," and the four were
on their feet simultaneously.
Ah, now dancing was dancing. Under Mortimer's feet
there was no floor only resistance to his footsteps.
"Odette! If I could only dance myself away!" He
moved without muscles, without effort; he was drunker
with motion than with wine. The world was deliriously
happy.
Three bottles were done for, and the waitress was open-
ing a fourth. Mortimer wondered mutely when such an
evening would return; when would he feel again as now?
"Thou canst not tell how ill all's about my heart," said
Ezra, softly, in English.
"I know," said Mortimer, suddenly taking over Ezra's
depression. "Just now I feel the extremities of life as
never before. How merry life is, and how sad ! How beau-
tiful are human beings and how ridiculous ! What angels,
what animals! Look at those women over there. Their
brows and cheeks glow and call all men; there is a glory
on their lips and what is that glory ? ' '
Ezra felt his nose tenderly and smiled a sad smile. ' ' The
glory that is grease, I should call it. Think of half the world
just now, Mortimer, asleep like hogs, snoring, and we here
conscious of the beauty and sadness of the world. ' '
' ' Yes, I 'm thinking of it, ' ' concurred Mortimer. ' ' Every-
body except those revelling with us in a few cabarets. ' '
"And those on beds in French hotels," added Ezra.
"Those don't do much sleeping."
94 THE OUTSIDER
"Shut up, Ezra, you're gross."
" 'Tis now the very itching hour of night," quoted Ezra
solemnly.
"I drink this time," said Mortimer to the table, raising
his glass, "to all revellers, here and elsewhere, the few
choice spirits enjoying life the wide world over. I feel
their merriment and revelry linked across the night."
"Ayont the seas, ayont the seas," said Ezra, "don't for-
get that. Still, I do feel a dreadful sickness in my heart, ' '
and he leaned his head on Mortimer's shoulder.
" So do I, " groaned Mortimer. ' ' The melancholy of life
will not be exorcised. I'm getting dmnk and my mind
beats its normal bars. I see the beginning and the end, the
effort and the futility, the silly dignity of mankind. Of
what scenes the actors or specters, I mean, spectators?"
His mind told him he was talking nonsense, and the
horrible sadness in his heart rebuked that nonsense, but he
wanted to talk.
"Why are we here?" he asked vaguely. "Or perhaps,
stay!" An idea struck him. "Perhaps we are not here.
Then why are we elsewhere ? Anyway, why are we where
we are?
"Shut up, Mortimer. Look at Odette dancing with that
American officer."
"So she is," agreed Mortimer, surprised. "Bless my
soul ! But never mind her. Why are we here ? ' '
"Ah," murmured Ezra, "why indeed? Because of the
worm that dieth not." A trace of mockery came into his
voice, then he came to himself. ' ' To hell with memories, ' '
he exclaimed. "It's a scandal, the way we let them dance
with others. Pity that Carmen and Mado don't fit in
with this kind of thing, poor kids. ' '
The same thought had just came to Mortimer, and with
THE OUTSIDER 95
it a sense of meanness. But he shook himself and drank
a little more wine.
"You're right, Ezra," he said. "To hell with mem-
ories if you have any. If you must be melancholy, let it
be the pure rosy melancholy of wine, the infinite tenderness
of the grape. ' '
Suddenly he began to laugh as he caught a glimpse of
his own maudlin condition. How ridiculous everybody was !
Merriment returned in a wild flood to his heart. He laughed
till the tears dropped down his cheeks. Juliette and Odette,
returning, found them both in convulsions of laughter.
They stood looking in a dazed way at the men, the laughter
hesitating on their own faces.
"What's the matter with you people?" said Odette,
beginning to laugh.
"But nothing at all," Ezra gasped, and laughed louder.
"I don't know what there is to laugh about; Mortimer
doesn't know."
" I 'm thirsty, ' ' said Juliette. ' ' I hope you '11 finish laugh-
ing before the next dance."
Mortimer recovered control of himself.
" I 'm sorry, ' ' he said, wiping his eyes. " I 'm very sorry.
We both hit a vein of recollections and got sentimental. I
do hope you'll forgive us for having let you dance wifh
somebody else without a protest."
"I'm not dancing any more for a while," said Odette,
sinking into a chair. "I want a rest in the head and feet.
The wine's getting me at last. But give me just a little
more. ' '
Glasses were filled again. Suddenly Ezra hit the table.
"We've forgotten," he said, quickly.
"What?"
"That poem of Mortimer's. He nearly got away with the
bluff. Where's that poem, my lad?"
96 THE OUTSIDER
"What time is it?" asked Mortimer, desperately.
"It's nearly midnight. If there's any clarity in your
mind produce that poem. It was promised for dessert. ' '
Mortimer pulled out a scrap of paper. "Five minutes
more, ' ' he begged.
"Five minutes. If the twelve lines are not complete by
then you not only buy cigars, but confess publicly that
you're perfectly sober."
Mortimer gathered himself together for an intensive
effort. He surprised himself by a feeling akin to inspira-
tion. The lines flew out from under his pencil. The others
watched, Ezra with his eyes on the clock. Before the five
minutes were over Mortimer raised his head.
"Done!" he shouted. "Listen." He cleared his throat
ostentatiously and, in a moved voice, read to Odette.
Charmante Odette, dans tes yeux gais et fantasques
L' amour parle et rit comme a travers une masque;
J'ose te regarder une fois, deux fois, trois
Si je regarde encore c'est la fin de moi.
Sur tes levres rhythmiques, donees comme la mort,
Le secret eternel de I' existence dort.
Enivre de ta voix, et du vin que j'ai bu,
Je m'avoue franchement, completement foutu.
O sois certaine, toi, je ne suis pas le seul
Qui envers la folie fut pousse par ta gueule.
Et Dieu meme s'il t'avait connu d'assez bonne
'Heure t'aurait Men preferee a la Ma-donne.
Odette and Juliette applauded rapturously. Ezra was
unmoved. "You can buy me a good fat cigar," he said.
"Seul is a false rhyme with gueule."
THE OUTSIDER 97
"Ta gueule," said Mortimer, rudely. "You haven't a
spark of generosity in your soul. I'll buy you a fat cigar
out of sympathy with your condition, but you need still
more a straight- jacket and a seat in the Aeademie. Odette,
are you satisfied with the poem ? ' '
"Mon vieux, I begin to fear you love me. I've never had
a poem like that written to me before. I understand every
line of it."
"There you are, Ezra. And if you don't like it, I'll
write another."
"No, no, the place closes in fifteen minutes. There's only
time for one more dance. ' '
"I dance no more here," said Odette, her head drooping.
' ' Oh, I 'm tired. It was a beautiful poem. I 've never had
one like that written to me before. ' ' She drank more wine.
' ' Once a boy used to write poems to me, when I was young
and quite innocent."
' ' Lord, ' ' groaned Mortimer, " it 's her turn now. She 's
getting sentimental. Give me something to drink."
"I'm not getting sentimental," said Odette, raising her
head. But there were sudden tears in her eyes.
"Yes you are, yes you are," contradicted Mortimer.
"I tell you I'm not." She stamped her foot furiously.
' ' Yes you are. There are tears in your eyes. ' '
She looked at him for a moment, and a look of irrepress-
ible amusement came over her face.
"Oh you sentimental boy! That's the gas from the
Asti Spumanti coming back through my nose and bringing
the water to my eyes ! ' '
Mortimer sprang to his feet. "Odette, you are the per-
fect cynic. I wouldn't exchange your revelation for an
epigram of Voltaire's. Good Heavens!" He had sat down
suddenly. "I can't stand straight," he said to the table
in an intense whisper. "C'est magnifique. Ezra, I don't
98 THE OUTSIDER
know what this feeling costs, but I wouldn't over-rate its
value at ten thousand francs. I think I'm there now."
His voice was rich and suggestive of a powerful sub-
current of sensations. He did not, indeed, see double, but
everything was there with an intense reality before un-
known, intensely, individual, and yet mingling in a great,
glowing harmoniousness. He was infinitely pleased with
himself; he forgave the world. Scraps of philosophy, lilts
of lines and random rhymes danced through his brain. He
saw all his life, he was conscious of all he knew; the sub-
conscious floated up to the surface; the elusive echoes of
impressions that haunted the dark caves of his mind turned
into a tumult of ringing voices; everything he had ever
thought, felt, suspected, believed, understood, all things he
had seen, loved, hated, all physical experiences, everything in
his life, was there in him at that moment. He was furiously
alive. What a vast number of things he knew! so many
people, so many books, streets, numbers in them, houses',
telephone numbers why, he could remember the telephone
number of his father's friend in New York, whatsisname 's
"Columbus 3847" he said aloud, victoriously. He could
remember the shape of parson Prentice's nose. Fancy re-
membering so much chemical formulas, types of printing,
how to typewrite, shorthand, French, German, the appear-
ances of different foods what a terrible medley, terrible,
terrible !
' ' The number of things a human being is called upon to
know, ' ' he said, hitting the table, ' ' is beyond computation.
You don 't know what I 'm talking about, but I do. My line
of thought is 'dear, although you can 't follow it. ' '
He chuckled, tickled to the marrow by the idea that they
really could not know what he was talking about. He did
not care. Look at all those people and hear their voices;
none of them know what anybody else is thinking. That
THE OUTSIDER 99
is sad, very sad ; it is the tragedy of life, and the climax of
the tragedy is that they will persist in trying. What was
the good of telling them not to try? Could the course of
life, or the habits of human beings, be changed? Could
one run wildly amok and scream, "You fools, you fools,
why do you do these things?" No, one could not do that
even if one was drunk. The world was vast, vast; it
swarmed everywhere.
"It's no use writing books," he said, with profound con-
viction. "Because only a few people understand, and
they're the ones that don't need the books. Once upon a
time I thought that surely after Dickens had written
Christmas Carol no Scrooges could possibly exist. For
they would read Christmas Carol, and feel so self-con-
scious, that they would disappear. I used to think that no
more Jack-in-offices could be impertinent ; they only existed
in books, as a dreadful memory and a warning to men not
to be so ; no bullies, no vulgar parvenus. When I read new
novels with such characters in them I think they are no
longer taken from life. But they're all there, after all,
and you can't change the world, you can't change the
world."
Ezra said something in reply that did not reach him.
Yes, Ezra always had a reply on hand. The whole world
was like that. You say something that is so obviously true,
and then somebody goes and makes a reply to it, and the
whole effect is spoilt. And then where are we? Was it
not better not to say anything to anybody.
"Yes, by God!" he exclaimed, hitting the table again.
' ' Everybody should keep quiet and put up with everything,
because it's no use talking."
The world was dreadfully obstinate people were so
tenacious. You 'd think they 'd reflect ; perhaps they weren 't
cutting a nice figure but they didn't care. You'd think a
100 THE OUTSIDER
landlord would be ashamed to ask so much rent, a husband
would be ashamed to bully his wife; but they're not. Life
is shameless; people go on as they are, mean, scurrying,
egotistical. They should worry as to the impression they
make on a few sensitive and gentle minds !
"They are the salt of the earth," he said, sadly, "the
few quiet, gentle spirits, who have a sense of the fitness of
things, the unvulgar ones." Yes, that was it. The world
was essentially vulgar, life was vulgar; the struggle for
existence, the economic struggle, the strutting of the sexes
all, all, a welter of vulgarity, cheap shamelessness. And
the few gentle spirits in their modest corners, shrinking
from the screaming mob with its vile colors and odors
yes, a few gentlemen in the whole world, a few in every
great city; and the rest was still the spawning, squirming
struggle of the mire. Life didn't care, didn't care.
"Oh God," he said harshly, "if one could only take the
world by the throat, fix its attention for one moment, and
say to it : ' Thus and thus you are, you are vile, cruel, un-
dignified. Why won't you Be otherwise?' But they won't
pay any attention; if you committed suicide in protest,
they wouldn't give a damn."
Had not the prophets thundered, thousands of years ago ?
And Oh, such great men had lived and died, and wonderful
thoughts had come to birth, and wonderful words had come
into the sunlight and it was all the same, all the same.
And why?
"I have it," he shouted. "It's because great men are just
as blind as little men, and there is genius lent to evil as
well as to good."
That was it! How clearly he could see now. Cassar's
genius and Christ's, Napoleon's and Shelley's. Genius was
wayward, and great men shook the world with their foot-
steps, but moved it not. How could the masses know, when
THE OUTSIDER 101
great men themselves were at such odds ? To follow Cassar
or Christ? And why follow either?
Yes, he saw all things clearly; the world lay in lustrous
clearness before him, but his tongue could not find words
for all he saw. Could he only utter this great marvel, or
could he keep this inspiration while he labored closely for
years, he would produce one of the greatest books ever
written. Yes, ideas rushed through his mind like a great,
broad water ; he could understand the causes of many things.
He could talk even now and astonish . . . whom?
What was the good of astonishing anybody? Yes, one
turned in the same vicious circle. Talking and thinking
were useless, except as an amusement.
"Amusement?" he echoed sharply, "amusement be
damned. It's positively painful."
Thinking, thinking, thinking, all the time. The world,
the horrible, vulgar world, didn't think. It just was; it
went on, so convinced every day of its importance. Every
generation believed in itself ! Marvellous ! It called other
generations "the past," with a kind of tacit contempt.
"That's the past." Yes, but once they, those past gen-
erations, also thought they^were "it," just as well as you
do and soon even you will be "the past." Every nation
and generation thought itself the climax of time, the final
verdict of history, the last, last thing. It never saw itself
as a tiny, tiny, indistinguishable link in an infinite, a crush-
ingly infinite process, a chain stretching from dimness to
dimness. No, that was the vulgarity of the generations!
they were like that in great things and in little, philosophies
and governments, modes and affectations. The Assyrian
must have thought himself no end of a devil in his hand-
some beard-case quite the thing, you know up-to-date
fellow and with us it's Jazz, and clocks on the socks and
spats.
102 THE OUTSIDER
He was enraged by this arrogance of the generations,
this Cockney self-confidence ; it was only one generation out
of thousands, out of tens of thousands, millions, world
without end ; different forms of life, from lepidodendra to
man, from man to God knows what.
But what was the good of telling them?
" That's the provincialness of man," he said to Ezra,
who was leaning on Juliette now. ' ' All men are provincial,
all life is; for I take it that provincialism is applicable to
all things, time, space and life in general ; every little man,
every little group of men, self-absorbed and cocked up
about itself, is provincial; every little world that thinks
it's it, and the rest of the world no-account, as it were.
Take the youth that goes to college. He learns all the
college slang, and thinks himself the hell of a cute bird
because he knows it. And then he uses it on somebody
that doesn't know it, and when that somebody doesn't
understand, just hear that college youth crow; you'd think
he was the wisest bird in the world. And in trades it's
the same; every prentice boy is just puffed up with pride
when he knows the technical terms and the slang phrases
and the cant jargon of his trade if it be thieves' trade or
shoemaker's. Thinks all the world is in the cold because
it doesn't know these terms. And you come to the diplo-
mats and the professors and damn their souls if they aren 't
the same; they have a little old jargon of their own; and
if you don't know it you don't count on this earth; one
fellow talks in terms of spheres of influence and the other
fellow says you haven't got a soul to speak of if you can't
spell 'teleology '. They 're as provincial as the rest. They 're
just vulgar Cockneys and New Yorkers. But what's the
good of my telling you? Will that change them, or you,
or anybody else? Would it change them if I told them
this? Certainly not. You're not listening to me, and even
THE OUTSIDER 10.5
if you were you'd only be waiting for a chance to say some-
thing or think. something. ' '
He was not. quite sure whether he said all this or thought
it, or said part and thought part ; but it was all true. He
saw it in a marvellous clarity and. comprehension. What
did it matter, the world, man, time, this dancing of life,
this sensation, of being, this anything? He was happy
very happy, but not merry any more.
He was aware suddenly that Ezra was saying something
for the second time about paying and going.
"Certainly," he said, smiling politely round the table
and keeping really wonderful control of himself. "I will
certainly. Waitress ! ' '
A burst of merriment returned to him and he began to
laugh wildly. "I say, Ezra, wouldn't it be a joke if we
refused to pay? We've all got a bun on, and we're all
happy and they couldn't prevent us from being happy.
As I feel now you could shoot me and I'd be joyous." He
almost sang the suggestion. "They couldn't make me un-
happy hee, hee! they just simply couldn't make me un-
happy, so why need I pay?"
The four at the table revelled hilariously in the idea.
"I don't care one damn!" stuttered Odette. "They
couldn 't make me unhappy either. Don 't pay, Mortimer. ' '
"Just imagine the waiter, and the head waiter, and the
manager, all bursting with fury. ' Monsieur, you are a thief,
you shall pay, I say. ' ' Shan 't pay. ' ' I '11 have you thrown
out, I'll have you arrested.' ' 'S'no use, 's'no use. I'm
happy and you can't make me otherwise, and the more you
howl the happier I am. ' Haw, haw ! ' '
He did pay, however, collecting all his wits in a gigantic
effort. He checked up the total three or four times without
getting satisfaction and in the end accepted the figures ; he
forgot them the moment he gave the waitress a five hundred
104 THE OUTSIDER
franc note ; out of the change he left twenty francs on the
plate.
"And now we must go," he said, as a preliminary effort.
He frowned sternly and stood up. He was surprised to feel
a certain steadiness in his limbs. He frowned somewhat
more sternly and walked a little towards the cloak-room.
There he found Ezra by his side.
"I'm quite. alright, " he said confidentially to Ezra. "I
thought I wasn't, but I am."
"Same with me," said Ezra, equally confidential.
"We're both alright in the main, I think. As a matter of
fact wine hypnotises you in advance to a large extent;
you're drunker than you ought to be by rights; by physio-
logical rights, I mean ; I mean that is, as a purely physio-
psychological matter you understand me?"
"Quite, quite," said Mortimer, anxiously. "It's my
own feeling, too. These are my things, I think."
"I'm really speaking consecutively," he said to himself,
"And I am thinking quite logically. These are my things,
I give the waitress two francs and I go back, and as I go
out I look back for Ezra to show him and the cloak-room
woman that I know quite well what I 'm about, eh ? Then
the girls are waiting there, and we go quite properly down-
stairs. It's all very simple.
He carried out all these instructions with a faultless
precision, keeping careful check on every part of them.
"Quite alright, quite alright," he assured himself at inter-
vals. ' ' Perfectly proper thing to do. ' '
He offered his arm to Odette as they went down the
stairs. Unhappily, she lurched against him and he went
hastily down three steps, clutched at the railing, and sat
down. He remained sitting, and argued with himself.
"That's nothing, nothing at all. Don't sober men ever
stumble on the stairs? Why shouldn't I, like any other
THE OUTSIDER 105
sober man ? Not that I 'm quite sober ; I 'd be damned drunk
to think myself sober just now. But I might almost pass
for sober or at least, for a man who happens to have
drunk some wine. I can stand up by myself. ' '
He did so, but felt an increasing unsteadiness.
"No, no, I'm worse than I thought." He shook his head
and accepted the arm of the chasseur.
"Merci, monsieur/' he said, smiling sadly into the face
of the chasseur. ' ' To you I am a mere drunken guest, like
a thousand others you 've lifted up on these stairs, I doubt
not. But I am not; at least I am, but not quite. I don't
mean as regards the 'drunken'. I mean as regards the
'mere'. I am not 'mere'. But what's the good of telling
you that? What's the good of telling anybody anything?
None whatsoever. I always come to the same conclusion."
He stood on the kerbstone, leaning against Ezra, who was
signalling for a taxi.
"That's the funny thing about life and men, Ezra," he
said, still sadly. "Every human being thinks he is not a
'mere'. Every man thinks he has something specially re-
deeming about himself, 'I am not like the others.' The
veriest sot, the veriest villain, has this secret conviction.
'I'll show them all some day they don't know me yet.'
He doesn't know what he'll show them, he doesn't know
what he means. It's just that vague conviction that there's
something about him, something, a je ne sais quoi, ha ? that
proves he's not quite like the others. We all feel it, don't
we ? Oh, Ezra, if I could only see things as clearly as now,
and understand them as now ! Nobody else cares, no more
than I care for what they have said to me. This feeling
is a dreadful burden, and one can never quite, quite assim-
ilate the conviction that it doesn't matter."
Ezra's attempts were finally successful. He thrust Mor-
timer in first, then helped the girls in and followed.
106 THE OUTSIDER
"I can still dance," he said, exulting. "I can dance
until five o'clock."
"Yes," continued Mortimer. "Every man guards the
secret of his ultimate worth that 'they don't know me
yet.' And there's something in it after all; there's some-
thing in it. ' ' He seized Ezra by the arm. ' ' It occurs to me
that there's something in it."
The chauffeur opened the door and inquired apologetic-
ally where Messieurs and Mesdames wished to go.
"Avenue Montaigne," .said Juliette. "We'll tell you
the number when we get there. ' '
' ' There 's a good deal in it, in fact, ' ' said Mortimer, with
conviction. ' ' Every man is life anew ; he is an unspeakable
individuality, and au fond he knows it. Life is alike to
no two minds in the world. They all see it differently.
You know, the hatter sees the world and mankind in terms
of sizes of heads; his first thought is for the circumference
of the cranium. The sausage manufacturer in terms of
their capacity to eat sausages. He sees man essentially as
a sausage receptacle, other attributes corresponding. A
good man to him is a man who regularly eats two sausages
for breakfast or lunch. A bad man never touches sausages.
The Devil is the spirit which animates all the jokes about
the sausages. Yes, Ezra, I could write a book on this phil-
osophy. There's something in it, I say. Ezra, from the
stone age to the bronze age, from the bronze age to the
sausage. Why not? Oh!"
The motion of the taxi was inspiring a certain sickness
in him. But he continued to talk.
"They all see life in terms of their limitations. But is
there a right way of seeing life? Is there, I say? There
is not. For God's sake tell this driver not to go downhill.
It makes me sick all over."
THE OUTSIDER 107
"It can't be helped, Mortimer; you've got to go down-
hill to the Avenue Montaigne."
"Well tell him to go round the other way, or to turn the
taxi round and go uphill. ' '
He leaned on Odette wearily.
"My mind, my mind, it will not cease from thinking. 1
repeat, there is no right way of seeing life. To the doctor,
man is a construction of organs, bones and juices; and to
the psalmodist, something a little lower than the angels. ' '
He stopped talking and watched the dark streets going
by. Decidedly, he was not feeling well. But the mind
was there, clear. It was there more than it had ever been
before. But a wildness was upon the earth, a fury of reve-
lation. He could not speak for the multitudinous revela-
tions that flashed upon him, lightning upon lightning, a
mad succession of stupendous truths. They were not there,
the four of them, in a taxi ; they were rushing through the
bowels of existence ; they were in the secret recesses of life,
and a thousand voices round them chanted in almost com-
prehensible language the solution of ancient mysteries.
"There is not," he said loudly. "Never. We are all
asses, but our ears are not long enough. ' '
The ensuing hours were bedlam to his perception. A crowd
of them, out of countless taxis, went up steep stairs, a long,
long way. Somebody said frantically, "Silence, Messieurs
et Dames, the respectable neighbours must not hear, or the
police will raid the place; upstairs you may make all the
noise you want. Please, sssilenccce ! ' '
Somebody said "Sh-sh-sh" intensely. Another repeated
it, and the whole crowd jostling up the stairs took it up,
Mortimer with them. A fierce sibilation flew up and down
the stairs, in which now and again could be heard the im-
ploring voice, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, the neighbors, the
108 THE OUTSIDER
neighbors!" Somebody said, "there are no neighbors.
They're all here."
"That's right," shouted Mortimer, in a terrific flash of
understanding. "The neighbors? We are the neighbors."
That was almost the only remark he made in the building.
Upstairs they came into a hall brilliantly lit ; a band played
softly, figures whirled in the centre of the hall; there was
laughter, clinking of glasses, the rhythm of feet.
Mortimer did not dance. He hardly knew where he was ;
his meditations came faster and faster upon him. He com-
mented on all earthly and unearthly things in turn ; there
was so much, so much, an infinity of things to think upon.
And he was compelled by an infinite force to think on
them, and classify them. He wanted to stop, he wanted to
rest his mind ; he argued with himself that having analysed
one matter, it was ended, and he could take a rest. But
one thought involved a second, which was bound to a third,
which could not be torn from a fourth. Finally he began
to marvel at the horrible continuity of a man's conscious-
ness and, fascinated by the interminable sequence of
thoughts, gave up the attempt to stop thinking. He was
then, though he scarcely knew it, standing up and talking
to himself, with a look of extraordinary ingeniousness on
his face, his finger in front of his nose, emphasising by
short, sharp gestures the logic of his cogitations.
"Obviously, if a man could be introduced turn by turn
through the chain of human acquaintanceships he could in
the end be introduced to everybody in the world. You see ? "
The motion of his finger became sharp and convincing. ' ' By
a series of introductions, I say, a man could get to know
anybody, any blessed body on the wide, wide earth. Every-
body knows somebody else, n'est-ce-pasf And there's no
closed circle of common acquaintances; a friend of mine
is Ezra; a friend of a friend of mine, of Ezra's, that is,
THE OUTSIDER 109
might be God knows who or an acquaintance, at least. And
his friends might include the King of England. The world
of human beings is thus bound up, link by link. Well, what
of it? Isn't that only a reproduction of the interdepend-
ence of the atoms of the universe?"
Here he sat down in a chair which someone had just va-
cated crossed his legs, and meditated still more intensely.
"What am I thinking about, I say? What will I think
about next ? I really do not know. Yet I will surely think
about something. Obviously this is so, or I would not be
thinking and I am thinking. What does that prove?
Simply that you can't control your thinking. But is think-
ing thinking ? Obviously, if what is, is, and it certainly is,
at any rate as far as we are concerned. But who are we ?
Nobody at all. Or maybe we are somebody. That would
be splendid, if death too were a mockery, as whatsisname
says. Pah! Sentimental rubbish!"
He remembered vaguely a tumult and a whirling of fig-
ures, music, faces but he was paying no attention to them.
He was intent on following, step by step, an endless chain
of reasoning that promised in vain a conclusion. Then there
was a confusion of taxis and motion; then an outburst of
obstinacy on his part, and the sensation of having his own
way. More clearly after that he remembered walking with
fair control over himself down the Champs Elysees and
into the rue Royale. The splendor and softness of the night
calmed him a little and though the babbling in his brain
went on his conceptions were now larger and clearer. The
great loneliness of the streets was like a presence. He
thought again of the history of Paris, and cast back to the
train of ideas he had been following in the dance hall.
"There is a subtle interdependence linking every indi-
vidual atom to its countless brothers in the universe. No
action stands alone. The moving of an eyelash sends an
110 THE OUTSIDER
invisible breath of change through the whole universe.
These footsteps disturb the particles in the rings of Saturn
and move from its course the ultimate planet of the North
Pole Star.
"Yes, and every stone here is a record of the history of
the world. These buildings are not merely the witnesses.
There is graved into them the story of all events. The
atoms lie differently for every action that has played itself
out. Stones do speak, but while this muddy vesture of
decay sits close about us, we cannot hear them.
' ' How lonely the streets are ; how lonely ; how lonely. As
lonely as I am, as lonely as life, as mankind is.
"All men are lonely, and their footsteps ring in the soli-
tude of their lives. No man can speak to another man to
make him understand. He that would understand me, must
be me; I must pour myself into his brain, be lost in him.
This cannot be. Words are but the rough working tools
of daily business; even conscious thought is not ourself.
How then, can there be intercourse between us? How can
we transmit ourselves ?
' ' No, every man bears his desolation about with him. To
every man the world is peopled with ghosts, and he is the
only reality."
He stopped in his walking and stood, straining at the
sky. "I am alone with you," he whispered, "day and
night, amongst men and in solitude, I am alone with you.
The rest is illusion."
He stretched his arms up to the heavens, and a rush of
tears blinded him. He felt again in himself the surge of
primal emotion, the call of passions not his own, but of the
life-force. He alone was the reality and the heavens were
the background to him.
"I alone am alive," he cried. "I am living. My heart
THE OUTSIDER 111
beats and my mind sings and the whole world is in me. You
and I you and I, living, speaking, each to the other."
The words choked him. The strength that was in him
was more than he could bear. Shivering he looked about
him, and saw in front the Madeleine bulking into the
heavens, with vast pillars wan and indistinct. Strange !
How strange it looked; as if mankind had deserted it ten
thousand years ago ; still standing, hundreds of generations
after the last priest had died, waiting, waiting for time to
wear it away.
"The sands of the desert are the wind- wasted walls of
temples," he said.
He went over and leaned against the wall of the Mad-
eleine, exhausted suddenly, and overcome again by an in-
tolerable melancholy. The tears started again to his eyes;
he wanted to weep for the miseries of the human race, for
the wrongs and persecutions it had borne, for the evil
things it had inflicted on itself and for the cruelties it had
suffered at the hands of its Creator. He heard from a great
^distance a sound of lamentation, many generations .com-
plaining to God for wars and feuds and pestilences. Pa-
tience that could endure no more, love that had hoped in
vain, man's blind yearning for goodness that circum-
stances daily thwarted and turned to a mesh of evil, the
immemorial "Why?" all these mingled in -a persecuting
dirge.
He stood as if petrified, in the darkness by the church,
listening to his heart ; and then it seemed to him as if the
dirge was coming nearer to him, was sounding louder in
his ears. It seemed to him that a congregation was chant-
ing, a great congregation of mourners, there in the church
itself, in the darkness of the church, behind those pillars,
wan and indistinct, behind those terrible walls a great con-
gregation of mourners chanting slowly and with pauses
112 THE OUTSIDER
that echoed from the vast ceiling. His heart stopped beat-
ing. They were chanting his name ' ' Mortimer, Mortimer,
Mortimer, Mortimer," waves of sound rolling one after
the other. And then, as one section of the congregation after
another took up his name, and the waves of sound beat
closer one after the other, it seemed that only the first syl-
lable of his name emerged, like the tolling of a gigantic bell
"Mort! Mort! Mort! Mort!" He was dying.
His sightless eyes were fixed on the Egyptian pillar in
the Place de la Concorde.
CHAPTER VI
NOON of the next day was glowing through the heavy
portieres when Mortimer became aware that he was awake.
He was watching with a pleased inanity the light on the
carpet just underneath the window ; there no footsteps had
worn the pattern, which still shone green and grey. He
came slowly to himself. Except for a dryness in his mouth,
nothing remained of his revel but memories, confused mem-
ories, chiefly of sensations and fits of exaltation and de-
pression.
Before this vague intention of getting up had taken form,
Ezra put his nose slyly round the door, saw that he was
awake, and came in, grinning. He made a profound obei-
sance two or three times and said, whining, through his
nose, "Good morning, Sir. How's your good self this morn-
ing?"
Mortimer grinned back and said nothing.
"Feeling gueule-deboi-ish-like today?" asked Ezra,
mockingly. "Have you an inexplicable hot-calcium-carbon-
ate feeling on the palate ? Have you doubts as to your iden-
tity? Are you wondering whether you are one person or
two. Does an astonishing noise persist in your head?"
"No symptoms," said Mortimer. "I feel like a gentle-
man; open the portieres like a good fellow, and hand me
a glass of water. ' '
Ezra pulled the portieres aside; then he and Mortimer
looked at each other in the fresh light and irresistible
laughter came over them.
* ' We sure played the fool last night, ' ' said Mortimer, still
laughing. "But there must be something wrong with me.
I've got no after-effects; not even a twinge of conscience."
113
114 THE OUTSIDER
"We certainly played the fool," agreed Ezra, walking
up and down in his grey robe and smiling at the floor,
"you were divinely beso/fen, Mortimer. You must have
a pretty good constitution to come up smiling this morn-
ing."
"I wonder what the little outburst cost," said Mortimer.
"The very thing I came down here to find out," said
Ezra. "We can't play the fool like this very often. Once
every six months is all our finances can stand."
"Let's see," said Mortimer, calculating. "I went out
last night with a five hundred franc note in my pocket and
fifty -five francs. Give me my coat."
He took out his pocket-book and looked timidly in. ' ' One,
fifty Good Lord one hundred and fifty francs," he said,
horrified. "Pretty expensive jag, I call that. Four hun-
dred francs." He rubbed his nose violently.
"My puir laddie," said Ezra, "it isn't all. You did the
paying till we left the Monico. I paid the taxi to the
Avenue Montaigne, I paid the entry thirty francs apiece,
drinks inside, taxi to see the girls home. Open your shud-
dering ears ; that makes another two hundred and fifty. ' '
MortimeU drew breath and whistled. "Six! hundred
and fifty francs!" They looked at each other and smiled
by degrees.
"That's three hundred and twenty-five apiece," said
Ezra. "Not so bad."
' ' Three hundred and twenty-five, ' ' said Mortimer slowly.
"That leaves me with four hundred and eighty francs in
the world. In about a week I shall have four hundred to
collect from old Lessar, then there's that translation for
the man at the Albion Hotel I met through Lessar. Pooh,
pooh, that's alright."
He felt assured again.
"I'll get up," he said, and put his feet out of bed.
THE OUTSIDER 115
"Ezra, put a match to the grate, will you? They always
leave a fire prepared. By Gemini, we 11 have to live rather
carefully now, eh? Once in a way doesn't matter, though.
Let's see."
He put on his slippers and robe, and sat down with a
piece of paper and a pencil at the table.
' ' It 's the sixteenth now, eh ? I 've got four eighty francs.
In a week's time another four hundred; before the first
another two hundred for the translation; that's over a
thousand francs. We're wealthy; it's nearly a hundred
dollars. Ring the bell and tell them we'll take a little
breakfast. ' '
"Remember," said Ezra, warningly, "it costs you two
fifty to take breakfast in this room. You can have as
good a one for sixty centimes if you stand up to it at the
corner cafe."
"No, no," said Mortimer, "after such a gorgeous night
one can't go back too suddenly to our meagre regime.
You've got to break the fall or you'll break your morale.
Morale, that's what won the war, and don't you forget it.
I'm for a cup of coffee now and say, look at the sun-
light " he was hopping feverishly round on one leg,
thrusting the other down a twisted trouser "look at the
sunlight. After a cup of coffee let's go hunting a place
to dine in. Say, do you remember those eathouses in the
States "a clean place to eat," as though you were a land-
scape shifter. I suggest a walk up the Montmartre just
so. Listen there 's church bells. I feel a strain of piety. ' '
"I think," said Ezra, stretching himself luxuriously in
the armchair by the slowly mounting fire, "that there's
a back-wash of the wine talking in you. Your spirits are
too high."
"I feel uncommonly good this morning," said Mortimer.
"Really I do. Wouldn't that sunlight make any man feel
116 THE OUTSIDER
good. Oh, Henri" to the boy who had answered the bell
"coffee, hot, and petits pcvlns, and plenty of milk and
sugar. Look there, into the street. It's dazzling. Makes
you want to run about naked."
"As I say, I admire your constitution. You were rav-
ing seven or eight hours ago. Just plainly raving. ' '
"That's funny," said Mortimer, dropping into the other
chair. "Drinking only gets the senses and not the mind
at least, not the mind directly. Last night I thought
nothing extravagant. I'm sure of it. Only I took my
drinking with such moving seriousness, didn't I? But if
that kind of thing is what they call the high life and high
living it doesn't appeal over strongly to me. I imagine
once a few months is as much as I 'd like. ' '
"I suppose that is the high life," said Ezra, "the girls
might be more dressed, or undressed; you yourself might
wear evening dress. You might pay a thousand francs
for the dinner and drink nothing but champagne. But
it's the same thing."
"And there are people who do that kind of thing reg-
ularly," said Mortimer, naively.
"There are," affirmed Ezra sententiously. "They are
the bad boys."
"What a lack of imagination, " said Mortimer. "I
don't see anything in it except one's own high spirits; and
if you make a routine of getting drunk your spirits '11 be
low enough. And I don't care how the ladies dress or
look."
"They're nice, those two," said Ezra, remembering
kindly. "They're very nice. It's a shame we can't take
Mado and Carmen out like that."
Mortimer felt a pang again, it was more than a shame ;
he might have given that money to poor little Carmen.
What a costume she could get for three hundred francs!
THE OUTSIDER 117
"But you can't do it," went .on Ezra, insistent. "I
don't only mean because the kids are so badly dressed
but what would they do in the Monico? They'd be lost."
"They are different from Odette and Juliette. Two
worlds. Odette and Juliette belong to the ancient and
honorable order of hemi-demi-mondaines ; one can show
off with them, if one has money, take them riding in the
Bois, and that kind of thing. For goodness sake, how did
things wind up last night. I'm a bit confused about the
finale."
"You got rather moody," said Ezra, twinkling at him.
' ' You said you wanted to walk in sublime solitude, and we
had to let you. You left us at the Avenue Montaigne.
You were abominably obstinate."
"Yes, yes. I think I remember insisting on something,
that's right. I wandered down to the Madeleine and stuck
there till it got light and then I came home. Yep. I
was saying, Juliette and Odette aren 't really worth Car-
men 's little finger, humanly speaking. But you couldn't
get drunk with Carmen. She'd be worrying about your
condition. She's really so good."
Ezra nodded several times. "She is very good."
"As a matter of fact," said Mortimer, "I'm getting a
bit scared of her. I had a scene with her the other eve-
ning. She's getting kinder too fond of me; not in a wild
way, I mean, but in a solid way. I can see that, and I'm
a wee bit afraid."
"But don't you like her?"
"Of course I do a whole lot. And that's the trouble.
If I didn't like her I wouldn't be afraid of complications,
but as it is, between her becoming affectionate in that way
and my liking her, there's a whole bundle of possibilities.
You get me?"
"I do."
118 THE OUTSIDER
"And," said Mortimer emphatically, "I don't want
complications and responsibilities. I stayed in Paris to
avoid them. I don't want anyone to love me in that way,
because it's distressing. You can't breathe freely with
somebody's soul in your keeping. I must be free or I
might as well pack up and go home, because all slaveries
are alike."
"I wonder whether Carmen knows how she exercises
your mind."
"Of course not, though she may think I like her more
than I do. It's hard to say an affectionate word to her
without her making a whole little w:orld out of it. She's
a better man than I am, so to speak. Poor little kid."
The coffee came when Mortimer had finished washing.
After the shave and the cold water, Mortimer felt clear
in mind and body.
"Just a drink, Ezra, then we can get ready and take a
good walk. I can fancy a little restaurant perched up
there near the Sacre Coeur. I '11 order a steak and pommes
f rites. Just today we'll be a little extravagant, what?
After today, back to the old grind."
When they set foot outside a chill, fresh wind was blow-
ing. The sunlight was brilliant on the walls and pave-
ments; keen winter was in the air. With their overcoats
buttoned close they walked briskly to the rue Royale. The
pavement seemed to ring under their footsteps.
There was the Madeleine still, clean-cut in the sunlight ;
on the columns the light and shadow lay so sharply that
they looked over real, like the painted columns in a theatre.
The leaves danced in the wind. Over head the trees, clad
like beggars, swayed left and right and shook their haggard
branches.
The wind grew till it sang in their ears. Gusts of it
wrapped them round like invisible, flapping garments.
THE OUTSIDER 111)
"There are so many different ways of feeling alive,"
said Mortimer, as they came to the end of the Chaussee
d'Antin. "And each one is good. Look at that."
He meant* the blue sky behind the towers of the Church
of the Trinity an intolerably vivid blue 1 that hurt the de-
lighted eye just as the suggestion of infinite depth hurt the
imnd ; There was not a fleck on the whole sky ; behind the
Church and to the left, where the skyline was at its lowest,
the edges of the fierce blue took on a burning tint of bronze.
Mortimer drank the light as they walked rapidly uphill.
Beyond the Place Blanche they turned off from the rue
Lepic into 'a curious little street with a straggling hedge
on one side and crumbling houses on the other. The side-
walk was old and faulty, the street paved with gigantic
cobblestones. They stopped.
"Look at that," said Mortimer, laughing. "You're in
Paris now, mark you, and not in a ruined village of the
Auvergnes. ' '
At the end of the street was a small square, with six
trees nodding. The irregular sides of the square were
ancient houses. The wind blew the sand along the ground
to the foot of a flight of wooden stairs that started up and
went away round a corner. Grass grew near the gutters
that ran round the square. Two ancient benches stood
on rusty feet under the trees. In the sunlight a double
portion of desolation and neglect sat on the tiny scene.
"It takes a long time to make a real good ruin," said
Mortimer, as they started up the stairs.
"It takes a long time to make anything that's good,"
said Ezra, nodding. "The best things human beings pro-
duce they have to produce unconsciously; the desire to
produce something good is almost always fatal. ' '
They changed their climbing walk to a run. At the top
of the stairs the Sacre Coeur came into view, bulking white
120 THE OUTSIDER
into the blue. Turning round, they looked down between
the two walls at a section of Paris, dusty, bluish, with hills
far away. Immediately below them was a tangle of old
roofs, jumbled wildly into each other.
They went on slowly up the stairs. Halfway up the
second flight, on a kind of platform, stood a ludicrous
building on the point, it seemed, of instant dissolution. A
battered door leaned away from' its hinges with a rogueish
lilt, suggestive of a battered cocotte. They looked into
a dirty lobby between crumbling walls. The shutters of
the upstairs windows hung frantically to their hinges.
Iron gratings, rusted and twisted, covered the lower half
of the windows, and from one such grating a cracked tin
sign stuck out at right angles. "Hotel de I'Univers et de
la Gascogne. Chambres meublees, 1 franc par jour."
The two men stared aghast at the building and then at
each other. ' ' This is, ' ' said Mortimer at last, emphatically,
"the most abominable human habitation I have ever seen."
They continued staring. "Does anybody live in it," he
asked, incredulously.
"The Hotel of the Universe and of Gascony," said Ezra
with a chuckle. "I'd almost live here myself for the sake
of the name. Sure people live here and glad to do it, I
suppose, if they have the necessary one franc per day.
Imagine that before the war I got a dainty little room in
the rue des ficoles for one franc a day, electric light, shoes
shined, use of telephone, and bathroom. I've slept in
worse places myself. Do you remember the Jaccressade
of St. Malo in Toilers of the Deep?"
Mortimer nodded.
"I don't suppose you know what 'dormir d, la corde*
means. I've done that, here in Paris. There's a big room
with rows of chairs. In front of each row of chairs there's
stretched across the room a wooden bar. You sit on the
THE OUTSIDER 121
chair and rest your arms and head on the bar. It used
to cost two sous for the night, I think. In the summer
you'd prefer to sleep outside to avoid the smell; but in
winter even a smell has warmth."
"I would really like to see one of these rooms," said
Mortimer. "I wonder if we couldn't go and say we want
to hire a room for a month."
Ezra exploded at the idea.
"You simpleton! You'd get Tmifed for having a clean
collar on. They'd take you for a Commissaire de Police.
Beside, do you think that a poor devil that uses such a
room ever has a month's rent in his possession? I bet
nobody ever takes a room for longer than a day at a time
and comes in the evening with his franc or her franc.
Fugitive business what they call in the commercial world
transient clientele, n'est-ce pas?"
' ' This place fascinates me, ' ' said Mortimer. ' ' Honestly,
I've never seen anything so horrible in all my life. Say,
do you think that two people each in possession of fifty cen-
times could, on a windy, rainy night, get a room here
between them ? ' '
"You're fastidious," said Ezra. "You haven't knocked
about. I'm ready to bet that if you were forced to live
in one of these rooms you'd not only get used to it, but in
the end you'd begin to think of it as home."
They walked upwards from the Hotel de 1'Univers et
de la Gaseogne to the top of the second flight of stairs.
"The worst thing to me about that hotel down there,"
said Ezra, "is it's proprietor. Fancy a man who can own
a thing like that and make money out of it take francs
from wrecks of human beings. I suppose it's business after
all; there are worse places."
"Who are the people who sleep here?" persisted Morti-
mer, looking back on to the patched roof of the Hotel.
122 THE OUTSIDER
' ' Sandwichmen, those bleary-eyed old fellows you see
on the Boulevards carrying advertisements of carbarets
and the dansants and chic restaurants; old ragpickers,
those elegant elderly ladies you see late at night on the
Boulevards with their noses in the garbage cans. I've
been lots of things, Mortimer, and I'll be lots more, but
I don't think I could ever be one of those ragpickers. It
needs a real commercial ability and a fine sense of values.
French households don't throw valuables into their gar-
bage cans." The theme engaged Ezra; he continued,
laughing with a certain bitterness. "I'd be puzzled to
make my choice out of the contents of a garbage can
embarras de choix, you know. I'm no good at business,
though maybe I 'd pick that up in time along with the other
things. These old ladies have a regular scale of values
and a gamut of emotions. A world of their own, a world
of garbage cans. You were saying' something last night
in the ecstacy of wine about the different ways of seeing
life. I'd like to investigate. How da corks stand in the
ragpicking world? Are they routine? When is the low-
est emotion registered? It must be at a garbage can full
of ashes. You stir it up and stir it up and sneeze over it
and it's ashes all the way down. The next one gives you
a mild surprise with two empty bottles and a bone. I
wonder what would happen if one of these ragpickers
found a garbage can packed with one-thousand franc notes
no, she wouldn't recognise them I mean with five franc
notes. That must be God. But it isn't really sandwich-
men and ragpickers that fascinate me it's the people that
deal in them and make a good living out of them.
"I don't think there's any stage of -life so low but what
it guards its own little dignities and distinctions. Did you
ever hear the story of the crossing-sweepers? There was
one of them that died, and the next day his colleagues at
THE OUTSIDER 123
the old corner were speaking of him with regret. 'He
was a werry good feller, nice chap,' said one of them.
'Yis, that 'e was,' said another 'Werry nice,' then
added, in an anxious voice, 'don't you think though, he
was a hit careless round the lamp-posts?' '
Mortimer enjoyed the anecdote too much to laugh at it ;
he turned it over in his mind and smiled.
"So those are the people who frequent the Hotel de
1 'Univers et de la Gascogne ? " he said.
"Those, and ancient newsvenders, and out-of-works, and
beggars. Mostly horrible people. The books pretend
there's good human stuff amongst these outcasts; but when
a person's lived like that for years, all good is crushed
out of him 'tis not a stuff that will endure and he be-
comes something horrible."
"I wonder how one ever becomes a ragpicker," mused
Mortimer. "There must be a series of steps to that con-
dition."
"Yes, human nature is stronger than iron," said Ezra.
"There's hardly a limit to what it'll stand. One gets
accustomed to these things with astonishing easiness. Years
ago I was in London without a penny in my pocket and with-
out a place to sleep in and that for several nights in suc-
cession. I remember standing in the late evening near a
common, with my eye on three or four newspapers in a
public waste-paper can. I wanted those newspapers to
cover myself with and to sleep on ; it was a damp, chilly,
autumn night. The question was, how to get those news-
papers from the receptacle without sacrificing my dignity ;
I wanted to impart to the abstraction of the papers a cer-
tain detachment, show in some way that I was merely an
eccentric newspaper collector, or else wait till nobody was
about. And while I stood hesitating there, I saw a wolfish
fellow in rags making quite overtly for those papers. He
124 THE OUTSIDER
had no such delicacy of feeling about it. Well, I simply went
for those papers at top speed. I got them before he did.
That was a step in my education. We are infinitely stupid.
What should I have cared for the opinion of people who
might have seen me taking those papers ? What were they
to me, or I to them? However, that's beside the point.
The next evening I simply grabbed papers as I found them
shameless and free. I've never begged in the streets.
I must try that; I may have to some day. These people
aren 't as unhappy as we think, Mortimer. They have their
little worries and calculations, and their plans and hopes
and little surprises; they have their corners and acquain-
tances, and even their jokes and their convenances, God
save the mark. They feel astonishingly human and they
are, when you get used to them."
They came into an open space before the Church, and
stopped to look at the dirty-white monument, so different
from the fairy Eastern building glowing on the hilltop in
the evening sun.
"This is a monument of ugliness," said Mortimer, as
they walked round towards the Northern side. Ezra
nodded.
"It's a horrible failure. I say, look here."
In the shadow of the Church there was an ancient bou-
tique displaying a vast assortment of relics, crucifixes,
rosaries, Madonnas in plaster and bronze, talismans, pic-
ture post-cards of saints. To some of these articles was
attached a card "Blessed by Monsignor ... by the Arch-
bishop ..." The two men looked silently over the col-
lection of goods. Both of them were thinking of the same
thing the incomprehensible paradox of this city of Paris,
the cradle of godlessness and the home of the most ancient,
most pitiable superstitions.
"At the dedication of .this Church," said Ezra, "they
THE OUTSIDER 125
carried holy bones in a procession, like a bunch of dark
African niggers. I don't understand Paris. Look at it
there."
They crossed the road to where a railing shut off the edge
of the hill towering over the city. There lay Paris, blue
and dusty in the sunshine, laughing at the great expanse
of heaven. They stood dreaming over the city, each in
his own way, Ezra remembering the many cities of the
world he had gazed on, Mortimer seized by the sense of
the immortality of this place, the obstinacy of life.
"I'm hungry," said Ezra, starting away at last. "One
can get drunk watching this place."
They walked a little further round the Church, then
downwards along a street that slipped off at a tangent,
on. one side the circle of the Church and on the other a
row of houses that suddenly shut off the city. At the end
of the first block they came to a wooden restaurant, at the
side of which a flight of narrow steps dropped a hundred
feet to a boulevard. On the further side of these steps
was a tangle of green trees on a hillside. The sunlight
came into the restaurant and smote the white tablecloths
and the cosy leather seats.
"This place will do," said Mortimer.
They chose a seat at a window hanging above the narrow
stairs and looking out flat across Paris, to what looked
like the towers of the Church of the Trinity. It was
then close to two o'clock; there was in the restaurant only
a strange couple, a man with a shock of red hair, an open
shirt front and an old jacket, and a woman in trousers.
The man's face was bronzed, with eyes deep-set and a
firm pointed nose above thin lips. The woman, about
thirty years of age, was frankly ugly, but when she spoke
the vivid movement of her lips and the intensity of the
expression compelled an almost breathless attention. They
126 THE OUTSIDER
were both smoking, and talking rapidly in English, but
their words did not carry across the room.
Mortimer took up the menu, rubbed his hands joyously,
and began to choose.
"Oysters," he said, and almost felt them in his mouth.
"With lemon, ah?"
"Right" said Ezra, watching the curious couple on the
other side of the room.
"Rabbit," said Mortimer-, "pommes f rites, Cam.enibert
and one solitary bottle of Asti. What, do you say ? ' '
"Good," answered Ezra.
Mortimer .passed -the order on to the waiter, an.d then
leaned' back and looked -through half -closed eyes at the city.
AH his content and restf-ulness- came over -him .anew. Let
others have aims and ambitions*and social worries and neigh-
bors and relatives a;nd complications. He was here alone,
disentangled by one effort, free, free.
The dinner was excellently prepared-, the oysters whole-
some and fresh, the rabbit meat firm, and tasting almost
like duck. The fried potatoes came in a golden hillock,
crisp, curling daintily at the edges, hot. Ezra showed
Mortimer that there is only one way of eating a plateful
of French-fried potatoes, and that is, to work round the
edges, closing in gradually on the centre; in this way an
even temperature is maintained otherwise the chips at
the edge grow too cold to be eaten. The Asti went well
with the Camembert, for Camembert is slightly rancid,
and Asti sweet, tasting of grape.
At four o'clock, when they went 'out again, the wind had
fallen and the sunlight across the city was calmer and
richer. They went down the wooden steps and emerged,
after two turns, on the rue Rochechouart, leading downhill
to the outer boulevards.
As they passed near the corner of the Dufayel Depart-
THE OUTSIDER 127
ment Store, Ezra gripped Mortimer by the arm suddenly,
and said, "Look at those two girls across the way."
Mortimer looked, saw a tall, dark girl in a grey coat,
and a little blond girl in a black silky coat, extraordinarily
dainty. The taller girl, as Ezra raised his hat to her,
raised her hand and smiled frankly. Ezra waited not a
moment. He laughed, linked his arm in Mortimer's, and
started across the street. Both girls stopped for them.
"Good-day, ladies."
"Good-day, gentlemen," said the taller girl. The little
one looked away, smiling delightfully. The yellow curls
came out from under a close-fitting hat; her eyes were
bright blue, there were freckles on her cheeks and on her
little turn-up nose. Mortimer looked at her with overt
pleasure.
"You are walking?" said Ezra.
"As you see."
"Walking whither?"
"Chasing boredom in any direction."
The four walked together now, Ezra on the side of the
tall brunette, Mortimer with the little girl, who looked in
front of her all the time, smiling, elfin, but wordless.
"We also," said Ezra. "And we've found excellent
company for the chase."
"You're rather premature," said the tall girl, smiling.
It was a strange and yet friendly smile, and her voice,
low-pitched and clear, had a sad ring in it. "But if you
are willing to gamble on the quality of our company, we
will on yours."
"You have no comment to offer?" said Mortimer to the
younger girl. She flashed a brilliant, childish look at him,
and shook her head, making the curls dance.
"My friend speaks for me."
"But always?"
128 THE OUTSIDER
"Always. I'm foolish myself."
Mortimer was startled and amused.
"But what do you do when your friend isn't there?"
"I don't speak."
"That's rather difficult for me."
She shrugged her shoulders, laughed and turned her look
away, but made no answer.
"You are Montmartroise ? " asked Ezra of the older girl.
"Born in Montmartre, cradled there and never left it
for more than a week," said the tall girl. "You are
Belgian."
"No."
"Not French, though," said the girl, "though you speak
French like a Frenchman."
The street became narrower here. Ezra dropped behind
and Mortimer walked in front with the little blond girl.
She was altogether at her ease, despite her wordlessness.
On her bright face the same smile always played. A
natural self-certainty spoke in her smile and her walk.
Mortimer began to feel uncomfortable after thirty seconds
of silence. One had to say something.
"Please, what is your name?"
"Gaby."
"Is that all?"
"That's all."
Another uncomfortable silence. He racked his brain.
"And how old are you, please?"
"Eighteen."
He wished she would ask him something in exchange,
but she walked daintily on, quite oblivious of him.
"What is your friend's name, please?"
"Fernande."
"Is she a relative of yours?"
"She's my cousin."
THE OUTSIDER 129
Silence again.
"Can't you tell me something?" he asked at last.
"No, I'm foolish."
"Nonsense, you seem to understand what I say."
She shook her head, smiled again, and made no reply.
"Must I do all the talking?" he asked, desperate.
"Out."
"And suppose I don't do any talking?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "That's quite alright."
"But I have to talk, nom d'une pipe," insisted Mortimer.
"Well, talk."
"Very well, then," he said, exasperated. "I won't talk."
She did not reply. So in silence they went down to the
corner of the Boulevard. Mortimer was acutely distressed
at first and then, to his amusement, found that it was quite
easy to observe silence. Her bright presence was a
pleasure in itself; he looked sideways at her from time to
time and admired, not without being puzzled, the sans
gene and freedom of her bearing. She was debonair and
untroubled.
"Do you never talk to anybody," he asked at the corner.
"No, I'm foolish."
"How do you know you are foolish?"
"Everybody says so."
"Who's everybody?"
"Mother, Fernande."
"But doesn't it bore you to walk in silence all the time?"
"No." She opened her eyes.
"Do you like walking with somebody?" he was ap-
proaching the imbecilic.
"I like walking with you."
"You funny little devil," he said to himself, curiously
pleased.
A little beyond the corner of the Boulevard Ezra and
130 THE OUTSIDER
Fernande caught up with them. Ezra was talking easily
and gracefully, by now thoroughly at his ease.
"We're all going to take a drink, you two," he said.
"We can go in here.
As they sat down Fernande looked maliciously at Mort-
imer.
"My little cousin is not talkative," she said, slyly.
"Ah, non, par exemple," agreed Mortimer. "But it
doesn't matter, does it, Mademoiselle Gaby."
"Not at all."
"My friend Ezra doesn't suffer from lack of words,"
said Mortimer. "You have found that out."
' ' Your friend is very amusing and very clever, ' ' affirmed
Fernande. "And he is a man of the world."
"I explained to her the difference between the sexes,"
said Ezra. ' ' I pointed out that a man is a man for a man 's
sake, whereas a woman is a woman for a man's .sake.
She says the definition pleases her."
"Perfectly," said Fernande. "It's the summary of our
slavery. Whatever a woman does it's with the thought
of a man in her mind. And a man does many things
without the thought of a woman in his mind."
" 'Tis of man's life a thing apart," quoted Ezra, "but
I prefer my epigram. I'm sorry to point out the inferi-
ority of your sex after so short an acquaintance with you,
I mean, not your sex. But what do you want? The bon
Dieu made us, and the fault is not mine. Man was his
first inspiration and woman a sequel, and like all sequels,
something of a failure."
"I wouldn't complain if man lived up to the dignity
of his superiority."
Again Mortimer heard the fascinating undertone of sad-
ness in the dark girl's voice.
THE OUTSIDER 131
"We were created a long time ago," said Ezra. "You
mustn't wonder if we've deteriorated a little."
He was talking for show. Mortimer could see that he
did not care what he said as long as it struck. Even a
man like Ezra showed off before a woman. But he did
talk well, never at a loss for a comment, always skillful in
bringing on a second subject when the first was failing.
He talked mostly of men and women, sometimes of man and
woman, anecdotes, epigrams, amusing questions. In the
end Mortimer was almost irritated by this effortless fruit-
lessness; it was in essence artificial; behind their frontage
of intellectuality the remarks were for the most part ex-
traordinarily meaningless. Yet he went on, fluent, inter-
esting, tireless. The dark girl followed him, quick to
understand, and vividly interested. She wanted to be in-
terested, and Ezra interested her.
As they were going out of the cafe Ezra was explaining
that thei*e are thousands of different ways of falling in
love, but only one way of falling out of love ; he did this
as cleverly as Mortimer had once heard him explain that
all falling in love was the same biologic process, but falling
out of love called for the exercise of individuality.
"What a miserable charlatan you are, Ezra," he said,
laughing, but with a twinge of vexation. He said this in
English.
' ' Rubbish, dear boy. Don 't you see the poor girl is just
dying to be talked to at great length? Besides, I just like
talking."
Mortimer and Gaby walked on again in front, towards
the Place Blanche. The unexacting restfulness of his little
companion startled Mortimer now after Fernande's ex-
hausting interest in conversation. v
"If I knew you for a year," he asked suddenly, "and
132 THE OUTSIDER
never said a word, would that make any difference to your
liking me or not liking me!"
"No."
"You are not like your cousin, eh?"
"No."
"She wants to be talked to."
"Yes."
"She is nervous?"
"She is neurasthenic," volunteered Gaby.
"Oh."
"Her lover committed suicide a few months ago."
"The devil!" said Mortimer. "That's why she's neu-
rasthenic ? ' '
"Yes."
"She must have loved him very much."
"Yes."
Mortimer fell into silence again, and his thoughts re-
verted to the strangeness of random meetings. In a
crowded street, where all faces are composed to a proper
decorum, one would think human beings so much alike;
and indeed, one treats them thus in a crowd. But next
to you might walk a murderer, and in front of you, staring
at you, might be a man contemplating suicide, or theft,
or revenge, or dreaming of his dead love, or suffering from
toothache, or desperate with financial worry. This was the
chief ground for tolerance in life you could not know
what the next man was passing through. From these gen-
eral thoughts he came back to the little girl walking with
him. She was not ordinary; she was not foolish. Her
presence spoke too sharply, her face was too living. But
she did not seem to perceive people by their conversation.
She had another sense perhaps, another source of communi-
cation. She walked in free silence, pleased either with her
thoughts or with a subconscious stream of feelings.
THE OUTSIDER 133
At the bottom of the rue Blanche Ezra still talking
smoothly and Fernande, caught up with them.
"It is six o'clock," said Fernande, "we must go back
or Gaby's mother will scold me."
"We're going to meet again, aren't we?" said Mortimer,
anxiously.
"Your friend suggested next Wednesday evening at the
cafe opposite the corner of the rue Joseph Dijon. I can
come with Gaby then."
"That will suit me," said Mortimer, and then thought
of adding that he really meant to be there and did not
wish to be disappointed, but he kept that back. He shook
hands with Fernande, and then with Gaby. The latter,
as she took his hand, looked up at him with a smile of
extraordinary brightness.
"Au revoir."
*'Au revoir, a Merer edi."
"What a strange child," burst out Mortimer, as they
turned homewards.
' ' What a strange woman, ' ' added Ezra.
' ' She 's like a pretty little goblin, ' ' said Mortimer. ' ' Did
you ever see anything so pert, so Devil-may-careish, and
so comically dignified?"
"She is a strange child, from what I noticed," said Ezra,
"but I was interested in Fernande. She is not an ordinary
girl."
"This is the most marvellous city in the world," said
Mortimer, excitedly. "Is there another city in the world
where you can go out and find people just like that?"
"No city that I know of," agreed Ezra.
"In other cities, to meet somebody on the street in that
way is just horrible even to me," said Mortimer.
"Here, it's natural."
They walked home slowly, pleased with their afternoon,
134 THE OUTSIDER
and pleased with their adventure. At the door of the
hotel they calculated that their afternoon had cost them
over a little hundred francs ; but Mortimer 's content could
not be overclouded. He went up into his room, alone,
lit the fire and put on his slippers, and with his pipe
drawing easily between his teeth, read Verlaine by the
last sunlight and when that failed utterly dreamed over
the last lines he had read:
Je me souviens, je me souviens,
Des heures et des entretiens,
Et c'est le meilleur de mes biens.
Dansons la gigue.
CHAPTER VII
IN A thin, desolating rain Mortimer walked along the
rue St. Honore towards the Hotel Albion. Fastened under
his coat was a bundle of manuscript, part of a translation
he was working on for a Mr. Lockwood, an American, to
whom old Lessar had sent him a few days before. This
Mr. Lockwood was the second link in a chain that he hoped
to forge. There was plenty of fugitive work in Paris,
he knew, in part commercial, in part literary. The prob-
lem was how to reach the people who wanted the work
done. His belief was that from a beginning with Lessar
he could build up slowly a connection among the resident
English and Americans in Paris and through them reach
the transients. It should not be difficult to make a living ;
he needed six or seven hundred francs a month. There
were thousands and thousands of foreigners resident in
Paris who would need his fugitive services, and thousands
and thousands of others passing through a city whose
language was strange to them. He needed only to meet a
couple of them every week perhaps only four a month;
and he was confident that with a little persistence he would
meet them.
The work under his coat, a translation into English of
the prospectus of a French cold meat Company, was due
a few days hence; but Lockwood, at their first meeting,
had said something about a lady he knew who had asked
for secretarial work. At that time Mortimer had not felt
it decent to ask for details ; later he upbraided himself for
his misplaced sensitiveness. Now, following the revels of
Saturday and Sunday, his finances worried him ; he would
see Mr. Lockwood on the pretext of delivering part of the
135
136 THE OUTSIDER
work and ask boldly for the lady's name and address. He
had gathered that she was the President of an American
"Women's Anti-Bolshevist Organisation who had come
specially to Paris to obtain a message of encouragement
from M. Clemenceau and had, after a month's manipula-
tion, reached a man who could introduce her to an acquaint-
ance of M. Mandel. Mortimer visualised the lady from
these facts and rejoiced in the thought that she would
probably pay a good price.
As he walked through the rain he calculated cheerfully.
Copying of manuscript was the lowest paid form of any
work, but at six francs a hundred lines he could still make
twelve francs an hour five hours a day, sixty francs
fifteen hundred francs a month, which was handsome.
Translation was twenty francs a hundred lines less than
an hour's -work. Fifteen hundred francs a month was,
then, a moderate estimate of what he should be earning.
It needed only a little preliminary energy and he would
be out of all danger, out of the reach of all worry; and
his own master.
He went in by the revolving door in the Place Jeanne
d'Arc and approached the inquiry desk. A crowd pressed
in front of him and Mortimer, conscious that he was not
one of the princely clientele, waited to get a word in.
The clerk behind the desk, a heavy, bald-headed man, with
handsome moustaches and an irrefragible and unbecoming
smile, evinced an exhaustless, overcoloured courtesy. Morti-
mer watched his gyrations with some curiosity until the
crowd had melted away, and then permitted himself to
address him in French.
"Is Mr. Lockwood in?"
"Mr. Lockwood? One moment, Sir. No, Sir. Mr.
Lockwood is gone."
"Do you know what time he will be back?"
THE OUTSIDER 137
"He is gone, Sir. Left the hotel."
"Oh!" Dismay seized on Mortimer. "But that's im-
possible. I have an appointment with him."
"I am sorry, Sir. He left last night. Would you like
his new address, Sir?"
Hope revived. "Thank you. If you please."
"Ah Vaeco, Texah" which Mortimer recognised des-
pairingly as Waco, Tex. He stood his ground, undecided.
"It's very funny," he said, stammering a little. "He
gave me some secretarial work to do for him, for next
week. ' *
An astonishing change came over the clerk's face. The
courteous smile vanished and the heavy features relapsed
with an almost audible snap into a cold indifference.
"He's gone parti," he said, in a new voice, and turned
his back on Mortimer to consult a book. He was either
annoyed to have wasted professional courtesy on a mere
secretary or this was his natural "off-duty" demeanor.
Mortimer waited till he turned round again.
"Can you please give me his complete name and ad-
dress?"
The clerk surveyed him with heavy displeasure. "Ex-
cuse me," he said, frigidly. "You should not have come
in by this door. You should have noticed that there is a
special door for tradesmen. You must apply at that door
for information. This door is for the clientele and their
friends. ' '
Mortimer stood stone-still with amazement and then the
blood rushed suddenly into his head.
"Why, you damned flunkey," he burst out, in English.
The clerk ignored him for a moment and then, with an
unpleasant brusqueness repeated in French "You must
leave this entrance."
Mortimer trembled with fury. "I'll stay here as long
138 THE OUTSIDER
as I care to, you damned janitor," he said in a cold rage,
and took out a cigarette. He turned from the desk and
sat down in a chair. Two or three loungers who had
heard the raised voice regarded him curiously. Mortimer
lit the cigarette with a hand that shivered and bit the end
of it viciously. He was seeing red. The clerk finished
making an entry into a book, signalled to two porters, and
indicated Mortimer contemptuously.
The two men approached. "You must leave this hotel,
Monsieur," said one of them, "immediately."
"Who is that man?" asked Mortimer.
"It is the manager.
A brief, wild instant, Mortimer felt that the only thing
to do was to knock both men down. He sprang to his
feet suddenly and then a bitter prudence checked him.
He set his teeth, picked up his hat, and turned to the
manager.
"Your famous French politeness is only for people who
can grease your palm, I suppose," he said, choking.
"Here!" He took out a two franc piece and flung it with
a ringing sound on the counter. ' ' In my country we don 't
keep such vermin," he added, and made swiftly for the
door. The manager bounced out from behind the counter
and caught up with him near the revolving door but just
too late. Mortimer heard his furious voice as he went out
"If you set foot in here I'll have you thrown out."
"Vermin, dirty vermin," he repeated, between his teeth.
An illogical hatred and contempt for the people and the
country filled his heart as he almost ran through the rain.
"That's the calibre of all their courtesy these men,"
he muttered. He was still trembling in every limb. He
wanted to turn back, rush in, and knock that fellow down.
He conjured up again the villainous features, leering ole-
aginously to guests and transferring to him their natural
THE OUTSIDER 139
brutality. In a few minutes, however, the first intolerable
smart of the incident left him. He reflected that most
men who have to receive tips develop that mentality.
"That's his way of looking at life," he meditated bit-
terly. " Goodness to him is in terms of tips; I am in my
very nature evil to him penurious tiplessness. If all the
world were like me he would starve at that trade."
He recalled the exquisite satire of Swift in that part of
Gulliver's Travels when, returned from Brobdignag, he
looks with astonishment and contempt on the pigmy race
of mankind. Himself a pigmy, he had lived so long among 1
giants that anyone but a giant was beneath his contempt.
So the bank clerk, whose salary is perhaps a hundred dol-
lars a month, and who has not a dime saved up, looks with
contempt on the fellow who comes to deposit a paltry
thousand dollars. A thousand dollars? "Pooh, a feller
was in this morning who deposited a clear hundred thou-
sand in notes." And John, the chauffeur, has so long
driven another man's automobile that he forgets himself
and wonders to what rabble a man belongs who has not
even a motor-cycle.
These philosophic reflections did little to ease the bitter-
ness of his heart. In the excitement of the insult he had
forgotten that two hundred francs had disappeared with
Lockwood and the introduction to the Anti-Bolshevist
lady which was to continue the endless chain. Now he
remembered it and cursed the American heartily with the
Frenchman and cursed with equal cordiality the neces-
sity of going round begging for work. This resentment
mingled, when he reached his room and sat down to think,
with a growing alarm at the condition of his exchequer.
His incipient commercial enthusiasm had evaporated. In
its place was disgust and rage and momentary but agon-
ising longings for money lots of it so that he could speak
140 THE OUTSIDER
firmly in that vile language to those primitive beasts who
understood no other. He was angry with himself that such
a fellow as the manager should be able to move him so,
and angry that he should long for the means to crush
him with his own base weapons. "I can't help it," he
admitted at last. "I'm not a perfect Christian, and mere
wit won't move a swine like that. If I can't show him he's
mean and I can't I want to knock him down. It
wouldn't do any good it would set him firmly in evil
but I'd like to do it."
After sitting for some time eating himself with these
thoughts he made an effort to read, and could not compose
himself; the face of the hotel manager would come up on
the page, and send a shaft of rage through him. In the
end, unwilling to waste his afternoon in this stupid exer-
cise, he took up some of Lessar's manuscript and set to
typing furiously. The mechanical exertion calmed him as
he worked on. Instead of anger came a quiet depression.
Slowly he forgot himself in the work, the hours passed.
By nightfall, tired with work, but in a better mood, he
could think more evenly over the incident in the Hotel
Albion, and even forgive Lockwood for his dishonesty or
carelessness. But the depression was there. He looked
forward with frank pleasure to meeting little Carmen. It
would be good to see her again and feel her anxious affec-
tion wrapping him round. She was good whatever she
wanted of him.
He hastened through his dinner, regretting that he had
not asked Carmen to eat with him that evening. The
food was tasteless and Francois was more stupid than ever.
He kept the meal carefully down to three francs, reflecting
with irony that wonderful indeed are the ways of improvi-
dence; but whatever money he had spent was no reason
for new intemperances. His mathematical mind ran ex-
THE OUTSIDER 141
asperatingly over the possibilities of the four hundred
francs or so he had just thrown to the winds ; they meant
two months' rent; or they meant more than one hundred
dinners at "the Hole," tips included. They meant two
cheap but decent suits of clothes; he permuted them
through every possible use, till he felt he had spent not
four hundred but four thousand francs.
He was glad to be through with the meal, and glad to
think that Carmen would be so happy to see him. He
thought of her face, and of the honest, affectionate, brown
eyes ; and when he opened the door of the cafe and saw her,
from the corner, turn her expectant face swiftly and light
up to see him, his answering smile came from his heart.
He raised his hand to Masters, sitting alone with Renee,
and to Gorman, at another table, but he went over straight
to the girl. He took her hand in his and patted it and
continued smiling at her.
"How is it, Carmen?"
"Fine, little one."
"Been waiting long?"
"No, only a minute. Oh, I am so glad you came."
"Are you?"
"Yes. I thought you mightn't come. You were so
angry with me Friday evening. I thought perhaps you
might never want to see me again."
"Foolish Carmen," he patted her hand again.
Prudence told him insistently and coldly that his reck-
less affection was dangerous. If he wanted the girl to
understand his way of thinking it was better to show his
heart less freely. But he liked her and he wanted her
kindness too much at that moment.
"Oui," she said, with her wide eyes fixed unswervingly
on his face ! "if you knew how much I was afraid ! Friday
142 THE OUTSIDER
night I could not sleep because you had been angry with
me."
"But I wasn't angry with you, my poor little Carmen."
"Then why did you send me away from you?"
"Because ' it was rather difficult to explain, but he
made the attempt "because I sometimes want to be alone
for no reason. You may be my best friend, but I must
be quite free."
' ' But you will never be angry with me again ? ' ' she asked,
very timidly.
He tried to be annoyed by her simplicity and could not.
"I will never be angry with you again," he sighed. "You
are a very good little girl, Carmen."
"Ah, Mortimer, really? You are so kind, so gentil!"
Her gratitude almost hurt him. He felt not at all gentil
if anything, he was conscious of a certain meanness.
"Mortimer, you are sad."
"A little, mon petit."
"You have worries, n'est-ce pas, Mortimer?" Her
voice was very gentle.
"No," he said, frowning, and thinking how much more
real were her worries. "There's nothing wrong."
"I don't want you to have worries, Mortimer."
He played again with her hand. "You are a very good
little girl, Carmen," he said, sincerely. Then he put his
hand on her shoulder, and leaned very slightly on her.
He felt her vivid affection warming him. His eyes, wan-
dering across the room, lit on Masters, chatting softly with
Renee.
"Edmond is gone," said Carmen. "I saw Renee kiss
Monsieur Masters."
"Mind your own business, Carmen," said Mortimer
smiling, and shaking her a little.
THE OUTSIDER 143
"I know still more," she continue^ encouraged by the
manner of his rebuke.
"'I don't want to hear it. Good evening, Gorman."
Gorman came over suddenly. "Good evening, Long."
In a lower voice ' ' does your kid understand English. ' '
"A little."
"I wanna speak with you, Long."
Mortimer believed a request for a loan was imminent,
and his heart sank. He felt it would be dangerous to lend
out his last few hundred francs.
"Go ahead."
* ' I don 't want the kid to get me, so I '11 speak low. How
are you fixed for money, Long?"
"Badly, old man. I mean it."
"I don't want to borrow any I wanna show you how
to make some for yourself if you've got a little."
"I've got a few hundred francs, and that's all I've got."
"It's enough. I'll let you in on this because you did
me a good turn the other day and you're a good feller.
Listen; you know lots o' folk in Paris, don't you?"
"A few," said Mortimer, beginning to fear in advance
Gorman's proposition.
"Look here, you know what this is." Gorman went
through a series of incomprehensible motions with his hands
and ended by inhaling deeply and lowering his eyelids,
assuming at the same time a happy, sleepy look. Then
he smiled at Mortimer cunningly. ' ' Know what that is ? "
"No." Then he bethought himself, and less Gorman's
pantomime than Gorman's manner and reputation sent the
startling idea into his head. "Opium!"
"Sht! Yah!"
Mortimer stared at Gorman a moment and then stared
elsewhere, not knowing what to reply ; not that he felt the
slightest inclination to become a partner of Gorman's but
144 THE OUTSIDER .
to be indignant would have been priggish, to be grateful
would have been affected.
"What d'ye say, Long?"
"No, Gorman."
"Are you scared?"
"No." Indeed, that had not occurred to him.
"Long, if you're in need of money you can make some.
I can get you the genuine stuff at less than a franc a
gram. There's thousands of folks in Paris who'll pay
three francs a gram for it."
Long shook his head.
"It's safe, Long, or I wouldn't do it myself. I get it
straight from the feller that makes the stuff all I want."
Mortimer was suddenly curious to know Gorman's point
of view.
"Look here, Gorman, it isn't a white game. You know
what happens to the people that use this stuff. Why do
you handle it?"
Gorman was almost hurt. "Aw, now, Long, that's all
foolish talk. You know there's folks that just can't do
without it. They just have to have it. And if I don't
give it to 'em somebody else will. It ain't doing 'em any
good if I don't handle the stuff and I'm just so much
money short. And being that that's how it is, why
should some other son of a gun get the benefit out of it ? "
"That's deliberate and purposeful sophistry, Gorman,"
said Mortimer, unable to think of anything better.
"I don't get you."
"Never mind. I don't want the stuff."
"That's too bad, Long. You could make money quick.
It ain't my fault if you don't want it."
"I guess you mean well, Gorman."
Gorman remained sitting, downcast, and Carmen drew
Mortimer towards her and replaced his hand on her
THE OUTSIDER 145
shoulder. Soon Gorman went back to his table across the
room, muttering regretfully.
"Did he want some money from you, cheri," whispered
Carmen.
"No, mow petit."
"You know, Mortimer, he is a very good boy."
"Why?"
' ' Yesterday, in here, somebody said something bad about
you. I understood, and Monsieur Gorman defended you."
"Don't tell me about it, Carmen," said Mortimer, hast-
ily, but amazed that people in this place should talk
about him. Ezra? Never. Masters? Teddy?
"Yes, I want to tell you."
"You mustn't, Carmen, I'm not interested."
"Oh, Mortimer, here he is."
The door had swung open. Old Cray, blind drunk,
lurched in, and looked round, his face twitching evilly.
After him came two young men that Mortimer knew
vaguely Maxie, an American boxer, and one Fulson, a
demobolised American soldier. Cray collapsed in a chair
and glowered round him. Maxie and Fulson sat down
near Mortimer.
"You're friend's got a real bird on," said Mortimer,
indicating Cray with some contempt.
The boxer nodded. "He'll have the D.T's in a day or
two, if he doesn't get sober. He's been like this for a
week. ' '
"You needn't look at me like that," stuttered Cray
suddenly at Mortimer. "Who the hell are you?"
Carmen pressed close to Mortimer and turned pale.
Mortimer ignored the old man, and was sorry he had let
his face express his feelings.
"Who the hell are you, I say?" the old man repeated,
raging. ' ' Saw you and your friend and two French w s
146 THE OUTSIDEIl
the other evening all drunker 'n me, ah? Tell that to
your little girl there."
Mortimer grew cold with the fear that Carmen had
understood.
"You're no better 'n me," said old Cray, standing up
and foaming at Mortimer. "You're no better 'n anybody
else. You think you are, eh ? "
' ' Sit down, Cray, ' ' said Maxie curtly.
"To hell with you, too," said Cray, but grinning at
him. "You're a good feller, and so are all the fellers
here, but that young , he thinks he's better 'n anybody
else yes he does Oh suffering cats, she's here again."
He sat down.
His wife had come in like a whirlwind. Her full, vulgar
face was flushed; she was panting.
"I've caught you again, you dirty old boozer," she
hissed, and then turned dramatically to Maxie and Fulsom.
"See him? See him?" she shrieked. "D'ye know what
he gets boozed on? My clothes, steals my fur and my
watch and pawns 'em, to get drunk."
"Damn liar," said Cray, standing up to her.
"Who's a damn liar? Where's my fur and my watch?
Did you ever earn a penny since you married me?"
Marius had come in from the front room bar. Like
everybody else, he stared at the husband and wife.
"Get out of here, Cray," said Maxie. "You'll have the
police in."
"I'm going," said Cray, with a malevolent look at Morti-
mer. "I'd like to knock you for a ghoul, you grinning
young ."
He made for the door. His wife, tears of rage and
hatred in her eyes, watched him staggering. "You're a
fine husband," she hissed at him. "You can't earn a
living and you won 't let me earn one. ' '
THE OUTSIDER 147
"Go and earn one," said Cray, turning round, and bal-
ancing himself.
"Earn one, you sodden old beast? How can I when you
come in in that condition to my employers and I've got to
say that 's my husband ? Oh, get out of this place. ' '
"I'm going, I'm going," said Cray, swinging himself be-
tween two tables near the door.
Mrs. Cray tried to say something and failed, so she
watched him instead, her face blazing. Finally he swung
clear of the tables and went out at a quick shamble. She
followed him and slammed the door to. The Lapin Cuit re-
laxed. Carmen looked with frightened eyes at Mortimer.
"The old man doesn't seem to like me," said Mortimer
to Maxie.
"He sure don't," said the boxer. "But don't let it
worry you. ' '
Mortimer shrugged his shoulders. "He's alright when
he 's sober and pretty helpless when he 's drunk. What are
you doing these days, Fulson ? Have you found a job yet ? ' '
Fulson nodded. "Got one last week it was time too.
I was down on my last franc. Way down."
"What are you doing?"
"Interpreter at the Bristol."
"Good pay?"
The other made a wry face. "Naw. You know how
these Frogs pay. But you can make a bit on tips. They
reckon on that."
"What does it make out at?"
"Guess you can clear five or six hundred a month in tips.
They give you two hundred, a room and meals. You can
meet lots o' swell people, though."
Mortimer was more interested than he showed. He might
be wanting a job before long the day's events had un-
settled his belief in his typewriting. The idea of a "job"
148 THE OUTSIDER
was repugnant, and still more repugnant was the idea of
one in which "tips" made up the bulk of one's salary. If
he could only clear his seven hundred a month only six
hundred even. He fell into despairing calculations again
the minimum on which a man can live in Paris.
Maxie and Fulson were talking of the races. Masters
was absorbed in Renee ; there was quiet in the cafe. Some-
thing in Masters displeased him something too urgent and
yet abject in his attentions to Renee. He thought of
Edmond and wondered what had happened to him. There
was something rather shabby about Masters, thought Mor-
timer suddenly an indeterminate element of smallness in
the way he was playing for Renee. His attention wandered
to the two men at his side. They were talking of horses
and odds. Maxie had won heavily at Longchamps ; Fulson
had lost. Their talk, half intelligible only, was base, or
seemed so then to Mortimer, till he caught himself up sud-
denly and decided he was becoming morose.
He had almost made up his mind to leave when Mado
came in and looked swiftly round.
"Have you seen Ezra, Monsieur Mortimer?" she asked,
shaking his hand nervously.
"No."
She sat down, looking grim, and Mortimer caught her ex-
changing significant looks with Carmen, He saw Carmen
making a grimace at her, as if to bid her be silent.
"You are sure you don't know where Ezra is?"
"Of course I'm sure," he answered, annoyed.
Mado frowned and tightened her lips, then suddenly she
turned to Mortimer.
"Is it true that you and Ezra were with two girls on
Saturday night?"
Mortimer started at this frontal attack; he glanced at
Carmen, who had turned away her face with a look of in-
THE OUTSIDER 149
describable depression. He decided to make no answer. In
stead he looked away in front of him.
"You were both seen on Saturday night," said Mado
firmly, "And I want to know where Ezra is."
"I don't know where Ezra is," said Mortimer, and his
mouth felt dry. Carmen's silent distress wes very hard to
bear.
"I want to know who that girl is," said Mado, with sud-
den ferocity. " If I find her I will tear her eyes out. ' '
"Mado, don't make a scene in here," said Mortimer,
setting his teeth. "Your damned Ezra will probably be
in later this evening."
"If he is not," cried Mado, "I'll hang round till I find
him."
"Hang round," said Mortimer, curtly. "I'm going.
Come along, Carmen. ' '
He went out, leaving Mado sitting at their table, her
arms tightly folded. Mortimer found himself apologising
mentally to Carmen and then, realising this, he was furi-
ous and then he laughed at himself, for Carmen had not
said a word of reproach. She only walked along and kept
her eyes on the ground.
The evening air was still but raw. A fine, rasping
mist hung over the streets and damped the walls and pave-
ments. Wordless they walked up towards the Avenue Mon-
taigne. He coughed two or three times, and at each cough,
as Carmen's arm held him closer, he felt a strange grati-
tude to this friendly little girl.
"Tell me, Carmen," he asked curiously, "am I like those
other fellows there in the Lapin Cuit?"
"Like who, Mortimer?" She was glad to talk.
"Like Fulson, or Masters, or old Cray, or Gorman!"
"My God, no, mon petit."
"How am I different f"
150 THE OUTSIDER
"I don't know, mon petit, but you are not like them."
"I wonder whether I'm not, and why I don't want to be."
"Mortimer."
"What is it?"
"You are coughing."
"No, no."
"Yes, mon petit. You will become ill."
"What will that matter to you?"
She stopped and looked at him. "You are unkind," she
whispered, and held his arm tight, and then, before he knew
it, she had leaned against him and was sobbing. They were
standing under some trees at the corner of the Avenue
Marigny. Fortunately, few people were passing, but Mor-
timer was amazed as well as embarrassed.
"What's the matter with you, little Carmen?" He tried
to lift her head, to look at her, but she held close to him and
sobbed violently. He waited miserably until she had calmed
herself.
' ' Oh, you will be angry with me again, Mortimer, because
I am crying."
"No, no," he said, conscious of a horrible brutality.
"But what is the matter with you?"
"You do not love me and you do not want me to love
you."
"That is not true, Carmen" his denial was not alto-
gether a lie, after all.
"Do you love me a little?"
"Of course."
"And you are not angry if I love you?"
"No, no."
Now she let him lift up her face, and under the tears it
was suddenly radiant again.
"Is that true, Mortimer?"
THE OUTSIDER 151
"Of course it's true," he said, unable to suppress a smile
of pleasure at her happiness.
"You know," she said, "old Cray said that you and Ezra
were with two girls on Saturday night all drunk. It
isn 't true, is it ? "
' ' No, ' ' he said, stonily.
"I knew it wasn't," she said, triumphantly, "Mado be-
lieves it, but she is a fool. I knew if I asked you would say
no. Cray doesn't like you."
"Why doesn't he like me?"
"He said yesterday I don't know what he said to
Maxie but he doesn't like you."
"Oh." Mortimer felt a foolish anger rising in him
against the old drunkard.
"But you don't care?"
"Of course not."
"Yesterday I would have said something to him," she
chattered on, "but I don't speak English well enough. I
would have asked him why he doesn't stop drinking and
earn money for his wife although she isn't gentitte at
all. She doesn't like us French girls she doesn't like me
I don't know why. But I'm a good girl, I think."
"You are, Carmen."
"N'est ce pas? I'm not like Jeanne. I think her baby 's
going to die. She doesn't look after it she lets it go
hungry and dirty and everybody handles it. It 's a shame.
Everybody's talking about it. If I had a baby . . ."
"Why doesn't she give it to an institute or something?"
"She's going to, I think. I scolded her more than once.
I told her everybody 's talking about it. She isn 't the proper
kind of person to have a baby. ' '
"Talk about something else, Carmen," said Mortimer,
laughing and passing his arm round her.
152 THE OUTSIDER
"What shall I talk about then?" she said, turning up to
him her shining face.
"Anything but that."
"I think Masters is going to take away Renee; I saw
Edmond outside the Lapin Cuit this evening as we came
away. He was waiting. I'm sure he'll do something to
Monsieur Masters. Did you see him ? ' '
"No, talk about something else still," said Mortimer,
laughing again. "You're a regular little gossip." The
chill air tickled his lungs deep down and he coughed several
times. Carmen stopped walking, and looked at him anx-
iously.
"Mortimer, you are coughing again." The pain in her
voice was genuine. "Mon petit, you musn't cough."
"What shall I do then?"
* ' You must go in. You musn 't be outside. ' '
"Then we'll go back."
"Mortimer " timidly again.
"Yes?"
"You have no one nothing . . ."
"No one what?"
She sighed profoundly. "Ah, cheri, you understand
me badly if I say this. You need to be looked after. ' '
He wanted to protest with the same vigor that he had
shown the other evening, but a complication of feelings
stopped him. He had already wronged her, he had already
told her a rank lie. Was it well to force his indignation
now ? For he did not feel indignant the lie had given her
a subtle claim to be considered otherwise than he had at
first intended.
"Mortimer, mon petit," she said, softly, "I do love you,
and I think you are worried and should be look after. But
if I say I want to do it, you must not think I say so be-
THE OUTSIDER 153
cause ". Her distress was so acute, that he stopped
her roughly.
"No, no, never I don't believe that, little Carmen," he
said, almost violently. "I do believe, sincerely, that you are
a good little girl but we mustn't talk of that."
His way of saying it so different from, the first un-
approachable rebuttal contented her then. She looked
radiant and his heart warmed irresistibly to see her hap-
piness. "What a poor thing he must be after all, to play
with this helpless child.
"Good little girl, good little girl," he repeated, then
suddenly he stopped in his walk they were in the quiet
shadow of trees along the Avenue Gabrielle put his arms
round her, and kissed her. She clung to him, trembling
from head to foot. "Oh je t'aime, je t'aime," she whis-
pered, * ' I love you, I love you, forever and ever. ' '
The fierceness of her emotion awoke in him an answer
so akin to original love that he was almost deceived. But
as they resumed their walk, their arms around each other,
prudence returned again to him, chilly, reproachful. What
troubles was he laying up for himself with this little girl ?
Were it not better, since she was not as he had believed at
first, to go no further? Every moment of their walk in-
volved him deeply and more deeply. This was not the
Carmen he had thought to find indeed, the suspicion oc-
curred to him that he was finding little of what he had
thought to find. But he could not stop just then to measure
and appraise the life he was drifting into for she, the girl,
exercised his mind too keenly. And yet he liked her, pro-
foundly. "But," he said to himself, with some contempt,
"if I'm not prepared to pay her price I must forego this
happiness." But in the end, as always, he wearied of his
reasoning and of himself, and abandoned himself to her.
"Eh bien," he asked, shaking her, "are you happy?"
154 THE OUTSIDER
"Happy?" she answered, radiant.
"Very well, tell me something else."
They were at the Place de la Concorde by then. Carmen
looked at him and, with a ludicrous assumption of indiffer-
ence turned with him to the right, to cross the river.
"Where are we going, Carmen?"
"Oh, so, walking," this with a naive ingenuousness that
was irresistible. Carmen lived on the "left bank" Mor-
timer called it Brooklyn somewhere near the ficole Mil-
itaire ; they were heading thither.
"Oh, are we going to cross the river?" asked Mortimer,
affecting stupidity.
"Oui, mon petit," she answered, trembling lest he dis-
cover the ruse too soon. He had not the heart to tell her
how transparent she was. She was near to crowing audibly
at the success of her stratagem. Of course, once they were
close to her home it would be so much easier to ask him in.
She began to talk hurriedly as they touched the bridge.
"We have lots of work in the atelier," she said. "Last
week I earned seventy-eight francs, and this week I shall
earn more. Monsieur Blumer said that if I make these
heads so well I might become contremaitre. You know, I
might even earn as much as four hundred francs a month
then."
"That would be a lot, ah?"
"I should think so. I would be a princess. Monsieur
Blumer says that nobody in the atelier makes the heads as
well as I do. It would be wonderful to earn four hundred
francs a month. I don 't need it, at all. ' '
"What would you do with the rest?" he asked, enviously.
"Aha! Aha! I know, but I won't tell you," but of
course her face told it. "You know," she continued, "if
I worked fast enough even as a worker" they were pass-
ing by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and Carmen's joy
THE OUTSIDER 155
and nervousness were increasing ' ' if I worked fast enough
as a worker I could also earn four hundred francs a month
but nobody in the world could work so fast, your fingers
get tied up and your hands would bleed. You can't push
the needle fast enough through the stuffing. Oh, but I
often dream of earning four hundred francs a month and
then I make calculations."
"You poor little devil," said Mortimer, in English, half
angry with himself for no fathomable reason.
"But sometimes," she continued, "I imagine that I've
got the money in some other way. In the atelier they pay
you six francs a dozen heads of teddy bears. If you are
very fast you can make them in six hours, in the morning,
but in the afternoon it takes longer. Oh, if I could only
make them in five hours. I start so fast at half-past seven,
and I say, at twelve o'clock I will have the tenth finished
and the eleventh begun and always I hope it will be so, and
it never is. Always at twelve o 'clock I have only nine done ;
just nine, and every time I think I was going faster than
last time. C'est navrant." She sighed a broken and half
happy sigh, for after all, it was to Mortimer that she was
telling all this.
They were half way down the Esplanade des Invalides.
Carmen fell into a restless silence she was too excited to
speak for surely Mortimer must know that he was walking
homewards with her. Or perhaps he didn 't . . . but if
he did, and was saying nothing ? At last Mortimer, almost
tortured by the struggle in her mind, asked suddenly.
"Where are we going, Carmen?"
"To my home," she answered tremulously "Mortimer,
you have never been there. You know, I haven't as nice
a room as yours, but I want you to see it, n'est-ce pas?"
"Yes, yes," he said, "I would like to see it."
"Oh, you are gentil," she said, almost inaudibly.
156 THE OUTSIDER
At the corner of the Invalides, where the Avenue de la
Motte-Picquet begins, they came just then upon a withered
woman raking a garbage can. They were about to pass
when Mortimer stopped suddenly. The old woman straight-
ened up, frightened, and backed away from the can, her
eyes fixed on Mortimer, whose face, unbeknown to himself,
had taken on a terrible grimness.
"I'm doing nothing," she piped at him, dusting her
hands. ' ' I 'm a ragpicker. ' '
Mortimer was rummaging in his pocket for silver, but
the expression on his face did not change. It occurred to
him at that moment that this old woman would probably be
unable to make even three bear's heads in one day and if
Carmen lived long enough a time would come when she
would be as helpless. Would she then look like this horrible
old thing, with her narrow, sunken eyes, almost hidden by
wrinkled skin, with her big nose and the slit of a mouth that
receded into the skinny throat? Why not?
The old woman made motions with her lips as she watched
Mortimer ; her eyes moved from his face to his arm, and her
head followed her eyes with the jerky motions of an ancient
bird. Mortimer pulled out his hand and saw in it a two
franc piece that flashed violet in the electric light. He
tendered it to the woman, and would have passed on, but
she seized his hand as she took the coin, and before he knew
it she had kissed his hand with a grateful croak.
He jerked his hand away with a cry of loathing. "For
God's sake!" The violence of his act almost threw the old
woman down but he walked on hastily, shuddering, Car-
men at his side.
* ' What a horrible old woman, ' ' he said, vehemently, and
to his astonishment Carmen burst into genuine, hearty
laughter.
THE OUTSIDER 157
"Oh, how crazy you are, Mortimer! She thought you
were going to beat her. ' '
"But isn't she horrible?" he asked.
"What do you want? Dis-donc, you don't expect the
wife of a grand seigneur to be picking rags? It's a rag-
picker, like any other."
"Doesn't it mean anything to you, Carmen, to see that
old woman?" he said this and then, ashamed, hoped that
she had not understood, but she caught him up quickly.
"What do you want?" she answered, smiling. "If I
should be like that some day, well, there are others. Mado
would also be like that, and Renee, and Jeanne. You don 't
think we're going to marry anyone, do you?"
There was no answer to make to this.
"I should worry," she added. "Besides, I believe that
some of the ragpickers earn quite a lot of money. It isn't
an elegant trade, but if you can eat and sleep somewhere,
well, that's good enough."
"Possibly I'm too fastidious," agreed Mortimer. "Are
we near your house ? ' '
"Quite near."
They turned off the respectable Avenue into a narrow,
dingy street, with crooked pavement edgings and then
turned again into an alley. A lamp at the corner showed
Mortimer a paved street, formed by two rows of old build-
ings. Iron railings were evidence of gardens that had once
existed and the skinny remnants of trees that recalled the
ragpicker stood sparsely behind the railings. On the wall
by every small door was a plate "Hotel de Calais, n
"Hotel de Lyons, Chambres Meublees." The street was
ineffably dismal. Some of the windows were boarded up
and through the blinds of others feeble rays of light lit
up the mist and were choked back by it.
They went in by a leaning gate to one of the small doors.
158 THE OUTSIDER
"It isn't very chic," said Carmen, nervously, "but the
room isn't so bad."
The narrow lobby ran through into a courtyard. Before
the courtyard and under the stairs was the window of the
concierge. Carmen opened the door, looked in, and beck-
oned Mortimer in.
"I'm going to introduce you to the patronne. She knows
about you, and she 's very kind to me ; Madame Lebihan ! ' '
A plump woman came out from a room buried in a
corner.
"Tiens, Carmen," she said, joyously. "That is your
friend Mortimer. Enchanted to make your acquaintance,
Monsieur."
In the light of the petroleum lamp the room was cosy.
"We are not rich here," said the patronne to Mortimer, as
he looked round, "but we are not so badly fixed." She
seemed to be examining him with pleasure.
4 ' Very well fixed, ' ' said Mortimer, uncomfortably. What
on earth was Carmen showing him off for?
"Of course, we are not swells, like you others," said the
lady pleasantly.
"Oh, we're no swells, either, not at all," said Mortimer,
foolishly.
"Won't you take a seat?"
' ' Thank you. ' ' He plumped into a chair. Carmen stand-
ing over him was smiling at the patronne with an air of
gratification. Mortimer felt foolish. This was taking on
the aspect of a formal visit and introduction to "her folks. "
Carmen must have been singing his praises and the praises
of his station to the patronne.
"Won't you have a cup of coffee, Monsieur f"
"Hate to trouble you," said Mortimer.
"No trouble at all."
THE OUTSIDER 159
"Thanks, I'd rather not, just now," he blurted, with an
effort.
"You mustn't be shy, Mortimer," said Carmen.
"I'm not shy," he answered agressively.
"Madame Lebihan is like a real mother to me," said Car-
men.
"Yes, so you can be quite at home nere," said the pa-
ir onne.
In the mind of Mortimer a silly conviction arose and in-
creased that this was a kind of game and these two women
were victimizing him; they were playing at being nice,
conventional people, and this was a visitor in the parlor;
and how they were enjoying themselves.
"No thank you, really. I don't want a cup of coffee," he
insisted, knowing by now that he was going to drink one.
He might as well be visiting Mabel Ross 's folks back home.
He only waited now for the conversation to turn on the
weather that the picture might complete itself. He was not
disappointed. He sat with a cup of coffee in his lap and for
ten minutes agreed or demurred (the disagreement tem-
pered, of course, by a mild astonishment) with suggestions
on weather and health. These changes in the weather do
so encourage the grippe, but one's throat should be muffled
against these mists, as mere changes in the temperature also
cause colds don't you think so?
He waited painfully for a sign from Carmen and was
heartily glad to go.
"One will see you a little more often now, n'est-ce pas?"
said the patronne. He was reminded again of Mrs. Ross,
who used to stand on the porch and bleat after him "Call
again, Mr. Long ! ' ' This lady did look rather like Mrs. Ross.
"I shall be delighted" which was his regulation answer
in these circumstances and he made the foolish vow never
to call on the patronne again.
160 THE OUTSIDER
Carmen's room was on the first floor back. There was no
landing between the narrow stairs and the door of the room ;
the last step led half into her room and half into a pent
lobby. Carmen went before and unlocked the door.
"I must light the lamp," she said. "Wait a moment."
"He could see nothing at first; then he struck a match
and saw that he was in a tiny ante-room. Carmen was in
the next room. She lit the oil lamp on the little table by
the bed and turned round, smiling shyly. "Here's my
home."
The ante-room contained a wash-stand with a tin water,
jug and a tin bowl. The bareness of the place was inex-
pressibly painful. The floor was of stone big, uncovered
flags, and the walls were varnished an unhappy green. But
the bedroom was better. The bed looked comfortable. There
was linoleum on the floor, and, for furniture, a table de nuit,
two chairs and an unpolished wardrobe. On the wall
against the foot of the bed there was a shelf, just within
reach ; from the edge of the shelf hung a curtain, and that,
Mortimer guessed, served to cover clothes on pegs driven
into the wall. On the shelf was an old hat and two or three
cardboard boxes.
On the mantelpiece were two crude china shepherdesses,
a model of the Eiffel Tower, two cigar boxes (American)
and a candle-end. Over the mantelpiece were countless
picture post cards and in the very centre of them Morti-
mer was astonished to see a photograph of himself one that
had not come to his attention in many weeks. Carmen
saw the astonishment on his face and laid her hand on his
arm.
"I stole it from your room," she confessed "dnce I
asked you for a photograph and you wouldn't give me
one."
"Quite the proper thing when a thing is refused you,"
THE OUTSIDER 161
agreed Mortimer. "But I wish you'd put me in the com-
pany of less handsome celebrities. ' '
' ' Then you 're not angry ? ' '
"No." He was delighted with the neatness of the room;
whatever her efforts could improve had suffered no neglect.
There was no dust on the boxes on the shelf. The linoleum
was brown with wear, but clean ; the lamp-glass was speck-
less.
' ' It isn 't like your room, is it, Mortimer ? ' '
"It's a nice room," he said, "and you keep it splen-
didly."
' ' Aha, ' ' she exclaimed. ' ' Don 't I ? "
He envied something in this close-calculated poverty;
surely Carmen could never have any heartburnings for
money foolishly spent she never spent any foolishly, and
surely she knew to a fifty centime piece what she needed
for the month.
"You're a funny little bird, Carmen."
"You didn't think I kept my place so neat, did you?"
' ' I guess you 're proud of yourself as a housekeeper ? ' '
"I should think I am. Oh, I could keep a house "
"We men are rather stupid " he said, shaking his head,
but he did not explain that he was referring to his own
stupidity in having understood so little of her. "I think
you'd enjoy looking after someone? I do like your room."
"Look here " she stood upon one of the chairs, and took
down from the shelf a cardboard box. "Guess what I have
in here?"
"Can't guess."
"Work. Bear's heads. And I keep my tools in that
cigar box there. On evenings when you won 't see me, I do
overtime work."
"Then the less I see you the more money you earn?"
162 THE OUTSIDER
"You always find a wicked thing to say," she said, dis-
tressed.
"But you'd rather spend all your time with me," he con-
ceded, "even if you don't earn anything at all."
"Why, sure."
He was smiling all the time, and continuously staring
round the room. There was something genuinely pleasant
in its simplicity, even in its poverty. Carmen was gleeful.
" I 'm not like the other girls, am I ? " she asked naively.
"Am I supposed to know?" asked Mortimer.
"Well, I'm not like Mado, or Jeanne. Their rooms are
always horrid. They're not clean."
"You're rather fond of a little gossip now and again,
eh, Carmen? You seem to have all the qualities of respec-
tability."
"I'm really telling the truth; but Mado is a good girl.
She is generous, but I don't think she looks after Monsieur
Ezra at all."
Mortimer was slightly impatient.
"But Ezra doesn't want to be looked after, neither do I.
We 're not looking for nurses. Don 't you understand me ? "
She shook her head with a peculiar smile.
"I'm not like that. If I were Mado . . . But it
doesn't matter. You couldn't live in a place like this, eh,
Mortimer?"
The last sentence contained nothing bitter, but it stung
Mortimer.
"Rubbish," he answered, decisively, then added cau-
tiously, "that isn't the reason at all."
"Well then," she said with a resignation that was bitter,
"I understand. I know I don't come from the same kind
of world as you do. You think me not quite perhaps you
are right. You think I shall take hold of you and stick to
THE OUTSIDER 163
you and stick to you and never let go. But I'm not like
that, either."
"Poor little Carmen," he said, putting his arms round
her, "How obstinate you are."
"But you are afraid of that, n'est-ce pas?"
* ' Listen. ' ' He stroked her hair. " You know, don 't you ,
that a time will come, tomorrow, a month from now, six
months from now, when we shall have to leave each other."
' ' I know it, ' ' she said, miserably.
"Don't look unhappy. It is probable that you will leave
me before I leave you. ' '
"It is probable," she repeated, incredulously.
"And then, and then " he had lost the thread if his
thought, or had never had one. "In any case," he began
again, * ' I must live alone, I must I am that kind of man. ' '
"You mean I am that kind of woman."
He was startled by the quickness and pointedness of her
retort. He reflected that under the impulse of love and in
the struggle for her primitive privileges, the simplest wo-
man could become sharp and swift-minded. She repeated,
"you mean I am that kind of woman" this time more to
herself, unhappy to have found this thought.
"It isn't true," he said, sincerely. But somehow she was
changing in his eyes as she fought ; there was emerging a
vigor and tenacity he had not suspected ; and a new respect
for her personality was born with this; or else she was
merely wearing him down.
"Do not be afraid," she said, guessing at the greatest
obstacle. "When you will no longer want me, I shall go."
He rose suddenly. "Carmen , enough of this subject"-
and tempered this weakly when he saw the hopelessness that
darkened her face. * ' Just now. Some other day we '11 talk. "
"Yes, yes, Mortimer don't go. I promise not to speak
of this again tonight."
164 THE OUTSIDER
He sat down again.
"Look here; be a good little girl and do some -work, eh?
And I'll sit here and read." He generally carried in his
pocket some tiny edition of a French classic. This time it
was a book of excerpts from the "Thoughts of Pascal."
Talking with Carmen was a strain, and he wanted a rest.
She opened the cardboard box and put it on the table,
and brought over the lamp. Then she opened one of the
cigar-boxes and took out a ball of thick black cotton, a bod-
kin, two large needles and a handful of what looked like col-
ored beads with tiny ringlets. Mortimer settled himself com-
fortably with the tiny book under the lamplight. He did
not read at first, but watched the girl, and dwelt on the seri-
ous, happy face, the crude yet nimble fingers, the small,
graceful body, and the head with its mass of brown hair
bent against the lamplight. She was making a deliberate
effort to take her attention away from him, only for his sat-
isfaction; she was trying to absorb herself in the work.
The attempt was too eager to succeed, but Mortimer was
touched by her will. He was grateful as he watched the
fingers working steadily on. First she took from the card-
board box a white bear's head-shape made in a kind of
papier mache and covered with cheap white fur. She pierced
this deftly in several directions, beginning with the eye-
holes ; then she strung the eyes on and drew them tight into
the holes. This was the difficult work, for the papier mache
was irregularly consistent ; at times the bodkin would stick
obstinately, had to be pulled out and tried again. After the
eyes came the snout, which was sewn on in thick black cot-
ton, as if drawn in black paint ; and then the outline of the
jaws, a triangle in black cotton.
It was fascinating to watch the fingers dance as they
turned the head right and left, backward and forward. The
big needle flashed to and fro in the yellow lamplight. All
THE OUTSIDER 165
was dexterous movement, graceful, effective. And above
brooded the immobile face, the large, dreamy, brown eyes
and the mass of hair. For in the end she did forget her-
self in the work, and her consciousness of him, though it
made her happy, was automatic and subdued. How com-
pact and self-contained she was, how simple and how val-
iant ! Was there nobody who would take up this little life
and give it full play ?
How quiet it was! How steadily and contentedly she
worked ! How certain he was that, though she was just then
half -forgetful of him, her sweetness and content were drawn
from him.
He stretched his hand out across the table.
"Dear little Carmen, good little Carmen."
CHAPTER VIII
WEDNESDAY afternoon and evening met in a grey, windy
monotony. Occasional starts of rain drummed lightly on
the window and dimness and darkness alternated irregularly
on the street until the lamps were lit. For the first time
since his demobilisation Mortimer was profoundly and con-
tinuously depressed. Part of the day he had worked on
the Lessar manuscript and the rest of the time he had spent
in reading and taking notes. The fire had burned all day
in the grate; he had ventured out only once, for lunch;
the skies and his mood had driven him back. Towards
evening the very cosiness of the room was unwelcome to
him. The hours were too long and he was oppressed by a
sense of insufficiency in his life. But from time to time he
told himself that whatever his life was, and wherever he
carried it, he would never shake himself free of these oc-
casional, futile melancholies. At seven he ate at the "Hole."
He had not seen Ezra for three days, and he confessed to
himself that he missed him. It was a tacit but firm rule of
theirs that when one of them kept away for a time the other
should not go in search of him. This evening Mortimer
would have been glad to meet Ezra at the "Hole,"
but he waited there till half past seven in vain. At that
hour he started out through a chilly wind for the rue Joseph
Dijon, knowing that Ezra would be there at the rendezvous
with Pernande and Gaby. He was going to the rendezvous
with some reluctance. There was something indefinable in
his mind, as though he had just left home to meet a girl
after telling them at home that he was going down to the
Elks. He was irritated with himself at this incompre-
hensible recrudescence. There was not a soul in Paris to
166
THE OUTSIDER 167
whom he owed an explanation, and he was glad to think of
Gaby. She was a queer yet delightful child; she would
make the most charming and the strangest of friends. Yet,
in this pleasure, recurred again and again that irritating
discomfort.
He had walked himself into a glowing warmth by the
time he reached the Outer Boulevards. The cafe of their
rendezvous was a modest drinking den sheltered behind a
row of street stalls. In front was an open bar, behind which
sat the proprietress. Mortimer walked right through to the
inner room. Ezra and Fernande and Gaby were at a
corner table, with glasses in front of them. As they turned
towards him a sincere joyousness came over Mortimer.
"fa va, ga va. Et vousf"
He gave a friendly squeeze to Gaby's hand. Her grey-
blue eyes were bright. The golden curls under the black
hat shook a welcome at him. Fernande smiled at him out
of a sad face.
"I'm glad to see you people," said Mortimer, honestly.
"You've been having the blues," said Ezra.
"Just coming out of them."
"I have them always," sighed Fernande.
"Do you ever have them, Miss Gaby?" asked Mortimer.
Gaby nodded.
"Rubbish," said Fernande, violently. "You haven't got
anything to have the blues with. ' '
"Don't be jealous, Fernande," said Ezra, "other people
do have the blues."
Mortimer marked with some astonishment the natural
familiarity with which Ezra addressed Fernande. This
was the faculty which he sometimes envied and sometimes
disliked in him. Fernande seemed to be pleased with it,
for she turned her earnest face to Ezra and smiled at him.
168 THE OUTSIDER
"Not Gaby. She is only petulant or sulky. Besides, I
don't believe, en principe, that people under thirty ever
get the blues. The best they get is a rehearsal."
She spoke gravely, almost with an affectation of languor.
Mortimer looked at her with involuntary interest. There
was something yellowish in her face ; her great brown eyes
were unfocussed, though she spoke to Ezra. Her hair came
down her high forehead over either eyebrow. Her lips were
thin, so that even in relaxation they looked self-conscious.
But her voice attracted most attention, by its extraordinary
melancholy. The lips scarcely moved as she spoke, as though
some other will than her own were utilising them for utter-
ance.
' ' I have no respect for people who never have the blues, ' '
said Ezra. "A decent person should be dejected now and
again. It is indecent to be in eternal good spirits. ' '
"And I have no respect for people who are never bored,"
said Fernande.
Fernande and Ezra were speaking at each other. It is
strange with what rapidity two minds may properly com-
municate what in language would be if not impossible, then
ungraceful. For between these two an obvious under-
current of unspoken conversation passed to and fro and
declared an astonished mutual interest. Nothing that they
said could matter now. Mortimer felt that the first moment
of their meeting here must have struck a strong common
cord in their moods.
He withdrew his eyes from both of them and turned
to Gaby.
"Gaby," he said, omitting the "mademoiselle" with an
effort, "you must provide more conversation than you did
last time. Your friend is talkative compared with you."
"She is very clever," answered Gaby. "N'est-ce pas,
Fernande?"
THE OUTSIDER 169
"Who wouldn't be, compared with you?" asked Fer-
nando.
"I told you she's clever," said Gaby, quite unruffled.
"I'm not."
"I'm tempted to ask you an interesting question, "Fer-
nanda," said Ezra.
She turned a ready face 'to him.
"What is your attitude towards someone who speaks to
you on the street, as I did ? ' '
"Men are funny in that respect," she answered, delib-
erately, "but they are nearly all fools. I hate their painful
ingenuousness. I think most men are ingenus until their
dying day. And I also hate the rare, self -certain man, who
assumes tacitly that his company is welcome."
' ' How is one to know ? ' ' asked Ezra.
"Don't be hypocritical," she answered, smiling. "In
any case, if I do meet a person for the second time, it's
rare, isn't it, Gaby?"
Gaby nodded.
"You would class me as a self-confident man, then,"
asked Ezra, glancing at Mortimer slyly.
"Yes and no. You are self-confident not because you are
conceited but because you think little enough of anyone
else to take a snub with amusement."
1 ' Why didn 't you speak so cleverly that first afternoon ? ' '
said Ezra, with wide open eyes fixed on her.
"I was too interested in you then," she replied. "I
speak best when I 'm really bored. ' '
"And what do you do mostly when you are bored and
alone?" asked Ezra.
"This," she answered, then looked swiftly round. There
was no one in the room with the four of them. She opened
her bag and took out a piece of folded paper and a dainty
170 THE OUTSIDER
little penknife. Smiling she opened the. paper on the table.
It contained a white, glistening powder.
"Cocaine," ejaculated Mortimer, though he had never
seen cocaine.
Fernande opened the penknife,. and took a few grains of
the powder on the blade; she carried this to her nostrils,
and inhaled swiftly and then repeated this a second and
third time. Then deliberately she folded the paper, placed
it with the penknife in the bag, and turned to Gaby.
"N'est-ce pas, Gaby?"
Gaby nodded.
Mortimer was dumbstruck. It was the first time he had
seen the powder taken, ^nd what astounded him most was
the simplicity of the action.
' ' Your friend is overwhelmed, ' ' said Fernande. ' ' Speak
to him."
"You must excuse him," said Ezra, though he himself,
under his composure, was equally astounded. "He is
young and naive. He believed that people take cocaine in
dim-lit rooms, after mysterious ceremonies, and then walk
under the moonlight with distended eyes and hair lifted
by the wind. ' '
"It's really good for headaches," said Fernande. "But
very expensive, of course."
"I'm afraid there's something elemental in your make-
up that objects to these things, Mortimer."
"It's something foolish in my training."
"I must explain to you, Fernande," said Ezra, "that
my friend belongs to a Far- West American, respectable
city. He is now in Europe trying to educate himself, but
I believe his mind has been almost ruined despite its original
sterling quality."
"I cannot any longer understand prejudices," said Fer-
nande. "It is even incomprehensible to me how a human
THE OUTSIDER 171
being can have a point of view of any kind. I half remem-
ber having had points of view in my childhood and youth.
But at thirty years of age that mere state of mind is a
puzzle to me. Gaby doesn't believe any more than I do.
She hasn't intelligence enough to perform the act of be-
lieving, and I have too much intelligence. N'est-ce pas,
Gaby?"
Gaby nodded, smiling, as if it did not matter what Fer-
nande said.
"I'm just beginning to feel the effects," said Fernande,
meditatively, tapping her nose. ' ' There is something fool-
ishly pleasant in being able to poke your nose and feel most
of it a dead bulk."
"My friend Mortimer is suffering," said Ezra, malic-
iously. ' ' He is trying hard to shake himself free from what
he has been told to believe concerning these things. ' '
"It is true," said Mortimer, almost ashamed. "I can't
see it all in an impersonal way. The whole of my home town
rises in me, horrified and denunciatory."
Unseen of Mortimer and Gaby, Ezra had taken Fer-
nande 's hand under the table. His heart was beating in
a manner foreign to him. This strange woman !
' ' You have temptations to try and save this woman, ' ' sug-
gested Ezra, his hand trembling. In his free hand he held
a cigarette.
"Yes, yes, I know I'm a pathetic object," conceded
Mortimer. "I'm the honest working man getting culture
in the evenings, struggling dumbly for the higher life."
The glasses on the table were empty. Ezra called for
another round, puzzling in his mind how they were going
to pass the rest of the evening. Himself, he could have
sat there indefinitely with Fernande, learning the indi-
vidual. But he did not know how the others felt.
Mortimer had transferred his interest to Gaby again.
172 THE OUTSIDER
There was something special in the make-up of the child
if Fernande took to her so. But it was easy to suspect
this of any one ; by dint of staring long enough at any fool,
he reflected, we can convince ourselves that there is an
unusual quality in his face. But Gaby was unusual. Her
stupidity was not feigned, and yet not real. Perhaps she
was lazily conscious of all things, and understood more
than she cared to account for, to others or to herself. Was
the face as childlike as it looked? Was there not a sug-
gestion of purpose in those ingenuous lips? Or was it
all over-consciousness on his part? Finally he conceived
the idea that as soon as a woman interests a man she be-
gins, ever so slightly, to make a fool of him. And Gaby
would do it by a mechanical trick aided by a trained com-
posure. Or else this was all nonsense. At all events he
was watching her with renewed interest, and whatever his
thoughts were, he could take an acute pleasure in the elf-
like features, and more particularly in the irresistible laugh-
ter playing round her eyes. He determined that she would
not discompose him.
"Do you ever take cocaine?" he asked her abruptly.
"0 yes."
"Often?"
"What is often?"
He did not know.
"How often, then?"
"Every day."
"Since when?"
"Since a year ago."
"Is that how long you know Fernande?"
"Yes." He thought he remembered her saying they
were cousins.
This interrogatory had been carried on in low tones, for
Ezra was speaking softly to Fernande.
THE OUTSIDER 173
"Your friend Fernande is an interesting woman," said
Mortimer.
"She likes me very much," said Gaby, irrelevantly.
"Do you like her?"
"I don't know."
"Why does she like you?"
"I don't know."
"Do you two live together?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"In the rue Dubreuil, number 10."
"Can't you give me anything more than a plain an-
swer?" he asked at length, tired of questioning her.
"No."
"Then I won't speak to you any more," he said, to
which she made no reply, only laughing at him out of
her eyes.
Ezra came out of his tete-a-tete with Fernande and spoke
more loudly.
"I have taken root in Paris too deeply," he was say-
ing, dissatisfied. "Vapours are accumulating in my
mind." He sighed. "I want as ever something unusual
and I shall begin the hunt again before long. Mortimer,
I shall be going away from here soon. The French lan-
guage begins to bore me. It is a monotonous language,
isn't it, Fernande?"
"As monotonous as one's self. Ezra, tell me something
to interest me."
"Ask Mortimer to do that. He is the soul of earnest-
ness. He does everything with a conviction, and he can
give you a good reason for every moment of his life. ' '
"People could no more say what they think than they
could run into the streets with their clothes off," said
Fernande contemptuously, "In any case, I don't want to
174 THE OUTSIDER
know what any one thinks except Gaby. If I could only
know what she thinks."
"Mortimer already feels uncomfortable when you speak
like that," said Ezra.
"Ah, once on a time I was otherwise," said Fernande. "I
too had convictions and believed that life was a thing to
be made a fuss of. What a queer idea it seems now. I
am even past apologising for myself." She sat up sud-
denly. "Why am I talking like this again? Distract me,
Ezra."
"Let's go out for a walk," he suggested, fearing to see
her bored.
They left the cafe and wandered four abreast down the
Boulevard Ornano towards the outer Boulevards.
"Walking like this, two of us men, and two women with
us," said Ezra, "is one of those things that wakens old
cords in us those where-and-when-was-I-doing-this-last
feelings. ' '
Fernande had taken his arm and their hands were
clasped. Ezra talked now to cover an embarrassment that
disturbed him with its newness.
"I think that the basis of solid social relationships and
problems is not a triangle, as the novels and the movies
say, but a quadrilateral, two men and their companions.
I suppose that all human relationships can be expressed
geometrically. A rightangled triangle is the honest wife,
and husband and child ; the scalene triangle is the problem
play, the clash of temperaments held together by the rivets
of marriage, an irregular quadrilateral is an ill-balanced
friendship of two couples. An ellipse is the symbol of a
baffling and fascinating woman " he pressed Fernande 's
arm, and she laughed softly. "A circle is the simplicity
of friend Mortimer, but an ellipse is a marvellous circle
with two centres, the individual with the dual personality.'*
THE OUTSIDER 175
Mortimer half listened to Ezra. He was recovering the
spirits he had lost in the afternoon, and now he was happy
near Gaby. He waited for a chance to separate from the
other two, and seized it when a little crowd of people split
them. He let Ezra and Fernande walk in front.
"Do you think my friend Ezra is clever, Gaby?"
"Yes. Fernande is smitten with him."
"That's quite a long remark for you," he said, shaking
her slightly. "But I think that Ezra is even more smitten
with her."
"I know it."
Mortimer longed for some of Ezra's savoir-faire, to tell
Gaby that she too was not without her effect. Only how
could one say this to a girl one met for the second time?
And how say it in Paris where such confessions were merely
conversational small-change ?
"Gaby," he said, "I don't think you are stupid, in spite
of all your protestations. I think you simply don 't care
vous vous moquez du monde. You think, before you start
thinking, that thinking isn't worth while."
"Oh, you talk like Fernande."
"And that's awful," he said, chagrined.
"Fernande is neurasthenic. She tried to commit suicide
and was in the hospital for three months."
"Why did she do that?"
"Her lover committed suicide. I shall never love any-
body."
"Because it's too disastrous?"
"Yes."
"Not as long as you live, never, never?"
"Never, never."
"Never even have a friend?"
"Oh, yes, I shall have a friend, but I won't love him."
"And must he love you?"
176 THE OUTSIDER
"I don't care.
"Supposing he would love you too much?"
' ' So much the worse for him. ' '
They were walking down the rue Tronchet, between the
naked trees. In front of them the Avenue was closed
square by the symmetry of the Madeleine, in front of
which the statue of Lavoisier rose up dimly.
Near the corner of the Place de la Madeleine Ezra and
Fernande stopped till they were on a level with the other
two. Ezra had changed sides, to be next to Mortimer.
"Have you seen them?" he asked in English, in a low,
amused whisper.
"Whom?" asked Mortimer, startled.
"C. and M. They've been following us from the rue
Lafayette. They're on the other side now. Don't look."
A dreadful coldness took hold of Mortimer.
"Damn!" he said, softly.
' ' I wouldn 't have told you if they hadn 't been following
us so long. Please excuse us " he interrupted himself
in French "it's something we've forgotten. But they
might try and molest us."
Mortimer's limbs were as of lead, and his heart too.
Ezra might not care a fig about Mado but Carmen ! Then,
with his utter dismay, there woke a dull, impotent fury.
He stared away in front of him, seeing nothing, and curs-
ing everything bitterly.
"Well," he said at length, half choking, "there's noth-
ing to be done, I suppose. Let them walk. We can't go
across and tell them to go away."
"I suggest we take a taxi. We'll find one round the
corner. What do you say?"
"Alright. Keep your eyes off the opposite side of the
street."
They walked on again slowly. A heavy darkness had
THE OUTSIDER 177
come over Mortimer. The light that had returned to him
had vanished again, and there rose again in him the sullen
despair of the afternoon.
Unseen of them, Ma do and Carmen walked swiftly ahead
and crossed the street suddenly. With angry faces they
came up against the four. Mortimer did not see them till
they were five or six steps off. Then the chill numbed him
again. Mechanically he raised his hat to Carmen, said
"Goodnight," and passed on. Carmen had fixed on him
two wide and blazing eyes ; he saw them still when she was
gone.
"Mortimer, they're following close behind again," said
Ezra, still amused. "They're out for blood."
His amusement angered Mortimer. "This isn't a joke,"
he said, viciously.
"Isn't it?" asked Ezra. "Then what the devil is it?"
"Damn it, man. There might be a fight."
Ezra stopped short. ' ' You 're right, ' ' he said. ' ' I didn 't
think of it. Fools we are." He thought for a moment.
"Look here," he said addressing Gaby and Fernande.
"Will you excuse this rather awkward situation? There
are two young ladies behind who think they have an in-
alienable right to our company Mortimer's and mine, I
mean. They've followed us for ten minutes and they might
assert their rights more forcibly soon. If you don 't mind,
we'll speak to them a moment."
Gaby's eyes laughed joyously. Fernande looked long
and coldly at Ezra.
"Don't be long, Monsieur/' she said. "We'll wait
here."
Mortimer and Ezra turned back a dozen steps, to where
Mado and Carmen stood with their heads together.
"Good evening," said Mortimer.
Carmen looked intently and silently at him. In the
178 THE OUTSIDER
dimness her face was as of marble. She did not answer
him. Only her hands, clenched on her bosom, shuddered.
Mortimer set his teeth, determined to have his own way.
"You've been following us," said Ezra.
"Quite true," said Mado, jauntily. "You've noticed it
at last?"
"Well, you mustn't follow us any more," said Ezra,
trying to make the sentence ring forcible.
"Why?"
"Because I don't want it."
"And I do want it. My do is as good as your don't.
And the street is common property to ladies and liars. ' '
"Listen, Mado. It's this choice; either you stop follow-
ing us now, or else you will never speak with me again.
Nor Carmen with Mortimer."
Carmen uttered a moan that wrung Mortimer's heart.
Mado was taken aback. It was easy to see that she had
not expected Ezra to offer any continuation at all of their
friendship. Then she blazed up again.
"You lie," she said. "You only say that to get us off
the track."
1 ' I can 't stand here talking with you, ' ' said Ezra, losing
patience. "There's the choice. Come along Mortimer."
Mortimer had gathered strength. He stepped closer to
Carmen. "What Ezra says is true, Carmen," he said,
coldly. "You mustn't do this kind of thing. If you'll
go home now, like a good girl, you can meet me tomorrow
evening at the Lapin Cuit. And if you don't know how
to behave you must never speak to me again. ' '
"I won't follow you, Mortimer, I won't follow," she
stammered. "Only you will come tomorrow evening?"
"I tell you," he repeated, annoyed, "if you behave like
an Apache and follow people in the streets I can't have
anything to do with you. Goodnight."
THE OUTSIDER 179
Ezra and he turned back; they heard a fierce whisper
from Mado : ' ' They are liars. ' '
Gaby and Fernande had walked on a little; when the
two men caught up with them Ezra cast a glance back.
"They're still following," he said grimly. "We'll take
a taxi."
He addressed Fernande and Gaby.
"Those two girls you see there," he said, easily, "are
former friends of Mortimer and myself. They don 't know
how to behave, and Mortimer and I can't teach them, so
we've decided to fly for it. And you must with us. I
mean we must take a taxi and go for a ride. ' '
Fernande 's slight disdain had disappeared.
"I asked you to distract me, Ezra, and you're not fail-
ing. We certainly shan't take a taxi. We're going to
stop here and receive the ladies and argue out the rights
of possession."
Mortimer was taken aback by this proposition. "You
mustn't do that," he said, vigorously. "One at least of
the girls is in deadly earnest."
"So much the better," said Fernande.
"No, Mortimer is right," Ezra broke in. "They're
both in deadly earnest, arid it's possible they won't confine
their arguments to logic. We can 't have a brawl here. ' '
The amusement of the other three was wormwood to
Mortimer. And then again rose the contradictory anger
in him. Why was he such an earnest fool ? Wasn 't Gaby 's
silent, ingenuous smile the true measure of the situation?
"Look here, perhaps they're only happening to be going
this way," suggested Mortimer suddenly. "You know
they live in that direction. Let's cross the road and go
back to the rue Tronchet."
They were now at the corner of the Greater Boulevards.
180 THE OUTSIDER.
They crossed the street and began to walk back. Halfway
to the rue de Seze Ezra looked back again.
"It's no use," he said, shrugging his shoulders.
"They've turned back. They're going to follow us." He
was losing his temper.
"I have another suggestion," said Fernande. "Why
should not you two men frankly give in? We'll leave
you."
"I'll be damned if you do," said Ezra vehemently, and
seized her arm. He fixed two furious eyes on her. Fer-
nande laughed, but her eyes answered Ezra with a kind
of gratitude.
"Here's a taxi," said Ezra. "Taxi!"
A free taxi had turned out of the rue de Seze. It
pulled up slowly where the four stood. Ezra opened the
door swiftly and the two girls stepped in hastily, Gaby on
the swing seat, opposite Fernande. Mortimer went in next,
but Ezra had not time to get in before Mado was at the
door. She seized Ezra's arm.
"I'm coming too," she panted.
"Go away, Mado," said Ezra, in a low voice.
"Never!"
"Alright, chauffeur, corner of the rue Lafayette," said
Ezra loudly, but in a voice that trembled. He had seized
Mado's hand. Suddenly, as the taxi started, he twisted the
arm he held. Mado bent, with a cry more of amazement
than of pain. Ezra thrust her from him. Twisted as
she was, she staggered back and almost fell. Ezra leapt
into the taxi and pulled the door to.
"I didn't hurt her," he said, angrily. "It's the last
she'll see of me."
At that moment, Mortimer, staring grimly through the
window, saw Carmen, with white, miserable face and wide
THE OUTSIDER 181
eyes that followed the moving taxi. The mute look of her
pain infuriated him.
Ezra was sitting next to Fernande. When Mortimer
turned his eyes that way he saw Fernande 's arms round
Ezra and her lips pressed to his. He looked away again
hastily, his soul revolting. Then he looked swiftly at
Gaby. She was waiting for his look, and met it with her
eternal laughter.
Fernande took her arms from round Ezra. "This is
the first time in months, Ezra, that I've felt anything like
a heart -beat. I'd almost forgotten the sensation. Oh why
were there people in the street? I'd have stopped and
fought it out with the two girls. I've never done it be-
fore. But Mado must love you terribly, Ezra."
"How do you know it isn't Mortimer she loves?"
"You wouldn't dare to handle Mortimer's girl in that
way. She does love you terribly, doesn't she? Say that
she does."
"Be quiet, Fernande," he answered, smiling in spite
of himself. "You're looking for cheap sensations."
Fernande laughed long and heartily. "You almost lost
your beautiful composure, Ezra. It's no good being pol-
ished under certain circumstances, is it? You've got to
be the real brute. But I rather like the way you under-
stood that."
The taxi was moving down the rue Tronchet. A horrid
idea struck Mortimer. "They may be following us in
another taxi," he said. He turned and looked out of the
window. "No." He was relieved, but in his relief there
was bitterness. How stupid the whole thing was; and he
was the only one to be trapped by its stupidity! Ezra
and Fernande rated the incident at its right value; and
Gaby ignored it. He was the only fool there.
He could not sit still, for he felt an amused contempt
182 THE OUTSIDER
rising in the two opposite him. There was something
wrong with him: he was a yokel, he had no right to the
life and spirit he was seeking in Paris. Or he had yet
to win that right by making himself free. And yet, though
he argued and believed that Ezra and Fernande were right,
he could not forgive them.
"Ezra," he said, "I'm getting out of this taxi with Gaby.
I want to walk with her alone. ' ' He said this in English,
and his tone implied that he also wanted to be rid of Ezra
and Fernande. Ezra nodded and smiled, understanding.
" Allans, Gaby, we are going for a walk. We'll leave
them. We'll meet you at the Hotel Picault in about an
hour Ezra. Wait for us downstairs."
He took Gaby's arm and turned with her towards the
Great Boulevards. He wanted now to mingle with the
crowd and think. The slight mist had lifted. The street
lamps shone in the darkness like clear points of reflection
in a crystal globe. The air was still and filled with a
new mildness.
Paris was out again. Mortimer felt his composure re-
turning to him, and n'ow even his resentment against Car-
men was dead. Only all was ended between them. He
had been mistaken in her; she was a good child, a very
good child. He had not expected her to understand him,
but he had hoped that she would meet him instinctively
and with unconscious understanding. It did not matter
now. He would not trust himself to a woman again as
easily as he had trusted himself to Carmen. For he liked
her, and the thought of her suffering did not leave him un-
moved. But his heart was as iron in the conviction that he
would not return to her. She was too blind, too earnest.
To go further with her would be to fare worse in the end.
Six months from now and it would be impossible to leave
her. He understood that now.
THE OUTSIDER 183
And Gaby did not matter. He would not involve him-
self with her in the same way, for she would never let him.
She would never care for him and he was glad of it.
He only wanted to walk with her always, as now, to watch
lamplight dancing in her eyes, to watch her flashing with
her looks to right and to left and to him, silent and joyous.
Gaby would know him a year, and leave him with as little
regret as a forgetful butterfly feels leaving a flower. There
was certainty in her carelessness and freedom; he could
love her if it came to that, and he could tell her that he
loved her if he wanted to; she would not stake her life
on him, because she could not take hold of it. She would
walk with the same lightness and grace through year after
year, and men would be to her as sunshine and shadow
on a spring.
The wild crowds flowed left and right of him ; he forgot
himself in a return of exultation. He would be alone
whatever would happen. No living thing would chain him
to earth; he would pass from place to place, from one
human being to another, self-sufficient and proud. Sud-
denly he laughed.
"Gaby, the best philosophers have no philosophy. I'll
try and forget mine. We've got to go back and meet Ezra
and Fernande."
It was now close on ten ; the tide of the boulevards was at
its highest, and beginning to set homewards. People
walked with a purpose and Mortimer liked them less then.
He had strolled with Gaby as far as the Boulevard Se-
bastopol, and now they went back down the other side of
the Boulevard, the darker side, for every boulevard is light
on one side and dark on the other.
He had not spoken ten sentences with Gaby since they
had left the taxi, but he was not displeased, and he did
not believe her to be so. Meantime he wondered how it
184 THE OUTSIDER
had fared with. Ezra and Fernanda. He knew now that
these two had suddenly been swallowed up in one another.
He had never known Ezra to display such overt and genu-
ine interest in a girl, or make such deliberate and anxious
efforts to interest her. It was, indeed, the first purpose
of any kind that he had known Ezra to show.
They crossed the rue Boissy d'Anglas along the rue St.
Honore. The street there takes a bend slight enough to
cover the door of the Hotel Picault from anyone on the
same side of the street. As Mortimer came slowly round
the bend he saw three figures under the lamp in front of
the hotel, Ezra, Fernande and Carmen. Too late to turn
back. He set his teeth and came on doggedly. He knew
there was going to be a scene.
He raised his hat.
Carmen did not approach him. She stood on the further
side of Ezra and Fernande, keeping her face in the shadow.
"We've had a bit of a wild time, Mortimer," said Ezra
in a low voice. "Carmen is going to be ill, I think."
Mortimer let drop Gaby's arm. Ezra's serious voice
startled him.
' ' This is a mess, ' ' he said, rubbing his forehead violently.
"What shall I do?"
"Take Gaby to the subway and come back to Carmen."
"What's happened here?"
"We came here ten minutes ago and found the kid wait-
ing here at the door. When she saw only me and Fernande,
she nearly fainted. Then she threw herself at Fernande 's
feet I mean that literally and pleaded with her to get
you back. Damnation! I've never seen anything like it.
She just hugged her knees. We nearly had a crowd round.
We had to promise her, something."
Mortimer was filled with an unreasoning rage against
Ezra for having given him so vivid a picture. He was
THE OUTSIDER 185
baffled. He looked at Gaby; her face was turned up to
the lamp, ingenuously blank. He looked at Carmen, shrunk
in on herself, her face turned away from him. "Just a
moment Gaby."
He walked over to Carmen.
"Wait here a few minutes. I am going to see my friend
to the Metro in the Place de la Concorde, and then I'll
come back."
She shivered and did not reply.
"Will you two wait here till I come back?" he asked
the others.
Ezra shook his head. "I wouldn't mind, honestly, but
Fernande is really a bit upset. Carmen '11 wait alright.
Go ahead."
"Come, Gaby."
The moment that Mortimer had crossed the street with
Gaby, Carmen turned.
' ' I thank you both, ' ' she said. Her face was ashen pale.
"Goodnight, Carmen," said Ezra, moved in spite of
himself.
She started as if stung. "No, no, don't go away till
he comes back. I'm afraid to be alone." Ezra sighed
helplessly and looked at Fernande. "We will wait" she
said, in a low voice.
Five minutes passed before Mortimer returned. When he
saw him coming, Ezra held out his hand to Carmen.
"Goodnight, Carmen."
"Goodnight, Monsieur Ezra."
"Goodnight, Carmen," said Fernande. "And good
luck."
They went off in the direction of the city. Mortimer lifted
his hand to them and then went back to Carmen.
"We must go away from this door, Carmen. Come, I
want to speak with you."
186 THE OUTSIDER
They walked in silence as far as the narrow little rue
d'Anjou. There, in the shadow, Mortimer stopped and
steeled his heart for the miserable task.
"Hear me, Carmen " he drew a deep breath.
"I'm listening."
"What has happened tonight makes it impossible for me
to see you again."
She uttered a short cry and seized his arm.
"It isn't because of the way you've behaved, Carmen,
but because this has shown me that things have gone too
far between us."
The girl did not answer. She was struggling for mas-
tery over her tongue. She put up her hands to her face,
and Mortimer could see that she was crying only by the
tears that came out between her fingers. Even her shoul-
ders did not move.
"Mortimer," she said with a strange softness. "I have
only you in the whole world."
Her quiet despair inspired him with helplessness. He
was as in the hands of a purpose not his own.
"Carmen, my dear," he said, "what can I do? How
may I stay with you ? If I do not leave you today, it will
be tomorrow. And what then ? It will be harder for you
tomorrow."
"Let me be with you only a little while, Mortimer. If
I must leave you I will put so much love into these days
that I will not care any more."
There was a new, startling simplicity in her now.
"But Carmen, that is only a way of speaking. You
know it will be harder for you."
"Mortimer " still in the same sweet, calm voice, "you
cannot do this now. Am I a thing to be thrown away in
a moment? You want your liberty. I will give it to
you. But let me find strength."
THE OUTSIDER 187
He bit his lips. "No," he said, abruptly and coldly.
"No?" She lifted her head. "No?" she repeated
fiercely. "I say yes! I will not leave you!"
"This is nonsense, Carmen."
"It is nonsense, then," she raged. "It is nonsense, and
yet I will not leave you. I will follow you day and night.
I will go hungry and thirsty and be your shadow."
She clutched his arm.
"I swear to you by my mother that you will not leave
me thus; unless you kill me."
She was trembling from head to foot. He felt that in the
hands that gripped his arm. Then she sobbed and was
calm again.
"Mortimer, do not leave me, do not leave me. Though
you hate me, though you cannot bear me, do not leave me. ' '
"I do not hate you, Carmen, I like you. Only I know
it will be harder later. Then you will never be able to
leave me."
"Mortimer, I swear to you by everything in one month
from now I will leave you yes, even though you should
ask me to stay even though my leaving should hurt you.
I swear to you that at the end of a month I will go from
you without a word, without even saying goodbye and
you will never, never see me again. If it is hard for you
now to say yes, then do not say anything, and I will under-
stand. Just one month "
He stared away from her. Who was this burning being
that was now eating a way into his life and affections?
Who was this passionate spirit that had started up to him
out of the swarming of the universe, and now claimed the
right to love him?
"Yes," he said.
She did not make a sign when she heard this word.
188 THE OUTSIDER
After a moment she took his arm and walked with him fur-
ther into the dark, lonely little street.
"And remember, Carmen, I will be with you now as
I have always been, but at the end of the month, you will
leave me."
"At the end of a month I will leave you. I have sworn
it." She leaned her head against him. "Oh, how good
you are to me!"
CHAPTER IX
OCTOBER was closing in listless days for Mortimer.
The morning after his scene with Carmen the mild-man-
nered proprietaire came up and, coughing very apologeti-
cally, stammered that he was raising the rent of the room
from two hundred to three hundred francs a month. There
was a ludicrous contrast between the timidity of the an-
nouncement and the temerity of its content. Mortimer,
still in bed, sat up and stared grimly at the man who, in
sincere embarrassment, held his head to one side and played
with his hands.
"That's robbery," said Mortimer.
"Ah, my poor sir, prices are so high."
"But nom de Dieut A hundred francs a month."
"My poor sir, what can I do?" The Frenchman shifted
on his feet, spread his hands, shrugged his shoulders, and
tried to convey with gestures that he himself was a victim.
Mortimer's temper began to rise.
""Well, I'll leave at the end of the month," he said,
abruptly. "And now get out of the room, quick."
The proprietaire withdrew.
Mortimer's mind was a blank on his finances; they had
reached that stage when a man no longer cares to calculate
and recalculate. In a kind of desperation he put all thought
of money from his thoughts, rose and wandered out in a
misty sunshine.
An increasing despair of himself haunted him through
the day. It was not hard to avoid in thought the problem
of his livelihood, but in its place the grimmer problem
of himself and his life opened a net of darkness through
his spirit. He could not understand what he wanted of
189
190 THE OUTSIDER
Carmen or she of him. He could not understand what
he wanted of Gaby. Least of all could he understand
what he wanted of himself. With all the strength of his
soul he longed to be left alone, to be free of human com-
plications. Why then had he involved himself so deeply
with Carmen? Was it impossible to meet human beings
with a half-offer of love and friendship, which should be
no encroachment on his ultimate liberty?
He denied that. There was a world where men and
women retained their freedom, where the intolerable chains
of relationships stronger than themselves could never be
forged. That world was Paris, and if he did not know
that world, the fault was his. For, he argued with him-
self, he alone was master of his sense of duty. He himself
was forging these chains, perhaps by attaching too much
importance to Carmen's attitude, perhaps by taking him-
self too seriously.
During these days he frequented the Lapin Cuit assidu-
ously, and saw Carmen almost every evening. He gave
loose rein to the pleasure she afforded him. She was so
hopelessly happy in his company, so shamelessly good, that
he could not resist the infection. At times he felt con-
temptuous of the mean crowd that haunted the Lapin
Cuit, and at other times he was hotly contemptuous of his
own sense of aloofness.
Rumours had travelled round the Lapin Cuit that Morti-
mer and Carmen were separating. These rumours had
come to the ears of Carmen ; they were wormwood to her.
In particular she could not bear the sight of Renee, who
had left Edmond definitely, and was flaunting Masters
to the world at large. Masters was, after all, an English-
man and a gentleman someone who did things occasion-
ally incomprehensible to the girls of the Lapin Cuit. Ed-
THE OUTSIDER 191
mond was a mere assistant waiter with two front teeth
missing.
One evening he sat with her in the Lapin Cuit. He
had taken Koenigsmark with him to read, but early in the
evening Gorman came in, excited, and interrupted him.
"Long, I got a cracker jack business proposition for you.
Can you sell two hundred thousand kilos of first-class
cocoa?"
Mortimer was amused. "I couldn't sell a furnished
house for a thousand francs, Gorman."
"Aw, bull!"
"I can't do that kind of thing, Gorman, honest. When
a businessman sees me coming he starts to laugh?"
"Why?"
"I don't know. He sees through me and knows I'm
not interested."
"That's foolish talk, Long. You've been a good pal to
me. When I've got a good thing on I want to put you
wise to it. Look here; this is straight dope. There's
fifty centimes clear profit on each kilo. We'll go fifty-
fifty if you can sell the stuff. There 's a hundred thousand
francs between us. Fifty thousand each."
"It's no use, Gorman. You don't know who you're talk-
ing to ; it 's a man that was never born to make fifty thou-
sand francs in his life. You're up against fate."
"If you can't sell that stuff I've got another proposition.
Ten thousand iron buckets, nineteen francs each. The
iron alone is worth more than that ; big, heavy buckets. ' '
Masters came in with Renee and sat, down at the next
table. Gorman lowered his voice. "And I've got a hun-
dred and fifty barrels of lime juce to sell, five francs a
litre. It isn't a big deal, but it's money in our pockets."
"Tell me, Gorman, where the devil do you pick up all
192 THE OUTSIDER
this stuff? I could live next door to a cistern of lime-
juice and never think of selling it."
It was true; he could not understand this exuberant
activity of fellows like Gorman. Gorman talked of busi-
ness all day long, chased business even in his dreams, fer-
reted out a dozen deals a day. Mortimer knew that Gor-
man had not yet made money on them, but he believed that
some day the fellow would pull off a deal. Out of the
hundreds he dabbled in, one would come off, and in the
end his time would not have been lost. A wild desire
started up suddenly in Mortimer to become like Gorman,
to run about, to fuss, to ferret out stocks and businessmen
and as suddenly died down. It was a strange world to
him ; he had stated the truth in saying that a businessman
would laugh at him. "I'd like to sell you two hundred
thousand kilos of cocoa." It sounded silly in his own
ears and if another businessman took it seriously Morti-
mer would feel himself a fool or a charlatan. And then,
to enter an office when everyone would know, "That fel-
low's come here because he wants to make some money out
of us," made him uncomfortable. It was indelicate to go
about all day speaking to them for the sake of making
some money.
"It's no use, Gorman," he repeated. "I've got not a
nickel's worth of business in me. I'd rather make bricks
for a living. I'd like to be like you, but I can't."
Gorman was puzzled but flattered by Mortimer's ad-
mission.
"Man, it's as simple as could be "
Mrs. Cray came in, flushed, and hailed Gorman joyously.
Mortimer made room for her.
"Charlie," she cried, excitedly, "I've got a buyer for
five thousand bottles of Scotch whiskey real businessman.
And I can get the stuff."
THE OUTSIDER 193
"Where is it?" asked Gorman.
"Here in Paris, in a warehouse, waiting to be taken away.
Good stuff. I've had some smell it." She breathed into
Gorman's face and laughed. Mortimer surveyed her with
disgust.
* ' Good stuff, ' ' said Gorman, very seriously. ' ' What 's the
dope?"
"I can't get an 'option on it, Charlie. You must go and
do that." She leaned to him and spoke into his ear.
"Mon petit," whispered Carmen to Mortimer. "She's
kissing him."
"I know. Be quiet." Mrs. Cray repeated the manoeu-
vre several times, pretending that the information was of
a secret nature, and kissing Gorman each time. Gorman
was smiling and winking at the room.
Renee, where she sat, could see Carmen, and now that the
latter could prove to the world that Mortimer was still
hers, she did not mind Renee's triumphant joy. She even
felt drawn to her ; she would have liked to rejoice with her.
Masters was gloomy ; his arm rested mechanically round
Renee, but he was paying no attention to her.
The whispered colloquoy betwen Gorman and Mrs. Cray
came to an end. Gorman turned to Masters.
"Look here, Masters. Can you sell stuff? Can you sell
two hundred thousand kilos of cocoa?" Masters woke up,
looked back intently, and curled his lip.
"I can't sell anything belonging to you," he answered,
"because it doesn't exist."
"Doesn't exist? I've seen the stuff with my own eyes.
You're nuts."
"Well I can't sell it, anyway. Get Mrs. Cray to sell it."
Gorman blazed up. Mrs. Cray put her arm round him
and whispered to him again. Both of them got up.
"These blooming Englishmen," said Gorman, aloud,
194 THE OUTSIDER
mimicking the Cockney accent. "They hain't never made
a blooming shilling of their own, bunch of lousy pikers, so
they won 't believe that anyone else can make money. There
ain't no red blood in an Englishman."
Masters did not stir. Gorman went out with Mrs. Cray.
"Vermin," said Masters, audibly and bitterly. "Bloody
vermin. ' '
Mortimer would have liked to speak with Masters, but
held his peace. Surely that Englishman had a wretched
problem of his own, as unhappy as Mortimer's.
Was there a man in the whole world to whom life came
simply, just so ? And was there a man in the whole world
who could solve the problem of another's life? No. Every
man had to live his life out; even those that wrote books
telling men how to live, how to mingle with other men, had
never lived their own lives out properly.
His mind returned to Masters, who sat glowering to him-
self, in evil humour. He had never seen Masters in this
mood. He would wait till Masters moved, and then invite
him to walk with him himself and Carmen.
Carmen, too, wanted the four of them to walk out. She
loved to walk in fours, so, and hear the two men talking
what she could not understand. She could hang on to
Mortimer's arm and adore him surreptitiously. She could
talk to him under her breath and repeat a thousand times
that she loved him and that she would love him all the days
of her life.
"That American friend of yours," said Masters, sud-
denly across the table, "is an ordinary buffoon. I'm sorry
I lost my temper with him. ' '
"He means no harm," said Mortimer.
"There are times when I can't stand these people," said
Masters, restlessly. "They're so vacuous, so hopelessly un-
human, that they oughtn't to matter. I really don't know
THE OUTSIDER 105
and don't care whether that fellow makes money or not.
It's his eternal valuelessness that annoys me."
Then he relapsed into silence. Carmen and Rem'c smiled
at each other.
''Let's go out and walk, Masters," suggested Mortimer.
They went out by the Place de la Concorde among the
trees of the Champs Elysees. Mortimer again took up the
'theme of Gorman.
"What would be the good of talking with Gorman?" he
asked. "There's no way of coming to an understanding
with him."
"That's true," admitted Masters. "Every man is born
with a feeling that he's in the right. It's part of the bio-
logical equipment of us all. Good God, Long, to think that
some people believe in the average man! There isn't even
an average common denominator between us except one,
and men have forgotten it. ' '
' ' This blasted world, ' ' he suddenly began to rage. ' ' The
swindle of us all. There's nothing but swindle, and such
shallow swindle ! "We are fooling ourselves and each other
all the time. "We forget, or we want to forget, that there's
something besides this blather and scum. We are all cursed
to pretend and to talk and sham. Hell!"
Then he laughed and slipped his arm through Morti-
mer's.
"It isn't really our own faultj" he began, more gently.
"It's the tangle that's preceded us. Men aren't wicked.
They want to be good, and simply won't let each other."
"You're right," said Mortimer quickly. "They all want
to be good and can't let each other."
Carmen drew Mortimer suddenly towards her. "Mon
petit," she whispered. "Edmond is following us. I just
saw him behind some trees."
Mortimer shook her off. "Be quiet, Carmen."
196 THE OUTSIDER
"Men were not made to know each other by direct con-
tact," said the Englishman. " Speak to a man only when
you want to distract or deceive him. The mechanics of our
life see to that. There is only one way for one man to
understand another when they stand on common ground,
when they meet in God. ' '
Mortimer was thrilled by Masters' intense language.
"When men forget God," Masters went on, "they have
forgotten the universal language. There is only one wis-
dom, and that is the knowledge of God. What is the use
of all other learning, which is mere pretence ? What does
science teach us? Does it fill our souls with strength and
satisfaction ? Do these tinkettle truths matter to us ? What
do I care if the sun goes round the earth as Ptolemy said
or the earth goes round the sun as Copernicus said? All
motion is relative, any way, so that even our reversal of
Ptolemy is ridiculous. Science substitutes one mechanical
jig-puzzle for another. Each generation believes its scien-
tific explanations to be the truth, and what is the difference
to your soul between having the truth and believing you have
it? None. The sensation is the same. The value so far
has been purely mechanical comfort, and real progress there
has not been for thousands of years. There 's the swindle !
the belief that this civilisation of mechanical ingenuity is
an advance in wisdom. Men drown the crying of their souls
in the noise of steamships and the roar of aeroplanes. They
tell themselves that there is comfort in the knowledge that
the famous atom is really composed of ions, that the prob-
lem of life is merely a molecular question. And it isn't the
fault of men of science. It's our fault; we want to believe
in the ultimate value of these things. And they have no
ultimate value ; they are ingenuities for doctors and chem-
ists and engineers and other valuable artisans. Had we not
blinded ourselves with these glittering toys we might have
THE OUTSIDER 197
touched real knowledge again; we might have returned to
God."
They crossed the Avenue des Champs Elysees glittering
under its electric lights, and wandered by withered trees
under the shadow of the Grand Palais till they came to the
bank of the river.
There the four of them stood still. Far away on the
right the Tour Eiffel and the towers of the Trocadero
could barely be seen, and, nearer and more distinctly, the
columns at the end of the Alexander Bridge stood up clum-
sily. No one spoke. Masters had ended on a tone of des-
pair, as if conscious that even now he talked to Mortimer in
vain, and Mortimer waited, knowing that Masters had not
said his all. But before Masters began to speak again Car-
men plucked Mortimer by the sleeve and whispered a secono.
time.
"Mortimer, Edmond is under the trees. I am afraid."
Mortimer heard her 'and understood this time, but he
wondered whether Edmond was not following only to be
able to watch Renee ; he was sorry for the French boy.
"There is a common ground, but not in men," said
Masters. "All men can meet in God, and that one truth
we have forgotten. And in this mad race for futile knowl-
edge we are not likely to remember it. Listen. Nearly
three thousand years ago, in a country of peasants called
Judaea, in the days when Assyria struggled with Egypt
and they flayed their prisoners alive, they were nearer to
knowledge than we. In those days Judaea was the fighting
ground of the two nations; she had been the slave of the
one, and was destined to be the slave of the other. In those
days war was a struggle of extermination ; nations were
destroyed or transplanted ; it was not wrong for the victor
to raze cities to the ground and put men and women to the
sword. Yet in those days a prophet of Judaea, the victim,
198 THE OUTSIDER
said in the name of God, ' And in that day there shall be a
highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall
come in to Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the
Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall
Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a
blessing in the midst of the land ; whom the Lord of Hosts
shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people, and As-
syria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.'
Where is the prophet of Belgium who will say this to Ger-
many ? ' '
He launched suddenly on a vein of irony.
' ' Of course, things are different. They always are. That
is why religion grows slowly; people accept a Christ or
Isaiah only when he has lived ever so long ago, 'And things
were different, you know.' There is always something ex-
tenuating in the lapse of time it makes miracles more prob-
able, and gives us room for equivocation. It is false ; things
are not different. God has not grown older in the interim,
or, if He has grown older, He has not become cynical, like
man. His law still stands. Only in love of Him will men
find peace and understanding. Then only human problems
will cease to exist. If men would forget each other and "
There was a patter of footsteps and a sudden cry from
Carmen. Both men turned. Mortimer saw Edmond, the
flash of a knife, and heard two simultaneous shouts. Ed-
mond and Masters were locked, the Frenchman hissing
wildly, his wiry body twisting as he kicked at Masters. Then
Masters got one hand free and crashed his fist into Edmond 's
face. Edmond staggered back, the knife dropping from his
hand.
"You dirty French swine," Masters rasped, and followed
Edmond up with clenched fists. Edmond 's face was dis-
torted into madness. He made a dart for the knife ; almost
at the same moment Masters kicked him. Mortimer heard
THE OUTSIDER 199
the boot crack dully on the elbow and wilted at the sound.
The Frenchman uttered a miserable moan and fell.
All this had passed in three or four seconds. No one
beside their own group was in sight, for Edmond had chosen
his moment. Now, before Mortimer could interfere, Mas-
ters had thrown himself, raging, on the Frenchman, and
was pummeling him hysterically. Mortimer seized his hand
suddenly. "Masters! For God's sake."
"The b d wanted to knife me," gasped Masters.
"I'll show him."
"Come off, Masters, he's helpless."
Masters gave a last vicious jab at the face and rose to
his feet. His face was pale. His eyes glinted, half in fury,
half in fear.
Renee and Carmen were cowering against the stone
embankment. Masters suddenly took Renee 's arm and with-
out another word made off with her. Edmond sat up, one
hand on the ground, the other at his dazed forehead.
"The swine, the swine," he repeated blindly.
"Mortimer, let's leave him," whispered Carmen.
Mortimer waited, irresolute, but Edmond ignored him.
He was gabbling with rage ; not a word was comprehensible.
Mortimer could not make up his mind to leave him. In a
few moments Edmond subsided.
"You ought to be glad this ended as it did, Edmond,"
said Mortimer.
The Frenchman turned to him a sullen face. "You
foreigners," he said, and spat. ,
"Come away, Mortimer," whispered Carmen.
"You foreigners," said Edmond, "everything's for you
now. A Frenchman is dirt. You've got the money."
Mortimer shrugged his shoulders. He was certain that
Renee had not taken up with Masters for the sake of money.
200 THE OUTSIDER
Edmond seemed suddenly to divine his thought. He burst
into a torrent of vehement language.
"It doesn't matter, money or no money, that damned
Englishman, or you Americans. You come here for a few
months, and you make it your business to teach French girls
not to stay with a man for good. Or else you would never
get a girl, eh ? Dis done, Carmen. This American of yours ;
he's already told you that he doesn't believe in constant
love, hasn't he? He's told you already that some day he
will leave you because marriage is a stupid thing, eh ? "
Carmen shrank from him closer to Mortimer.
"I know you," raged Edmond. "A Frenchman's a fool
to you because he doesn't earn dollars. He's got no right to
a pretty girl. You thieves! Who gave Paris girls their
name if not you foreigners ? Go with him, Carmen. He 's
playing with you but it doesn 't matter. He 's got dollars. ' '
Mortimer looked at Carmen. She was afraid and dis-
tressed.
"Well, Carmen, is he saying what's in your mind?"
"Come away, Mortimer," she whispered.
"You're as bad as they," Edmond continued, addressing
Carmen. "You're only too .glad. You've heard legends
of Americans marrying French girls, eh? You think it
might turn out so just for you ? Don 't believe it. He won 't.
There 's one American in a thousand marries a French girl.
They don't come to France for that."
He stopped, then, shaking his fist in Mortimer's face,
"I'll settle up with one of you foreigners. I don't care
who it is."
He perceived his knife on the ground, made as if to pick
it up, then shrugged his shoulders. "I'll use something
better next time." He turned from them and made off
under the trees, nursing his shattered elbow with his hand.
Mortimer and Carmen stood still.
THE OUTSIDER 201
"Well, Carmen, he told the truth?"
"He was very angry, Mortimer. He didn't know what he
was saying. I'm so afraid of him. He'll do you or Mon-
sieur Masters an injury."
"But he told the truth, eh?"
"I don't know." She shivered. "I don't know. Let's
go home."
"You don't want to talk about it, Carmen?"
"No, no, I don't want to talk about it. Why should I talk
about anything as long as you are with me ? "
He walked with her towards her home, the old struggle
waging within him. Clearly and more clearly he saw that
no man could be intimate with others without plunging into
entanglements. Masters could not take Renee just so. And
could he take Carmen just so, and leave her just so ?
"Mortimer." They were nearing her home again.
"Oui, petit Carmen."
"Don't worry about what Edmond said. He was too
angry to know what he was saying."
Mortimer laughed bitterly. "What does that matter?
What he said was true, wasn 't it ? "
"Don't worry yourself, Mortimer. I never think about
it."
"As long as I am with you, eh?"
"Oui, I think of nothing as long as you are with me."
He had not brutality enough to add ' ' And at the end of
the month?" But he was beginning to understand that
she was tacitly ignoring this condition, and somehow he
himself did not care to insist on it.
"Carmen, you're cleverer than you know, and stronger
than you know. You might win out in the end, after all. ' '
She was plainly puzzled by this remark. ' ' I don 't under*
stand you, Mortimer."
"You goose. You good little goose. That's just the very
202 THE OUTSIDER
reason why you're stronger and cleverer than you know."
She accepted this wild, meaningless statement as she
did his idiosyncracies. She only held faster to him, know-
ing at any rate that there was something friendly in what
he said. Her chief emotion was joy in his presence. Yet
in the darker part of her mind a tremulous, joyous "Per-
haps" was restlessly awake.
CHAPTER X
TJHERE were three tasks in front of Mortimer to find
new quarters, collect his money from old Lessar, and get
additional work. He had two hundred francs odd in his
pocket. Lessar 's work amounted to four hundred francs.
He determined to find himself a mean room any kind that
held a bed and washstand. More than a hundred and
twenty-five francs a month he would not pay, but that
would suffice for what he needed. Eight francs a day would
suffice for food and extras two meals at three francs
twenty-five each, breakfast for fifty centimes, a franc for
newspapers and subway. In this way he could pay rent
for two months and buy food for thirty days. The re-
mainder would go for laundry, typing paper, and other
extras. Within those thirty days he could surely earn
something. At any rate he would be certain of a room for
two months. That was his chief fear to be without a room.
Hunger and cold he could bear, but to be on the streets, to
sleep in a doorway, that was the end of all things to his
mind.
In the late afternoon of a cold day he set out for old
Lessar 's apartment, the manuscript under his coat. He
walked all the way to the rue Pressbourg, near the fitole,
to save the six sous. And there a sour concierge informed
him that Monsieur Lessar had left for England, and Mon-
sieur was requested to leave the work and a bill . . .
Mortimer savagely scribbled "four hundred francs" on a
scrap of paper, added his address and went forth without a
word. He walked homewards eaten with a dull, blind rage.
Curse them all !
When he reached his room he tried to remain in his
203
204 THE OUTSIDER
chair, evolving a plan. But not an idea came to him. He
counted his money and then tried to forget it, but his mind
returned bitterly to his condition. He was not frightened
in a direct sense. He was wild with anger, and in part afraid
of what he might become. Then, realising that he was wast*
ing his time, he determined to go in search of a room
some hole in one of the miserable streets of the Latin Quar-
ter or of the Quartier St. Antoine, or of the Montmartre.
As he closed the door of his room, he decided, too, that he
would find Ezra. It would be a relief only to speak with
him.
He went down to the bureau of the hotel.
"Monsieur Rich went away a few days ago. He took his
things with him and did not leave an address." This was
the proprietaire 's bland reply.
Mortimer was staggered by the information. Rich might
have told him something about it after all. He hesitated,
then decided to seek him at the bank. He crossed the Bou-
levards to the rue des Mathurins, and at the information
desk asked for Mr. Rich.
The girl rang up Rich's room and then informed Morti-
mer that four days ago Rich had drawn his pay and had
not shown himself since. Mortimer turned away, puzzled
and disheartened, yet upbraiding himself for the feeling
that Rich owed it to -him to come and say goodbye to him.
Somehow, just that afternoon, he could not bear his lone-
liness. It was rare with him to feel an imperative need for
someone. But in his distress he could not even go in search
of a room. He still had two days, and he loathed the task
of hunting his new home in the most miserable quarters of
the city. As a class, French landlords and landladies were
an abomination to him. There was a rapacity, he thought,
peculiar to them, a shamelessness and directness he could
not bear to negotiate with.
THE OUTSIDER 205
Instead of setting out for the Latin Quarter, he walked
up and down the Boulevards, staring into shop windows and
examining the billheads of the theatres and cinemas. How
hard at work was humanity, every moment of its existence,
how heartlessly interested in itself! He brooded on the
colossal effort and absorption which the buildings, these
business undertakings represented just large numbers of
mean people, feverish in the pursuit of little aims.
In the evening he wandered disconsolately back towards
the "hole. ' ' Supper did nothing to restore his good spirits ;
the best on the menu that evening, according to Francois,
was roast beef and beans. The roast beef turned out un-
eatably stringy, and the beans stank of their captivity in a
tin box.
Mortimer looked forward with a longing that was frankly
painful to seeing Carmen. He would take her for a walk,
he would tell her he was miserable, he would let her be
tender to him. She could do whatever she liked with him
that evening. He did not care just then whether he was
acting in line with his plans or not. He was miserably
lonely he was too tired to think.
After supper he waited for Carmen outside the Lapin
Cuit. He knew she would come from the direction of the
Place de la Concorde, so he walked up and down the street
to intercept her.
The time for her appearance approached very slowly.
It was good to him to know that this warm heart was hurry-
ing towards him, even more impatient than he. He would
be kinder to her than ever, this evening. He would make
her happier than she had ever been. It was a keen pleasure
to him to anticipate her happiness.
Eight o'clock passed and there was no sign of her. He
was desperately disappointed. He went as far as the Place
de la Concorde and waited at the exit of the subway. One,
206 THE OUTSIDER
two trains emptied themselves. Then he went back to the
Lapin Cuit, and peeped into the interior. No Carmen; he
had not missed her at the subway then. He continued pa-
trolling the street. It was incredible that she should not
come. It would be intolerable not to see her.
When he saw her turn into the street his heart jumped
in him. He went hastily down the ill-lit street and her face
broke into light to see him. Before she could greet him he
kissed her. She was too astonished to return his kiss.
"Oh, I'm glad to see you, Carmen. Why are you so
late?"
"We had a lot of work. I was furious."
He pressed her hands in his. "I'm glad you're here."
She looked up, too delighted to answer him.
"Never mind why, man petit Carmen." Then he added
recklessly, "It's because I'm beginning to love you."
She seized his arm, almost terrified.
"Mortimer!"
"It's true," he rushed on. "I wanted all the afternoon
to see you again. I could not wait till evening."
"Is it true?" she whispered.
" He checked himself and smiled.
"Yes, it's true," he said, more calmly. "Look, Carmen.
Let's not go to the Lapin Cuit this evening. Let's go and
walk. I want to talk with you."
"Oui, mon petit."
They set out for his favorite walking place, the right
bank of the river. Mortimer had said that he wanted to talk
with her, but he maintained silence for a long time. She
waited, wondering what he was going to tell her, and afraid,
from sheer hope, of the change that was coming over him.
Mortimer forgot that she was waiting to hear him speak.
In reality he had nothing to say to her now. He only want-
ed to think.
THE OUTSIDER 207
" Mortimer, what were you going to tell me?"
' ' That you 're a good little girl, ' ' he answered, laughing.
' ' That 's good to begin with. And then ? ' '
' ' What more do you want ? ' '
"You love me? " then, as he did not answer at once,
she added hastily, " a little?"
"Mais oui!" he said. "Didn't I tell you so?"
"And what else?" she asked.
"Later, later."
What was he going to tell her? That he had no money?
That he was looking for a cheap room ? Or that he was a
fool and did not know what he was doing with himself ? He
interrupted himself to break the circle of his thoughts.
"Do you look forward during the day to seeing me,
Carmen?"
The question was foolish, but he wanted to talk only for
her pleasure.
"Little silly," she said, daringly, rubbing her face against
his shoulder. "All day. I only work to the end of the day
because I can see you. I make one bear 's head and I say,
'one gone, one nearer to Mortimer.' I hate the first and
second and third bears' heads. Afterwards come the ninth
and tenth and eleventh, and I like them. They are friend-
ly to me, because they are nearer to you. I forgive them
even for not going as fast as the first ones. ' '
"And every day you think of the same thing?"
"Not every day, because I don't see you every day."
She tried to say this without seeming to convey a re-
proach.
"Well, you shall see me oftener, petit Carmen," he said.
"Is it true?" She would not believe him.
"It is true. Are you glad?"
She uttered a short, breathless laugh. How shameless
she was in her love of him ! It was still something strange
208 THE OUTSIDER
to Mortimer to be wooed with this naive overtness. But
was it as strange to a woman to be wooed by a man ? Or
did women take it as their due ?
"Carmen, aren't you ashamed -to court me like this?
Isn't it the man who always courts the woman?" He said
this teasingly, not seriously.
"Well, if you don't want to do it, I must. What do
you expect?"
"You believe in the equality of privilege, don't you?"
She did not understand, so began another subject.
"Mortimer, why have you changed like this since yester-
day?"
"It's simple, if you only knew human nature. The mo-
ment a man's miserable he finds he needs the love of a
women. ' '
"Ah, you don't love me then."
"Let me finish. And .then the man, to get the love of
the woman, and to keep it when he's got it, begins to love
her."
"Are you miserable, little Mortimer?"
"Oh, not so much."
"Tell me, mon petit.''
"It's nothing, it's just so."
"And why won't you tell me?" She pleaded gently,
still afraid to ask too much.
"You won't understand it, Carmen. Can a man be
miserable when he has as much as two hundred and twenty
francs in the world?"
She was obviously startled.
"Is that all you have, Mortimer?"
"All. And a typewriter. Have you ever had only two
hundred 'and twenty francs in the world ? ' '
"I've never had so much money since I came to Paris.
But it isn't the same thing."
THE OUTSIDER 209
"And why?"
"You have different needs from mine."
He became almost angry at this ungrudging spirit of
hers.
"What different needs? Why? What difference is
there between us?"
"Ah, petit Mortimer, you cannot live like me, in such a
room, near such people, or eat as I do. You are a different
person."
"You are foolish, Carmen." He took her observations
as a merciless, commentary on his thoughtless selfishness.
"Do you know I must find a room now which won't co.st
me more than a hundred and twenty-five a month? Do
you know I haven't enpugh to pay a month's rent in the
hotel where I'm' staying now? And when I've paid a
month's rent away I shall have one hundred francs to live
on?" He tried hard to make the details unpleasant, but
he felt that to the girl walking with him such circumstances
were only the day's ordinary business. She had no hun-
dred francs in her pocket when the rent had been paid up.
"Mortimer, won't Monsieur Ezra lend you some money?"
"He's gone heaven knows where."
"That was not gentil of him. Little Mortimer, t'en fais
pas. You will surely get money soon. Listen. I really,
truly believe that M. Blumer is going to make me contre-
ma/itre. I shall get more than three hundred and fifty
francs a month. You know " she hesitated, not knowing
how to broach the subject.
"Shut up," he said, roughly.
"We shall see, we shall see," she said, half to herself,
and smiling mysteriously.
"I must start looking for a room," he muttered, humili-
ated that she should have hinted at giving him money. The
very mention of the possibility seemed to have contaminated
210 THE OUTSIDER
him with the reality. "I suppose that's the way it has to
begin," he said, within himself, and felt an unworthy re-
sentment 'against Carmen welling up in him.
"Mortimer, do not be sad."
"I'm not sad. Don't I tell you I'm better off than you
are and you're not sad."
"You will surely get some money from somewhere. It
always happens like that. You don't know where to get
it and suddenly it comes, from someone you never thought
of."
Subtle little devil, he thought to himself, astounded and
delighted. She is trying to take back the hint that she'll
give me money.
"You don't know how clever and good you are, Car-
men. ' ' He came back to the theme that always puzzled her.
"Don't make fun of me, please, Mortimer." She was
hurt.
He passed his arm round her. "I'm not, you hopeless
goose. I may finish up " he was going to add, "by really
falling in love with you " but felt a world of implications
in the statement, so he changed it to something meaningless.
But supposing it were to happen! Supposing he were to
find himself as desperately involved as his mind hesi-
tated as she was. For the first time it occurred to him
that love cannot deny itself as simply as he had expected
it in her. The simple egotism of his attitude toward her
came like a flush of shame over him. And he was not true
even to himself, for out of cowardice he would not even
give his own emotions a free run. He was holding her at
arms' length, not because he had ceased to love her, but
because he was afraid of letting himself love her. He
was as false to himself as to her. Was it not clear that
there was but one thing to do? To love her frankly as
long as he could, and then take up the theme of their
THE OUTSIDER 211
separation, if she had not left him by then of her own
free will. The last thought stung him. What if Carmen
were to say, on the morrow, "Mortimer, I am leaving you."
The possibility chilled him to the heart.
"Carmen!"
"What little Mortimer?"
The voice carried infinite reassurance.
"Do you really love me?"
She could not answer. "What do you want me to tell
you?" she stammered.
"Nothing, goose."
"Do not ask me that again, Mortimer."
"I won't, goose."
A sudden resolution halted him in his walking, and his
mind danced at the effect it would produce. No! He
would not tell her. She should see ; and that very evening,
too.
"Carmen, I must go home to pack. Tomorrow I must
move."
"I'm coming with you, to help."
"You can come with me, to watch."
They began to walk back, Mortimer setting a rapid pace.
He was smiling inwardly. Carmen should get the surprise
of her life. He forgot his worries in the contemplation of
her coming happiness.
"Faster, faster," he said, as they walked.
She skipped to keep pace with him, and laughed.
"But Mortimer; you haven't a room yet."
"Yes, yes, a friend of mine gave me an address where
I can get a room cheap."
He said nothing more till his room was reached. He
switched on the light. "Fast, now," he said. "I want
to pack in twenty minutes."
He did not need as much as that. He possessed, beside
212 THE OUTSIDER
the clothes he had on, one ready-made suit of clothes, one
pair of shoes (the cheapest obtainable from the Belle Jardi-
niere), three sets of light underwear (army stock), six pairs
of socks (of the same origin), a civilian overcoat, a poncho
(but no civilian raincoat), a dozen soft collars, two
ties, a dozen khaki handkerchiefs, and a considerable quan-
tity of shoelaces. The last came from a habit he had con-
tracted of never passing a shoelace vendor without buying
a pair at double the price requested. It was easier to him
to forego change than to thrust his charity on a person
who was obviously trying to earn a living.
These possessions he bundled into a cheap valise, round
which he tied a length of cord as substitute for the de-
lapidated lock. His books he placed in the case and slid
the wooden wall in. He was ready.
"Wait here a couple of minutes," he told Carmen.
He went down to the bureau.
"I am leaving your hotel tonight, Monsieur le proprie-
taire," he said.
"Monsieur is leaving us, then?"
"I still have the right to two nights' lodging here," went
on Mortimer. "As I don't consider you a gentleman I
forbid you to let the room for these two nights, that is,
before my term is quite completed. I shall be here at mid-
night tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to see that my
room is empty. I have your receipt for a month 's rent in
my pocket in support of my rights. Bonjour, monsieur.
He went out to the rue Eoyale and came back to the hotel
in a taxi. He then went up with the chauffeur to bring
down the book-case, which needed careful handling. Then
he carried down his typewriter, and Carmen followed with
the valise.
He gave instructions to the chauffeur in a tone inaudible
to Carmen. He wanted to watch the effect on her.
THE OUTSIDER 213
In the dusk Carmen seemed to be paying no attention to
the direction the taxi was taking. She knew they crossed
the river, but no' idea was further from her mind than the
truth. Mortimer, his heart beating curiously in anticipa-
tion of the moment she would understand, maintained a
ceaseless chatter.
"Tu sa.is, Carmen, all is not as bad as it seems. I'm
going to buy myself a mandoline and a portfolio of popu-
lar songs, and gather a crowd round as I 've seen others do.
Will you come with me in the evenings to sell the songs
for me? You don't believe me? I was the champion
nigger banjoist -at College. You don't like this metier ?
We'll join the Salvation Army. You don 't like that either?
We'll open an ice-cream soda stand for Americans opposite
the Place de 1'Opera, and you can dance in an Hawaiian
costume. They'll take your French for Hawaiian, on ac-
count of your. Breton accent."
Carmen laughed continuously at his nonsense, under-
standing about half of it.
Suddenly as they passed into the Avenue de la Tour
Maubourg, she caught a glimpse of the subway station and
the name printed on it. She started, and a look of almost
terro.r flashed into her eyes.
"Mortimer, where are we going?"
He ignored her question, but his voice quivered with sup-
pressed joy as he continued chattering.
"Or else I'll borrow some of your clothes and get a job
as a- female attendant at a cinema. Or you'll give me a
job making teddy bears' heads when you're contremaitre
and Monsier Blumer will not examine me too closely."
Carmen did not hear him. In a piteous bewilderment
she sta.red firs^ at the window and then at Mortimer. The
taxi was travelling swiftly in the direction of the Ecole
Militaire.
214 THE OUTSIDER
"Mortimer, I beg you. Tell me where you are going."
He seized her arm and continued hilariously.
"Or else I'll become a member of the Chambre des
Deputes and enact a law giving all penniless Americans in
Paris a pension of a thousand francs a month of which you
shall have three hundred and fifty."
The taxi turned twice in rapid succession, and entered
the passage Bobillot. Carmen held her hand to her face
and stared wildly at Mortimer. The taxi drew up in front
of her hotel.
"Mortimer, I implore you, do not make fun of me." Her
voice trembled as if she were about to cry. "Mortimer,
are you going to "
' ' Come on, come on, ' ' he answered with pretended rough-
ness. "Not so many questions. Take rny valise up to
your room, while I bring the typewriter." Then, as slie
remained stonestill, he began to thrust her from the taxi.
She stumbled out, took the valise which he pushed at
her, and remained there. He took the typewriter from the
interior of the taxi, and shouldered her in front of him.
"Hurry up, hurry up, that taxi keeps adding ten centimes
bits while you 're standing here like a like a fish. ' '
She turned a wildly radiant face to him and ran with
the valise before him. "Wait, I'll get the key."
She was back in a moment. Mortimer's heart was con-
tracted at her poignant happiness. Without a word she
went in, in front of him, and opened the door. In the
room she waited till he had put his machine down, and
then threw her arms round him.
"Mortimer, mon petit Mortimer, I will make you happy.
I will, you'll see." Her cheek, pressed against his, was wet.
He shook her roughly, lest he should show his own plea-
sure too openly, and then tore himself away from her to
bring the book-case up. When he returned, the lamp was
THE OUTSIDER 215
lit. Carmen had moved her table into the one free corner,
by the clothes pegs.
"Put your book-case on that," she said.
Mortimer nodded. Then he dismissed the chauffeur,
and surveyed the room. ' ' Good idea, ' ' he said, looking at
the book-case in the Conner. "Looks quite cosy."
"I knew it would," said Carmen, her hand on his shoul-
der.
He looked down at her. "You wicked little devil ; you've
had it all thought out in advance!"
"Bien sur. Weeks ago," she confessed triumphantly.
"And "now we can arrange- things. Have you thought
out a place for my clothes?"
"Mais oui, mais oui," she replied. "And Madame Lebi-
han promised me an extra little table for your typewriter,
too. And I Ve got three empty shelves in my arnroire for
your things. And I Ve got some shoulders for your clothes.
Vas! You'll be cosier here than you were in your hotel."
"You're all in the conspiracy," he- said, with mock de-
spair. Then, suddenly, "How much will you have to pay
for the room now I'm here."
"The same," she answered hastily.
"You lie."
'"Eh bien, it isn't your business."
"Oh? We'll see. I'm going downstairs to see Madame
Lebihan. ' '
"Mortimer, please."
"Oh, rubbish!" He went out suddenly, she after him.
He found Madame Lebihan as radiant as Carmen.
"Ah, Monsieur Mortimer; how glad I 'am you've made
up your mind."
"Are you, indeed?"
"Yes, for Carmen's sake."
216 THE OUTSIDER
Carmen made no comment on Madame 's vicarious frank-
ness.
"Madame, will you please tell me what that room costs
for both of us?"
"Certainly; one hundred and fifty francs a month. But
Carmen used to pay by the week."
Mortimer understood that Carmen would never dare to
hint to Madame Lebihan of the state of his finances, fear-
ing thereby to humiliate him. That was why, as he guessed,
she stood by tongue-tied as he took out two one hundred
franc notes and tendered them to Madame Lebihan.
"That's for the coming month," he said.
She handed him back fifty francs. "Now please excuse
me that I can't stay any longer, Madame. I must arrange
my affairs."
In the room Carmen began to reproach him timidly.
"Mortimer, you are not a bit reasonable. Voyons. You
must not pay this. You may not pay more than half,
then. It is not juste. And why did you give her for a
month? Almost nobody does that in this hotel."
"Quiet, you insect!" he said, sternly.
"Mortimer, I shall give you back half. Only I must do
it at the end of every week."
"Quiet!" he thundered.
She shrank from his anger then, as he laughed uproar-
iously, she too smiled, and ran into his arms.
"You'll see, Mortimer, everything will be alright."
"Absolutely," he said, gravely. You'll be contre-
maitre from next week on, and our worries will be at an
end. And now let's unpack and put our things away."
He opened the valise and took out his effects, watching
Carmen slyly. He could have sworn she was gloating over
the prospect of stockings to darn and buttons to sew.
"You're hopeless," he sighed to himself.
THE OUTSIDER 217
The lamplight was none to brilliant. The corners of
the room were dim, but gradually he began to see them
clearly. He laid out his clothes in the armoire after his
usual system, shirts, collars, ties and handkerchiefs on the
top shelf, underwear and socks on the second shelf and
linen for the laundry on the third. Then he hung his
suit and overcoat and poncho on the pegs behind the cur-
tain and placed the extra pair of shoes in the corner near
them, and the shoe brush and polish by their side.
"Fini," he said.
He thought the room was really charming, especially
with the book-shelf in the corner. He was at ease there,
as though he had lived in the room for weeks.
"All we need now," he said, "is a fire in the grate, and
Madame Lebihan's extra table. Carmen, give this twenty
francs to Madame for wood snow do as / tell you and ask
her to bring up her little table. Wait a minute. You can
also ask her to get us a bottle of St. Emilion say half a
bottle to placate your scruples. And bring up a couple of
glasses. Here 's another five francs. Hurry up now. ' ' He
bustled her from the room to stifle her protestations.
He did not care to think. He was happy with a couple
of slight, nagging provisos at the back of his head. He
had thirty-five francs in his pocket and Carmen had had
her way. He determined that this evening these provisos
would remain as far at the back of his head as he could
keep them.
When his work was done the fire was burning briskly.
The bottle of red wine and two glasses stood on the table.
He brought Sinbad le Mar In from the book-case and opened
it in the lamplight. Then he drew Carmen's chair to the
side of his own and passed his arm round her shoulder.
His fingers played with her ear as he began to read aloud
to her:
218 THE OUTSIDER
"Having inherited much wealth from my family I
squandered the better part thereof in the follies of youth,
and meditating one day, I reflected that riches were but
passing things if one husbanded them as badly as I had
done . . ."
Of course neither of them had mentioned the month of
grace.
CHAPTER XI
A FOOLISH and futile morning passed in a search for a
job amongst American houses in Paris. These are scat-
tered in the Quartier de 1'Opera, on the Avenue de 1'Opera,
along the Boulevards and towards the Gare St. Lazare.
But nine-tenths of the people who interviewed him were
not American, but French or English, and a certain an-
tagonism against an American looking for a job so far
from his home when so many Frenchmen needed one, made
most of the interviews brief and unpleasant.
At noon, more dispirited -than hungry, he determined to
make a lunch of chocolate and croissants, as he had seen
so many working girls do. This need not cost him more
than a franc; and for this purpose he went to the Lapin
Cuit, where he would be certain of getting a tastable amount
of sugar in his chocolate.
At that hour the Lapin Cuit was practically deserted.
Mortimer wedged himself morosely into a corner of the
empty room and stared at the chilly mirrors. He could
not bring himself easily to call for Marius; his first lunch
of chocolate and bread was to him something in the nature
of a horrible initiation, a symbol of degradation and inca-
pacity. Had any other motive than economy called for
this light lunch he would have wasted no thought on it.
As it was he spoiled it in advance by meditations of what
it meant. Two or three times an almost irrestible impulse
seized him to leave the place and take his usual lunch at the
"Hole," for three francs twenty-five, and every time he set
his teeth and held himself down grimly. ' ' One must make
a beginning," he said; with thirty francs in one's pocket
219
220 THE OUTSIDER
one could not afford more than one restaurant meal a day
if that.
Marius came into the room at last, before he was called.
Mortimer gave his order with an attempt at blitheness,
trying hard to imply by his tone of voice that he had either
only just got up or that he had no appetite, or that this
happened to be a whim of his. Despite his contempt at his
own anxiety, he wondered painfully whether Marius
guessed at his condition, or not. His natural intelligence
told him that probably Marius had not wasted a single
thought on him; only a stupid sensitiveness made him
suffer.
At about one o'clock the Lapin Cuit began to fill. These
noon frequenters were ordinary customers who came for
an appetiser or a plain coffee because it was close to their
atelier; in the evening they took their meals at home and
patronized their regular cafe of their quarter. At midday
the Lapin Cuit had none of the club characteristics of the
evening. As a rule its real habitues avoided it at that
time of day.
Mortimer -was about to leave when he saw Fulson come
in at a side door. Under ordinary circumstances he would
have nodded 'and passed out, but it occurred to him that
Fulson was the very man who might give him a line or
two. He did not like the idea of getting help from Fulson,
because he was the kind of man who patronised when he
gave advice. But he shrugged his shoulders and went
over to the other's table.
He plunged direct into his subject.
"Fulson, I'm looking for a job."
Fulson nodded his head wisely, as if to say, "I knew
you'd come to that."
"I mean right now. Any kind of a job. I'm pretty
well down and out."
THE OUTSIDER 221
"Yah," said Fulson, gravely, aud nodding his head
again. "What kind of a job could you handle?"
"What about an interpreter's job? I know French and
German and English."
Fulson shook his head. "German '11 be no use here for
years yet. English ain't enough. You need Spanish and
Swedish and Portuguese, with English. Say, you don't
care what kind of a job you get ? ' '
:'No. I've cleaned stables in the army they put me on
mule-skinning nearly twice a week, and I did it without
extra pay. So I guess I can do it for pay now."
"I'll put you on to something better than that," said
Fulson, slowly. On the table lay a flat parcel done up
in brown paper. Fulson unfolded this and disclosed ten
or twelve original water color paintings, in various sizes.
"See these?"
Mortimer examined them. They were simple and cheaply
effective. A few sea-scapes in three or four colors, and
two country scenes, white and red cottages embowered in
green, in reality obvious variations of two themes ; only the
sails and the waves and the trees were differently placed
in the different drawings. With a little practice a medi-
ocre dauber could turn out fifteen such cliches in one work-
ing day.
"I was on this game for a while," said Fulson. "You
go into any big hotel where there are lots of Americans
any of them the Imperial, or the Bristol, or the Neuchatel,
and you place two or three of these paintings on a table
in the visitor's room and stand up near 'em. Then an
American most often a lady comes up and looks at 'em.
Don't show more than two or three at a time they look
too much alike. You tell her you want to sell 'em they're
you're last You tell her, if she looks likely, that if shell
buy one you'll put your name on it, though you hate to
222 THE OUTSIDER
do that, because it isn't your best work, and you never in-
tended to sell it. That's what generally makes 'em buy,
when they see you put your name to it. Of course, you
tell a tale in between while you 're talking young American
trying to learn painting in Paris no money, and all that
kind of stuff. It isn't bad dope. You offer to sell a small
one at twenty francs. Some of 'em '11 give you more, but
they're mostly cheap skates; they've got a bug that it's
a great thing to pick up a real painting from some poor
starving lartist" Fulson 's voice took on indignation
' ' and pay him next to nothing for it. Then they go home
and tell their friends 'That painting? It's an original,
with the signature. I got it for three dollars or so. ' Ha ? ' '
Mortimer nodded, smiling. Fulson did seem to have
some perception, after all.
"But they're awful stuff, Fulson."
"Naw." Fulson was almost hurt. "They're cute."
"I suppose the average American has as much idea of
real art as you have."
' ' Sure, ' ' said Fulson, not quite understanding. ' ' They 're
all no wiser than you or me. Look's alright in a frame "
he held a drawing at arm's length. "You can sell four
or five in a day. You could sell more, but some of them
pikers want a long story for their money. That's what
spoils it."
Mortimer nodded and sighed.
"Now," said Fulson, "What d'ye say?"
Mortimer brooded.
1 ' You can make your thirty francs a day, ' ' said Fulson.
' ' Sell four of 'em at ten francs profit and you '11 make forty.
Sometimes you'll have to tip the attendant in the waiting-
room."
Mortimer still brooded, disgusted and amused at his own
scruples.
THE OUTSIDER 22:5
"Look here," said Fulson, with sudden virtuousness.
' ' You 're an American, same as me. 1 11 let you have three
or four and you can pay me when you've sold 'em. What
d'ye say?"
Mortimer nodded with an effort.
"That's the stuff," said Fulson, slapping him on the
shoulder. "Of course, you understand, I've got to buy
these myself."
"Sure," said Mortimer, watching the slyness that had
come over the other's face.
"And it took me a long time to find the birds who do
this kind of work for me. You get that?"
"Sure."
"Now, I'll let you have these small drawings for fifteen
francs each 'and these for twenty and these for twenty-five.
You sell 'em like pie. You ought to make more'n ten
francs on a drawing, you."
"Why more than you?" asked Mortimer, perceiving nev-
ertheless that Fulson imposing even on Americans as an
artist would, after all, find a limited audience.
"Why ? Because you talk as if you were a gentleman
Fulson did not mean to be offensive "and I don't. Be-
sides, I've got so used to telling the tale that I can't put
any more pep into it."
Mortimer thought a while. "Won't they recognise the
work?"
"No. I used to sell fires 'and night views before. Dif-
ferent feller. And anyway, it's a month since I did it,
and the Americans in the big hotels are all changed by
now. ' '
In the street Mortimer was overtaken by an irrational
hilariousness. He recalled the conversation with Ezra
when he had asked by what stages a man descends to the
sandwich boards and a woman to the dustbin. Here per-
224 THE OUTSIDER
haps was the first of these stages to be the employee of a
man like Fulson.
He walked rapidly to the rue Castiglione and, lest his
beating heart should get the better of him, plunged with
hasty steps into the Imperial. The page-boys at the outer
door raised their hats to him as he passed.
The great, gilded lounge, with its voluminous leather
chairs and massive tables, was half -filled with idlers, most
of them recognisable as Americans. Why did Americans
in a European hotel seem to swagger so, even when they
sat still? From the door of the lounge he marked a va-
cant table. At the nearest table to its right sat a lean
American in the midst, apparently, of his family. The
wife was middle west, Mortimer assumed; she had the fa-
miliar plump, obstinate face, half kindly, half narrow,
which he associated by instinct with a spotless household,
Sunday School, a shrewish tongue, and the insufferable
boredom of the Middle West home. Two girls sat primly
opposite the father.
It was hard for Mortimer not to grin at himself as he
undid his parcel and laid two drawings on the table. What
next? After a moment of hesitation he put his back to
the wall and concentrated in a gloomy stare at the two
drawings, doing his best to restrain the twitching at his
lips.
Nothing happened. He just stood there until he forgot
himself, until his thoughts were a thousand miles from his
pictures. The lounge was warm, and cosy even in its hid-
eousness. His mind fell into a long doze, though his eyes
were automatically glued on the table. He thought of
Ezra, and of the evening they both got drunk with Odette
and Juliette ; he thought of Carmen and her happiness and
of the quiet evening they had spent together.
He awoke when the bait took. The plump Middle West
THE OUTSIDER 225
lady had paused and was staring at the pictures, her lor-
gnon raised with dignity to her pointed nose. The lenses
of the lorgnon, Mortimer noted idly, were of plain glass.
"Look, Eddy." Her lean husband came back a few
steps. ' ' Ain 't these little pictures cute ? ' '
Her husband picked one up. "Hand painted," he said
sternly. "Real."
"Fancy now! Say vortrer perntewerf " She addressed
Mortimer, suddenly aware of the fact that these pictures
belonged to someone, probably that young fellow who was
watching her. "Eddy, put that picture down."
"Yes, it's mine, Madam," said Mortimer gravely.
"Oh, you speak English, too. Fancy now. And it's
you're picture. Isn't that real nice."
"Very nice, Madam, very nice," almost said Mortimer,
but he said nothing.
"And are you a Frenchman?" she asked, as if assailed
by suspicions.
"No, Madam, I'm an American."
"Fancy now! And you paint pictures." She uttered
another invocation to the spirit of imagination, quite au-
tomatically, and then seemed at a loss for further conver-
sation. Mortimer's silence seemed to weigh on her.
"Very nice occupation," she commented, after long and
confused thought.
"Very nice." Mortimer said it this time.
"Yes," she agreed. "Nice day." And she hurried on
after her husband.
Mortimer was overcome with indignation. Miserable
impertinence! What did the silly woman mean by wast-
ing his time and energy in that way? He looked round
the room. Nobody seemed to be taking any notice of him.
He fell into reverie again. On two occasions someone
passed his table, looked at his pictures, and seeing him,
226 THE OUTSIDER
hastened on uneasily, fearing commercial complications.
He became aware that an hour or so had passed, and
with it the contented feeling in his stomach. He was
bored. He regretted that he had not brought a book with
him, then decided he would never take one with him, lest
his attention be distracted from business.
A fourth prospect came up without warning, two Ameri-
can ladies, loud-voiced and heavy of step.
"Say, Bertha, here's some drawings."
"Don't speak to me of drawings. Today was my third
day at the Loover, and my note-book's chock full. I don't
know when on earth I'll finish them, or when I'll ever
read my notes."
They did stop, however, two very ordinary looking
women, unbecomingly dressed. Bertha was a friendly
heavy-weight, with a tired look on her face.
"My husband said to me," continued Bertha, while her
friend picked up a picture, "he said, 'I've brought you
to Paris now, and you've got to do all the art stuff. I'm
only a business man, ' he said, ' and I 've got no time for it.
But you 're a lady, ' he said, ' and every day you go and see
and study those beautiful pictures. There's thousands of
them in Paris, ' he said, ' the greatest pictures in the world. '
And let me tell you, he was sure right. There's hundreds
of thousands. 'We'll be here two weeks,' my husband said,
'and you've got to see everyone of those pictures.' It's
some job, I'll tell the world." She sighed.
"But this is an original painting," said her friend.
"Done by the artist himself."
"Quite right, madam," said Mortimer, anxious to as-
sert himself this time.
' ' Oh, they 're your pictures ! ' ' The tired Bertha woke up
again. An inspiration revealed her superior understand-
ing. "And I guess you want to sell them."
THE OUTSIDER 227
"Yes, madam, I must sell them."
''Must you really!" Her voice was touched with com-
miseration. "And you're an American."
"I am." Mortimer became optimistic. What an intel-
ligent woman!
"You're studying art in Paris," said Bertha's friend
sympathetically. "Aren't you now?" She looked mean-
ingly at Bertha, as to say, or at least, so thought Morti-
mer, "We must buy a picture."
"Did you paint these?" asked Bertha, incredulously.
She had never met anybody who did that kind of thing.
She resembled those people who think all great sayings are
only quotations, no mortal ever having been capable of
originating such wisdom.
"I'll put my signature on it, if you'll buy it," said
Mortimer, with a terrific effort. His throat was dry after
such a statement.
"That's real lovely," exclaimed Bertha, then artlessly
raised a point of information. "Why won't you put it
on if I don't buy it."
Mortimer was baffled. ' ' Why ? " he stammered.
"Don't you understand, Bertha?" said her friend, ag-
grieved. "He won't do it just like that."
"I love art, you know," said Bertha, inconsequentially
but earnestly, and addressing Mortimer. ' ' I was only just
now telling my friend how I would see every painting in
Paris, now I was here at last. And I will."
"As 'an artist I admire your determination," said Morti-
mer stoutly.
" I Ve always loved pictures, ever since I was such a tiny
child," said Bertha, with a touch of pathos. "I'd have
loved to be an artist. I'm sure I could have been one.
My mother always used to say, 'if only our little Bertha
could go to Europe and study art.' And my husband al-
228 THE OUTSIDER
ways leaves it to me to look at pictures and statchoos.
He knows I know. ' '
Mortimer grew restive. The business in hand should
have been the discussion of his art career, not of Bertha's.
But Bertha must have her say ; she had it, to the complete
exclusion of Mortimer and of her friend. Mortimer won-
dered whether she would buy the picture or not. That
was the point, after all. So he did not interrupt. He
waited grimly. He did not hear what Bertha was saying;
he was torturing himself with the price ; should he ask for
twenty-five francs for the small one? Or be content with
twenty? Or should he dare to ask for thirty? He was
dizzied by the mere contemplation of such impudence.
"And now you're forced to sell your drawings instead
of putting them in an exhibition," emerged Bertha. "It
must be very hard to study art in Paris, and the language
so strange, too, though it isn't so hard for some people as it
is for others. I picked it up quite easy. You have to
be so patient to study art years and years in a garret.
I know. Are you ever going to go back to America?"
The conversation drifted again from commerce to biog-
raphy. Mortimer resigned himself. After all, the longer
she talked, the more difficult it would be for her to retire
decently without buying a picture. Then Bertha asked
him to sit down, and she 'and her friend sat down, and she
told him she thought his tenacity noble, and that it would
be rewarded fittingly in the end. She told him that her
husband would come back from his business rounds by
six, and she had plenty of time to talk with him and it
was about four o'clock when she made this statement. But
the conversation was prolonged to a point where the possi-
bility of a sale was forgotten. Bertha brought out her
note-book and read the catalogue to Mortimer, and it was
four-thirty before he could decide to force the issue.
THE OUTSIDER 229
"I must go," he said, taking her off her guard. "Mad-
am, I would like you to buy one of my drawings. ' '
"Why, of course I will. I'll buy both. Tell me what
you want for them."
Her abrupt acceptance cut the ground from under Morti-
mer. Without thinking he blurted out ''Fifty francs,"
and, despite a conscious contempt for Bertha, he blushed
fiercely; he could have said sixty or seventy just as easily.
Bertha bought the pictures and paid for them, too. But
leavetaking Mortimer found harder than making a sale.
He listened to an infinitude of words ; her energy and self-
assurance were limitless. Mortimer stared despairingly
at the clock. Five came. He wondered whether he should
stick it out now until the husband released him ; but realis-
ing that the husband, far from releasing him, might even
invite him to a drink, he invoked Ezra's brazen ease of
manner, and when Bertha reached one of her rare periods,
said vigorously, "Madam, I must go. Goodnight. Thank
you."
Both women shook hands with him. Released from them,
he swung back to a buoyant good humor. He almost hug-
ged himself with amusement in the street. Had 'anybody
dreamed of this way of making a living ? Here were fifteen
francs earned. Who said he would have to starve ?
His despair of the morning had vanished like mist in
strong sunlight. His secret soul was tickled with laughter
and optimism. If he did this kind of thing twice a day
thirty francs a day, twenty-four days a month, seven hun-
dred and twenty francs this was more than a competence.
He wanted to see Carmen, tell her about it, laugh it over
with her.
It was a little after five; he was dry and hungry, and
his mind debated between a meal and a second venture.
230 THE OUTSIDER
The mercenary instinct won. Perhaps he would reach his
thirty francs the first day.
With more assurance he went into the Bristol, three min-
utes walk from the Imperial. Circumstances were less fa-
vorable here. The lounge of the Bristol is divided into
three parts. In any of these he would be invisible to the
majority of the guests. He chose his position carefully at
the table on which lay the largest number of American and
English papers. This time he exhibited two large pictures,
about fourteen inches by nine.
Prospects were slow in the Bristol. A couple of French-
men looked carelessly at the pictures and then at him,
and one of them made a contemptuous remark which
brought the color into Mortimer's face, as though he had
indeed been the painter of them. The observation rankled
and destroyed his peace of mind. He took no notice of
others that passed. He was sorry he had not retorted on the
supercilious Frenchman, though he would have been hard
put to it to find an intelligent retort.
He tried to forget it ; of course this stupid metier would
not always be such simple sailing. He would meet one or
two clever people now and again, and a good many mean
ones.
An hour passed in the Bristol. His hunger became ag-
gressive and his mood vicious. He was actively annoyed
with the countless people w r ho ignored him, as if deliber-
ately. He watched with eager eyes an American lady of the
likeliest sort hesitating at the entrance ; she came halfway
into the lounge, actually looked at him, and then, remem-
bering something, went back. He was convinced that her
faulty memory had cost him ten or fifteen francs. Fool of
a woman!
His reveries cheated his hunger a while, but at half -past
six he gave up his second attempt. Doubtless there were
THE OUTSIDER 231
good and bad days for different hotels. This was a bad
one for the Bristol.
He packed up and went for supper to the ' ' Hole. ' ' Now
he was neither elated nor depressed. He was unmoved. He
treated himself to a good supper, beginning with half a
dozen oysters that were quite palatable, and filling up with
a Chateaubriand and frites. His bill came to five francs.
He would walk home, he decided as a last economy. The
day had cost him eight francs. A day 's rent was five francs.
He was two francs to the good. On the way home he stopped
at a sweets shop on the Avenue de la Motte Picquet, and
spent the two francs on dragees for Carmen.
CHAPTER XII
A WEEK passed in this new occupation. The novelty and
absurdity of it disappeared with the first days. There re-
mained the tedium and the baseness of it. Mortimer had
listed about twenty-five hotels where Americans could be
found in sufficient number to justify an attempt. In the
week he exhausted nearly all of them. Within ten days he
would have to return to the Imperial.
Waiting aimlessly in hotels became a habit, then changed
to a kind of horrible destiny. He sickened of the lounges,
with their cheap physical comfort, their vacuity, their ser-
vile attractiveness. And how slowly the purchasers came !
He began to hate them for disturbing the profound moods
of bitterness into which he fell. If they did not come at
all he would be justified in giving up this job.
The evenings were a haven to him that week ; the lamp-
light, the books, his pipe. And Carmen waiting to be spoken
to, to be read to. She had begun to overhaul his linen, darn
his socks, patch his underwear. At first she had done it in
secret. Later she worked on them openly, in his presence,
and laughed into his face when he looked his disapproval.
Even successful days, when he made as much as thirty
francs, were unhappy. He had not known how silly was
the average human being. The eternal squeak of surprise,
"And you're an American studying art in Paris!" irri-
tated him. The joke of the situation having early evapor-
ated, he found a mortal tedium in these people. More than
once a man or woman with an elementary understanding of
pictures looked at him with more pity that disapproval.
This was the hardest to bear. To one man he said, "Of
course it's rubbish. D'ye expect me to sell Corots for
THE OUTSIDER 233
twenty francs?" But the majority of such people did not
enter into conversation with him. And he could not open
a conversation to justify himself against a look.
Early in the second week of his career as picture peddlar
he returned with Carmen to the Lapin Cuit. He more than
suspected that Carmen had been impatient for this event,
although in her happiness she had never dared to suggest
it. In this case, as in other things, she had waited for him.
But she was more than usually gay on the way to the Lapin
Cuit. She was nursing a triumph in advance ; she was tast-
ing the joy of showing him off, at last a complete acquisi-
tion. He was accustoming himself to yield to her pleasures.
And he forgave her this one in advance.
But Carmen's triumph was incomplete, for with Ezra
Mado had disappeared. There was no sign at the Hotel
Picault, where she had stayed with Ezra; there was not a
word at the "Hole," or at the Lapin Cuit. It was, to
Mortimer at least, a moral certainty that she was no longer
with Ezra; and perhaps that was her reason for avoiding
the Lapin Cuit and Carmen. But Carmen found triumph
enough ; that evening there was full company ; Masters and
Renee, Fulson, Maxie, Gorman and Mrs. Cray, and Teddy.
She would have liked to tell all "See, I am happy at last"
and if she did not say it in words, her face spoke as
clearly.
Only to Mortimer there was a reaction from content.
The Lapin Cuit was dingier than he had ever thought it;
its habitues looked meaner and coarser. Masters, unprotest-
ing under Renee 's tireless demonstrations of affection, had a
futile, seedy look about him ; the others were frankly abom-
inable, Mrs. Cray sprawling heavily over Gorman every
time she bent to whisper to him, Maxie, square-jawed and
brutal though there was something dapper in his trained
234 THE OUTSIDER
brutality and, most odious of all, Fulson, with his oiled
hair, his rings, his thick lips, his greasy complacency.
And he was of them. Their meanness, their shabbiness,
was his own. He was as futile as they, and as ungracious
in his futility. And how they seemed to know it. There
was an offensive camaraderie that linked them to him. They
spoke to him carelessly now, base language, base thoughts,
as though they expected the same from him.
He knew that in this descent there was something grati-
fying to Carmen, though she herself knew it not. She was
more confident with him that evening than ever before.
Her voice was firmer, and she interrupted him freely. She
laughed once or twice in a way that chilled him. He felt
a stronger Carmen developing from moment to moment, a
Carmen that was proprietorial and undiffident. She kissed
him in front of the others, and he did not protest.
"That's a cute kid of yours," said Fulson, who sat near
them.
"Yes," said Mortimer.
Fulson looked overt and careless approval at Carmen.
"You don't mind my saying so?"
"Not a bit."
Fulson was greasily genial. "I know something good
when I see it," he explained. "There's all kinds of girls in
Paris, and you've got to know 'em. There's some it's good
to have when you've got lots of dough, and some it's good
to have when you're down and out. There's no girl good
for both. When you've got the dough you want a swell
Jane that can dance and doll-up and make the other guys
stare at you. See* But the kid that's good to you when
you're cleaned out like that kid of yours wouldn't know
how to manage herself with money."
"The 'kid' happens to understand English," said Mor-
timer with an attempt at irony.
THE OUTSIDER 235
"Oh, I ain't saying anything. I know she likes you and
she's a good kid. Everyone here says so, n'est-ce pas, Car-
men?"
Carmen nodded, knowing a compliment was afoot, but
Mortimer raged inwardly; he was kept silent because Car-
men had nodded, and because he did not know what he
could rebutt in Fulson's manner.
"Long and me are good pals, Carmen," said Fulson, who
was warm with drink, and he winked at her. "I put Long
on to a good thing, didn't I, Long?"
"Cut it out," said Mortimer, viciously. Fulson leaned
over and slapped him on the knee "That's alright, that's
alright," he assured him.
On the other side of the room Gorman and Mrs. Cray were
drinking freely. Under the table she was squeezing his foot.
Gorman was flushed, his blond hair falling over his brow.
Mortimer was repelled. He wondered how soon Carmen
would treat him as Mrs. Cray was treating Gorman.
"That's a dirty shame," said Maxie, quietly, following
Mortimer's eyes.
Mortimer shrugged his shoulders. ' ' Why that ? ' '
"Why ? Because she's got a husband and he's American.
And she's no French w e to behave like that. If that
feller wasn't an American I would have interfered before
this."
"It's nothing to do with him," answered Mortimer,
frowning. "She's hanging on to him like glue."
He bit his lip ; so he had taken to talking of others. It
was middle- west neighbor blood coming out; a piece of
scandal don't let it rot itself away; rake it about; make
a stink.
"Nothing to do with him, Hell," asserted Maxie. "He's
a man, isn't he ? He ought to know that no white man does
that to an American's wife."
236 THE OUTSIDER
Mortimer dropped the conversation, disgusted with his
part in it.
"Oui, it's shameful," Carmen took it up.
"Shut up, Carmen," he said, brusquely.
"You're right," said Fulson, from the other side.
Parts of the conversation must have reached the op-
posite side of the room, though neither of the pair seemed
to heed it. "Though old Cray isn't the kind of man to
worry his head off," added Fulson.
"Old Cray's a damned good feller," said Maxie, vigor-
ously. ' ' Only he drinks, that 's all. ' '
"Oh, sure, he ain't a bad feller," agreed Fulson, anx-
iously. "But he sure does histe the booze."
"That's no reason for his wife to make a damn fool of
him before a bunch of Frenchmen," said Maxie. "Why
don't he go somewhere else with her?"
Mortimer avoided speech, but the look on his face pro-
voked Maxie.
"You think it's right, do you?" he asked.
"It's none of my business," said Mortimer.
""Well, it's my business if it's none of yours. And I'll
tell that long-legged slob that's what he is to quit that
stuff in this place. ' '
"That's the right dope, Maxie," said Fulson, who for
some reason was toadying to the boxer. ' ' He oughter take
her out of here. ' '
"Well, go and tell him," said Maxie, looking round on
Fulson contemptuously.
Fulson shrugged his shoulders. " 'Taint my business
neither. But what's right's right."
Eddy left the cafe and with him a couple of strangers,
and, soon after, Fulson and Maxie. Gorman and Mrs. Cray
remained with Mortimer and Carmen. At the end of a
THE OUTSIDER 237
drink Gorman called across, "Say, Long, come over here
with the kid and have something on me. ' '
Mortimer shook his head.
"Come on, come on," said Gorman, in friendly remon-
strance. "You got the blues. Bring him over, Miss Car-
men."
Mortimer rose and joined them. Mrs. Cray drew Carmen
to her and put her arm round her.
"Make it four Cura$aos," said Gorman to Marius.
"How's the game, Long?"
Mortimer made a gesture of indifference.
"Are you in need of dough?" asked Gorman.
"Not yet," said Mortimer. He had spent that week
exactly what he had earned, and the thirty odd francs of
the previous week were still in his pocket.
* ' You 've only got to say the word, Long, ' ' said Gorman.
"A pal's a pal, and you did me one good turn."
' ' You needn 't be ashamed, Long, ' ' said Mrs. Cray noisily.
"My boy means it."
"You be quiet," said Gorman.
"You shut up," she answered brutally, and stopped his
mouth with a kiss. "You're a pal of my boy's, Long, and
a pal of his is a pal of mine. You 're both pals of mine, you
and your kid, eh ? " She put her arm round Carmen. ' ' I
heard what that boxer said. He's just dirt. He's got the
needle because I wouldn't take any monkey business from
him. He's a fine feller to talk."
She burst into a long, unclean anecdote about Maxie. "I
know him," she wound up. "He'd pinch any man's girl
just for meanness. He'd pinch yours, Long. Keep away
from him."
"Boxer or no boxer," said Gorman, intensely, "I'll
smash that feller one evening."
* ' D 'ye think he doesn 't go every evening and tell Jimmy
238 THE OUTSIDER
that's my husband that he's seen me here with my boy
" she lingered over the last two words with sickening uuc-
tuousness. "And Jimmy 'd eome here if he wasn't always
blind drunk."
"I'll smash him. And that feller Fulson, too," said
Gorman, viciously.
"You'd better keep your hands off him till he begins,"
said Mrs. Cray, vigorously. "And if ever he does begin
I'll scratch his blasted eyes out."
"I know you got something to do with Fulson, Long,"
said Gorman, "but that's something else. You can't help
that, I guess you got to make a living. You're always a
friend of mine. But I'll sure do that feller somet'n
wicked. ' '
"Sure. Long's a pal of yours," said Mrs. Cray, laying
a hand on Mortimer's arm. "You're with us, ain't you,
Long."
Mortimer withdrew his hand, silent.
Gorman leaned towards Mortimer and spoke in a low
voice.
"Look here, Long. You remember what I said to you
one night ? Now I 'm a straight guy, Long. I meant it and
I mean it now. I make more than a thousand francs on
that stuff every week. And I can get kilos and kilos of it.
If you say the word I'll put you wise to it. I don't want
any profit, Long. I'm not like that dirty swine, Fulson.
It's only to help an American boy along."
Mortimer shook his head.
"It's very decent of you, Gorman. I'll know where to
come when I'm up against it."
"You're damn right, you'll know where to come," struck
in Mrs. Cray. "My boy's a true pal, aincher, Osky?"
Gorman grinned down at her. "You be quiet," he said.
"Listen, Long," said Mrs. Cray, turning her fleshy face
THE OUTSIDER 239
on him, "you come in with us two. "We're making the
spondulicks. Why should your kid have to go to work, eh ?
You come with us, and she can buy herself a swell fur coat
and go to the Bal Tabarin and to sweller places 'n that
every evening. Now you're a good boy, Long. You're
straight and you're a gen'lman. Any fool can see that with
half an eye. And you're with us, arencher? You're not
against us. Us four '11 knock the guts out of ten Maxies and
Fulsons and Jimmies, won't we, Carmen dear?"
Gorman understood enough to sense Mortimer's distress.
"Take no notice of her, Long," he said tolerantly, and
winking at Mrs. Cray. "She means well."
Mrs. Cray would not have it.
"Why, you bloody Yankeedoodle, " she said to Gorman
in mock offense, "you think I don't matter, eh? Who sold
that last double box of "
"Nix on that," snapped Gorman, with quick anger.
"Last box of batteries, " continued Mrs. Cray, chang-
ing her voice to a wheedle and clinging to Gorman. "My
boy ain't angry wiv me, are he?"
1 ' Good night, ' ' said Mortimer, standing up. ' ' Come on,
Carmen. It's late."
He walked in savage silence for some fifteen minutes. He
was angry with Carmen, and angry with himself, but he
could not tell exactly wherein Carmen had merited his
anger. He could not tell, though even there, in the lamp-
lit street, the subtle offense still clung to her. Who was
she ? What did she want of him ? Why was she beginning
to possess him ?
She interrupted his thoughts. ' ' I don't like Mrs. Cray. ' '
She said.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
She is trying to flatter me, thought Mortimer, and looked
240 THE OUTSIDER
down at her. She felt something wrong, and held his arm
closer, as if in supplication. Only now d : d she begin to
understand that her behavior had not been all that it
should have been. The self-confidence of the cafe hours
disappeared again, now she was alone with Mortimer. Her
timidity returned, and an uneasy fear of herself.
"Don't be angry with me, little Mortimer," she whis-
pered, in frightened contrition. "We will not go to the
Lapin Cuit again."
Even this angered him. "So she feels that she has hu-
miliated me, ' ' he thought. And he said :
"Yes, we will go to the Lapin Cuit. You wanted to go
there, and you will. ' ' For now arose in him a savage desire
to push his humiliation to its limit, to go down as far as he
could.
Business that week pursued a disastrous course. A mean
fatality hunted with him from hotel to hotel, till he worked
without hope and then without a care. He seemed to know
in advance that a hotel would yield him nothing, but he
went in, bitterly acquiescent, and waited, waited, waited in
the lounges, watched the throngs, brutally indifferent, drift-
ing this way and that along the corridors, talking among
themselves without a thought for him.
Between the hotels he walked over half Paris. He was
bewildered, amongst the pitiless crowds, by the knowledge
that every individual was earning a living. How did so
many people get jobs? Did they care whether their work
was productive or unproductive as long as it brought in
money? Or were they all as discontented in their work
as he ?
But most he was bewildered by the gigantic business
buildings that made up the great boulevards. He dragged
himself wearily under the shadow of tremendous banks, in-
surance houses, trust companies, vast enterprises that lived
THE OUTSIDER 241
on what? On shadow, on mere calculation. They coined
wealth not out of the creation of things, not even out of
the handling of created things, but out of the chimera of
ideas. Mere ledgers and reports produced wealth; mar-
vellous creatures! He watched in a dumb stupidity the
keen, brutal men that rushed in and out of the great doors.
How did men get access to these houses of sinister magic ?
Were these ordinary men, without thoughts, and fears and
restless calculations, like himself? Never. They were de-
scended from a different type of ape.
He had never had money in a bank. He never would have.
Only two kinds of people had money in a bank; little,
timid, laborious worms, that crept with a tiny, cheap cer-
tainty from day to day, saved here a centime, there a sou,
then, at the end of the month, scurried gleefully and trem-
blingly to the bank and deposited their savings, and so on,
year in, year out. And the other, the swift, loud-voiced,
brutal, people, the mysterious jugglers with figures, the
shadow-wizards. And he was not of either kind. He could
only drag himself from hotel to hotel, and go into the lounge,
and unpack the pictures, and lay them on the table, and
wait, and wait, and feel hungry.
And what would be the end ? He did not know. It did
not matter. What was the end of everybody, in bank and
out of bank ? There was no end ; it went on rushing along
the streets, along the years, along the lives, without change.
And all were alike in the foam of this movement ; part of it,
great bubbles, small bubbles, but bubbles did not matter;
they came and went, tiny, unnoticed ones, pompous, colored
ones ; they rose and they burst. But the foam was eternal,
and the noise of it was continuous and uniform, a long,
subdued, bitter sibilation, in which no individual sound
was heard.
Silly, little excited bubbles ! Jostling each other eagerly,
242 THE OUTSIDER
and hurrying on so anxiously; jealous, intolerant, gleeful
in their progress plop ! plop ! plop ! plop ! bursting incess-
antly, thousands of them, thousands of them rushing,
rushing, rushing. The sound and the movement dazed him,
till he walked as in a trance, seeing not human faces, but
a cataract of pale bubbles, dashing onwards against him.
The evenings, unhappy as they were, brought him sanity
again. In the evening, at home, he was conscious again of
his weariness, of his limbs, unmercifully numb. He became
aware of the fact that his shoes were in bad shape, and
needed resoling. Tant pis. They would wait. Carmen's
gentle, matter of fact presence restored him to a bitter
normality. And he would forget himself in rest, in read-
ing, in talking with Carmen.
He was glad that she did not know what passed through
his mind during the day. He encouraged her to tell him
of the day's events. He perceived in her a healthy touch
of vulgarity; she was beginning to accept him in the day's
business. So much the better, he thought at times. She at
least should be an ordinary human being, if he could not.
But on the last evening of the week he arranged that,
instead of returning home, he should meet Carmen after
supper at the Lapin Cuit. In a mood of loneliness some-
thing in Carmen had irritated him, and he wanted to break
the monotony of her possessiveness.
When he arrived Carmen was there, but not Masters,
whom he had most wanted to find. Gorman and Mrs. Cray
were there, and Fulson. Mortimer and Carmen sat in their
usual corner, not far from Fulson. The latter understood
now that on evenings Mortimer did not particularly desire
his company, so he sat alone, waiting for Maxie, and brood-
ing over a vague resentment against Mortimer.
Later Maxie came in, scowled at Gorman and Mrs. Cray,
and sat down with Fulson. Gorman looked in evil temper
THE OUTSIDER 243
th's evening. He spoke in a low voice to Mrs. Cray,
and from the voice alone it could be noted that the words
were savage and distinct. He exchanged looks with Maxie,
long, steely looks, in which one man weighed the other as
a fighter. There was trouble in the air ; Carmen felt it and
she became silent and distressed. Fulson felt it, and an un-
easy grin of anticipation came from time to time into his
face. Mrs. Cray spoke earnestly to Gorman, trying, Morti-
mer believed, to pursuade him to leave the cafe.
Suddenly a quick gesture of Carmen's took his attention
from the book he was reading. "Mortimer, look!" He
raised his eyes to the door, and started. A dazzling woman
had just come in, and, with a long, sneering smile, was tak-
ing the room in. "Mado!"
It was Mado, with a startling difference ; Mado in costly
black furs, with a broad, shining hat at an angle overshadow-
ing her brow, with an exquisite umbrella in one hand, and
in the other a beaded braid bag, gold and silver. Two rings
flashed from the fingers of her right hand.
Her eyes came to Mortimer and Carmen, and the sneer
on her face, mingled with frank enjoyment, was more acute.
"Good evening, Messieurs et Dames," and she curtsied
round. Mortimer stared long at her. He had not known
she was so pretty; her pale, plump little face, with the
dimples near the corners of the lips, was set off like tinged
ivory against the dark furs. The lips were painted, but
their form was exquisite. Just now she was enjoying her-
self immensely.
She made the most of the long pause. Then, as looks were
moved from her, she went over to the table next to Morti-
mer Maxie and Fulson sat there and dropped elegantly
into a chair.
"a va, Carmen?" she asked, with a mean patronage in
her tone.
244 THE OUTSIDER
"Ga va," said Carmen, quietly. But she did not ask,
"Et toif" Mado ignored the omission. Fulson, at the
same table, was gloating over her. He was awake.
' ' Always the same with you, ah ? " said Mado, the sneer
coming back into her face. The insult was meant for Mor-
timer, but he scarcely noticed it.
"Oui,' said Carmen, afraid of Mado.
"Well, it's changed with me," said Mado, and twirled
the silk tassel of the umbrella. "It's changed with me. I
look better than I used to, don't I? Say Mortimer, you
don't want to speak to me?"
Mortimer smiled.
"You haven't spoken to me yet, Mado."
"Not that I care a fig whether you or anyone like you
speaks to me or doesn 't speak to me. ' '
"Mado!" cried Carmen.
Mortimer laughed heartily. "Be quiet, Carmen. She's
having a good time. ' '
"And why not?" asked Mado. "Must I forever be the
friend of a penniless foreigner, who leaves you comme ga
when he feels like it?"
Carmen shuddered. "Mado, be quiet!" she cried, for
Mado was speaking at Mortimer.
' ' Why should I shut up ? " asked Mado, working her tri-
umph. ' ' What has it to do with you what I say of Ezra ? ' '
Carmen rushed to explain. "O, I thought you meant "
and she stopped, terrified at her own stupidity. Mado
burst into a ringing laugh.
"I know what you thought," she said, and looked Morti-
mer up and down. "Well, how do you like me? It was a
Frenchman who bought me these things not an American
oui, a Frenchman, un ail, a garlic. What do you think
of that?"
THE OUTSIDER 245
And she stared round the room and, fixing her eyes on
Mortimer, repeated, "What do you think of that?"
Mortimer refused to be drawn. The words had struck
home, but he would not answer. Fulson, who had not un-
derstood Mado's tirade against Americans, leaned over,
tapped her arm, and asked, in very bad French, whether
she would drink with him.
"No Americans for this little girl, any more," said Mado,
in fair English.
"Why?" asked Fulson, anxiously.
"Americans got no money," said Mado, enjoying the
paradox.
"Americans got no money?" asked Fulson, amazed.
"Where d'ye get that stuff?" He pulled out his wallet,
and between finger and thumb drew out a wad of notes
thousand franc notes. He flung it on the table. ' ' Ameri-
cans got no money?" he asked, loudly.
Mado stared at the bills, and then at Fulson, a brilliant
smile breaking over her face. "You first American I see
got money. Jesus Krise ! ' ' Fulson put the bills back into
his pocket with a swaggering gesture.
"Some Americans ain't got money," he said, blustering,
and looked freely at Gorman and Mortimer. "This boy's
got it."
Mortimer sat still. Gorman, on the other side of the
room, was staring at Fulson, his teeth clenched. But Ful-
son was confident in the presence of Maxie, the boxer; all
the more because it pleased Maxie to see Gorman made a
fool of.
' ' Carmen, ' ' continued Mado, ' ' you can believe me. Ameri-
cans are here to get as much out of us as they can. Oh, it's
no use looking away, Monsieur Mortimer. Yes, I mean you.
Why hasn't Carmen got a new hat, or a new cloak? Be-
246 THE OUTSIDER
cause you're an American. You're like Ezra. Tomorrow
you '11 leave Carmen as soon as you 've had your fill. ' '
Carmen was white. "Mado," she stammered, "be si-
lent!"
' ' You ! ' ' exclaimed Mado. ' ' You ! You 're a fool, like I
was. You run after him, ha? What does he care about
you? What does he buy you?"
She was trying to pay back Mortimer for her disappoint-
ment in Ezra ; but she hurt Carmen as much as Mortimer,
and more.
' * You 're a little fool. Don 't I know you ? He '11 live with
you as long as he's got no money, because it's cheaper "
Carmen leapt wildly to her feet.
"Beast!" she hissed. Mortimer suddenly pulled her
down. "If you say another word," he said, grimly. "I'll
" he did not finish. Carmen shuddered.
"Oui, that's how it is," said Mado lightly. "You must
obey him, for the nice dresses and hats he buys you, and
the restaurants and thes dansants he takes you to."
Fulson, on the other side of Maxie, was eyeing Mado
greedily. He tried to get her attention again, but she
ignored him. She was intent on Mortimer's gloomy face.
"I guess that kid hasn't met the right kind of Ameri-
can," he said, loudly, to Maxie. "She's met the pikers,
the no-account guys, without enough money to pay a taxi
fare from the Madeleine to the Place de la Concorde."
Mortimer felt the blood in him hotter and hotter. Still
there was nothing to be said. On the bench, to his left, lay
the parcel of paintings he had carried round the city with
him that day. In his wordless rage he swore to himself that
he was done with that, and with Fulson. He took forty
francs from his pocket, and slipped them under the pack-
age. He would hand it over to Fulson, and never again
THE OUTSIDER 247
have anything to do with him, unless some day to knock
him down for his soul's satisfaction.
"There's a whole bunch of cheap Americans knocking
round this burg," agreed Maxie, who had not yet taken part
in the conversation, "fellers who ain't fit to be called
Americans. ' '
Mado understood and nodded. Fulson was encouraged.
"Sure," he said, "there's some Americans who can't
earn a living, and they sponge on French girls ' again
he meant this for Mortimer, to please Mado, who had taken
his fancy violently.
"And there's some Americans," said Maxie loudly, "who
behave like swine and play yaller with an old man's wife
behind his back, because he can 't stand up for himself. ' '
"There's some Americans," shouted Gorman suddenly
across the room, "who'll get the stuffing ripped clean out
of 'em, boxer or no boxer. ' '
A brief, tense silence followed. Then the eyes of every
person in the room turned from Maxie to Gorman and then
back. Both men were rising slowing, their eyes starting out
at each other, their faces stony in animal fury. Slowly,
as they crouched, they pushed their tables to one side, to
get at each other. Of the whole roomful, not a person
stirred, for the rage of these two men held them in a mortal
fascination.
Without a sound they closed in the center of the room.
Gorman had been too quick for the boxer; he had pinned
both his arms to his side and was hugging him ferociously,
his chin dug with all his strength into the other's collar
bone. Maxie groaned and began to give backwards.
Carmen screamed and the spell was broken. Fulson was
on his feet and leapt at Gorman. Simultaneously Mortimer
and Mrs. Cray dashed at the group. Fulson staggered back,
snarling, his face torn in four places by Mrs. Cray's nails.
248 THE OUTSIDER
' ' You stinking bastard ! ' ' she screamed at him. At the same
moment Maxie got one foot free and brought it up violently
into Gorman 's groin. The two men separated.
Every person in the room was now standing. In the
center a struggling group had formed some were trying
to hold Maxie, others Gorman.
' ' The yaller dog, ' ' gasped Gorman, ' ' he kicked me ! " He
made a terrific effort and shook the others off. ' ' I '11 teach
him."
Before anyone could understand what was happening he
had darted to a table, seized a wine glass, and crashed the
bowl of it against the edge of a table. "With a wild howl,
which made every man start away from him, he leapt at
Maxie, and at the full length of his long arm swung his fist
with the jagged glass in it down into the boxer's face. A
gasp of horror went up, and a choked scream from Maxie.
The blood streamed from his tattered cheek and lips. On
the edge of the group Marius was shouting impotently.
"Take him out now," said Gorman to Fulson. "Take
him out, by God, before I do the same to you. ' '
There was shouting and confusion. A handkerchief
soaked in water was pressed to Maxie 's face. Someone was
bandaging him hastily. Blinded with pain, he sat on a
chair, while they bound him up. Gorman had gone into
his corner again, and stood at bay.
"I'm not goin' outa here," he answered Mrs. Cray
fiercely. "I stay right here, and I come right here every
evening, and if that boxer wants me, he knows where to
find me."
Maxie stood up, his face a mass of bloody bandages.
Someone had called for a taxi and, leaning on Fulson, he
staggered out. As he went a babel of voices burst out, ex-
planations to Marius, indignation, and not a little covert
glee at the excitement provided free of charge.
THE OUTSIDER 249
Mortimer was a little dizzy but taking Carmen by the
arm he made through the babel for the door. Before he had
reached it Gorman was at his side, and with him Mrs. Cray.
"Long, I always said you're a white feller, and you
showed it tonight. Never mind that boxer. If he lays a
hand on you, by God, I'll knife him."
Mortimer shrugged his shoulders. Maxie was not in his
mind.
"Long," said Gorman, sincerely. "Strue's God, I'm
ready to help you when you say the word. You '11 find me
here when you want me. And if I 'm not here ' ' he fished
a card from his pocket "you'll find me here. Keep that
card, Long."
Mortimer nodded.
"He means it, Long," said Mrs. Cray, passionately.
Mortimer turned from her without a word. Outside he
paused and, in a passion of disgust, spat on the wall of the
Lapin Cuit.
"You swine!" he groaned between his teeth. "I'm not
one of you yet. ' '
CHAPTER XIII
A NIGHT of unrestful sleep mingled with waking stretches
of blank hopelessness brought the grey morning. Only
after Carmen was gone did the great, simple idea come into
his mind ; and the moment it came he was astounded at his
marvelous denseness. He was inclined to be a little hilarious
about it. Had there not been illustrious examples enough
in his own country ? He would sell newspapers.
He went out of the house almost cheerful, breakfasted at
the corner of the street two croissants and a chocolate
and set out for the boulevards. He knew that the offices
of L'Aube the mid-day paper were in a little street off
the rue Lafayette. As far as he could remember, the first
vendors appeared in the cafes about eleven-thirty ; the dis-
tribution therefore took place at eleven. It was not nine
o 'clock yet ; time and to spare.
Near the Invalides it came on to rain lightly. He walked
faster, so as to reach the Boulevards. There he would wait
in the lounge of some hotel till the rain passed over, or the
tjme arrived to get the papers. At the Place de la Con-
corde the rain deepened into a steady downpour, and he was
aware of a chill wet feeling at the sole of his left foot. It
increased, and clung closer to the skin, then spread to the
toes. It changed, slowly, from a mere damp feeling, to a
spongy sogginess that irritated him. Before long the first
symptoms of leakage appeared in his right foot. The toes
squelched coldly into the socks; he thought he heard the
sagging waters squeezing up and down between the toes.
He reflected that he had another pair of shoes at home, but
their condition was inferior to these ; soling and heeling of
250
THE OUTSIDER 251
a pair of shoes was about fifteen francs half the money he
possessed. And he sighed, closing his eyes.
He changed his plan and headed straight for the offices
of the Aube. An unusual prudence warned him that there
would be long queues of newspaper vendors, and he would
be a stranger amongst them. Then he became diffident as
to his dress, lest it were a little too decent. If he could bring
it down to the level of his shoes it might be better. He
fastened his overcoat up to the top, to hide his collar, and
pushed his gloves into his pocket. At a shop window he ex-
amined himself. He looked reasonably bedraggled. He
guessed he would do.
The entrance to the offices of the Aube were on a mean
street off the rue Lafayette. Mortimer understood that the
distributing room must be somewhere at the side or the
back, and he wandered round, uninterested, keeping to the
wall in partial shelter from the rain. In a back alley he
came on the queue he was expecting, a thin line of human
beings against the wall, their heads bent all sizes and con-
ditions of men and women and children, grey-beards,
ancient beldames, boys and girls, a shivering line that
curled down and to the side through a door and probably,
reflected Mortimer, doubled on itself three or four times
in a dry, spacious basement.
He took his place behind an old man, unshaven and with
hollow cheeks. He felt the same silly amusement coming
over him as when he had first ventured into a hotel to sell
Fulson's pictures, a shivering, hysterical hilarity. Nobody
would believe that he wanted to sell papers on the streets.
He would not have been surprised to see the line turn on
him, and chase him away with derisive shouts. Once or
twice, trembling with cold and the intolerable sponginess
of his socks, he broke into a short laugh, making the old
252 THE OUTSIDER
man in front of him turn round, with a brutish look of dis-
pleasure.
The line grew slowly behind him first a boy with a
great English cap drawn over his eyes, than a powerful
young woman with a red, cheerful face, and then others.
Most of these people had an oilcloth bag hanging from a
shoulder. In this rain the papers would not last an hour,
he realised. He would have to keep them under his coat.
He shivered ; it was a mean cold that ran up and down his
body and limbs, but as the line behind him grew longer, he
was glad he had come so early instead of waiting till half
past ten.
His overcoat was heavy with rain, and he began to fear
that his clothes underneath would soak, for even the drift
of rain that reached this half shelter accumulated stead-
ily. He stood as near as possible to the wall. To pass the
time and dull his mind against the cold, he repeated verses
to himself. The minutes passed with merciless slowness.
He took to counting the seconds, "one-little-tick-tack two-
little-tick-tack three-little-tick-tack " and forgot himself
for short stretches.
' ' Right ! ' ' The word passed slowly down the line. They
shuffled up closer to the door. Then, from another door a
few steps away, a boy flashed out, yelling shrilly, "L'Aube,
voyez I'Aube!" His bundle under his arm, he darted up
the street, and turned towards the rue Lafayette. Then
came a young woman, walking rapidly, but saving her
breath then a third, a fourth, dozens of them, streaming
right and left from the exit. The line pressed inwards im-
patiently ; the whole of Paris would be supplied before he
got his papers. He would come even earlier tomorrow.
The line pulled him at last into the steps leading to the
basement. The warm tiring air beat in waves; he heard
the low thunder of the presses. A tumult of shrill voices
THE OUTSIDER 253
reached him from the interior. "Nom de Dieu, how slow
they are. It'll be time for the evening editions." Then,
round a white-washed wall, he came into the distributing 1
room, flickering in violet light, half a dozen perspiring wo-
men behind a counter, yelling figures, slapping down
bundles, men that ran in with trucks loaded with papers,
hands lifted, notes, a medley, a pandemonium. He tried to
hear some of the figures. What did the papers cost ? He
pulled out three five-franc bills. He reached a counter and
pushed the bills into a woman's hand; ''Fifteen?" she
howled. "You're crazy, you!" She thrust a five-fran-?
note at him again, and pushed a bundle of papers at him.
Mortimer grabbed the papers with a loud shout "Non!" and
thrust the five-franc note back at her. She almost spat in
his face then gave him a second, smaller bundle. He put
the two together and fled from the bedlam.
In the street he opened his coat and hid the papers under
it, though it had ceased to rain. Half a dozen vendors
slipped by him, yelling. Where the devil was he to go ? He
walked into the rue Lafayette. Would he have to start
bawling "L'Aube!" like the others. Could he do it with-
out attracting too much attention. "L'Aube," he said sud-
denly to himself, and felt a fool.
Then he pulled the bundle of papers into the light. As
long as he did not shout "L'Aube!" nobody would know
that he was selling papers. That was a relief. Then he
laughed wildly and pulled a sheet from the bundle. He
waved it aloft and shouted, "L'Aube!" That was alright,
wasn't it? Nobody took any notice of him. He repeated
the experiment. Same result. So it was a perfectly legiti-
mate thing to do. He gained confidence. His voice became
firmer. In a few minutes he was fascinated at his own dar-
ing. He chuckled with real enjoyment between the shouts.
At the corner, near the back of the Opera, somebody in-
254 THE OUTSIDER
terrupted him to buy a paper. He was startled. He re-
ceived the three sous automatically and passed into ela-
tion. It was done, a real beginning had been made. He
walked rapidly down to the boulevard shouting "L'Aube!"
in a powerful voice that rang up and down the street.
"L'Aube, voyez I'Aube!" He began to keep his eyes open.
It was quite a game.
He forgot himself in the excitement of the sales. Hia
eyes flashed up and down the crowds. He did not wait now
for buyers to come to him. He smelt them from afar. A
tiny gesture was enough for him a motion to the pocket,
a lifted face. His fingers became expert in pulling a sheet
from the bundle.
At the Cafe de Madrid he walked a few moments up and
down, eyeing the drinkers eagerly. Then he plunged in
past a waiter, and made the round of the cafe. Six papers.
He went forth joyfully, still braying with a throat voice
to save his lungs "L'Aube, voyez I'Aube!"
He worked his way rapidly towards the Boulevard Sebas-
topol. The further he went the more difficult became his
sales. Many passers-by had the sheet in their hands. He
passed two women coming in his direction and looks of en-
mity darted from him to them and back again. Unreflect-
ingly he accused them of stealing his pitch, and then re-
membered that they had the same right as he to the sale of
I'Aube. But his resentment would not die so logically ; they
were in the wrong somehow they were in the wrong.
It was no use turning back. He continued as far as the
Place de la Republique, in and out of the cafes, shouting,
shouting. He kept his eyes wide open for other news-
vendors, and his heart smote him when he passed an old
woman bent in two, who shuffled in the same direction,
chirping almost inaudibly, 'L'Aube, voyez I'Aube!" He
THE OUTSIDER 255
refrained from shouting again until he had left her well
behind.
At one o'clock hunger came strong, but the cafes were
beginning to fill with workers, taking their digestive before
returning to work. After lunch they would be more inclined
to spend three sous on a paper. And he did 'not know how
many papers remained to be sold; he did not know what
they had cost him. His overcoat pockets were weighted
down with copper and nickel coins, but what his gain or
loss was he could not tell.
He was hoarse with shouting, and thoroughly tired; his
shoes had dried by now, but in his feet there was the warm
uncomfortable tingling which follows when clothes have
dried on the body. He would have liked to take his shoes
and stockings off, and give his feet air. But he continued.
The papers under his arm were a mere sheaf now. Another
half hour, and they would be gone.
There was something friendly in a human being who
bought a paper. Mortimer considered the act as a personal
favor to himself, and his "merci" for the three sous was so
sincere that it quite startled one or two purchasers.
At two o'clock he almost gave it up. The bundle under
his arm was tantalisingly thin, but his throat hurt him, he
was weak with hunger and his feet were as of lead. And
the cafes were half empty; the people on the streets were
different now; they were intent on business. Then he re-
membered that the queues for the evening papers would
probably be forming by now, and he still had to eat. He
went on for five minutes longer, uttering his "I'Aube!"
without conviction. He did not sell a single copy. At a
tiny restaurant, "le rendezvous des Chauffeurs," he drop-
ped into a chair. He was done for the morning.
Waiting for his food, he counted up the copper, nickel
and silver coins. Twenty-one francs! He had made six
256 THE OUTSIDER
francs in all! Stupefied, he counted the sheets still left.
Ten. So he made a sou on every paper he sold, and lost two
on every one he did not sell. The discovery, on top of his
weariness and hunger, almost broke him. He ate slowly,
without appetite. At the end of the meal the patron, seeing
the piles of change, offered him notes for it, plus a glass of
white wine. Mortimer kept only a franc in copper. The
meal had cost him three francs.
Tired and shaken as he was, he would have turned home ;
but the knowledge that another six francs might be earned
pushed him, almost against his will, to further effort.
He would try the Flambeau as an evening paper. The
offices were in the rue du Faubourg Montmartre, close to the
main Boulevards. Wearily he dragged himself in that di-
rection; there was no laughter in him when he took his
place in the line. He only felt a sullen rage against these
countless newsvendors. How could one earn even six francs
when there were hordes like these all waiting to sell the
paper? .
He came home after eleven that evening. Carmen lifted
a tired, frightened face to him as he lurched in and flung
himself on the bed. He was too broken to utter a word.
He lay there and groaned once or twice, and Carmen stood
over him, her hands clasped in distress.
It rained the whole of that week. Mortimer changed his
shoes, and sent the better pair to be soled and heeled, but
the shoemaker asked for six days, and the cost was seventeen
francs. Mortimer hated the rain with a wild, choking
hatred. He looked upon it as petty persecution, a cheap,
laughterless malice, and when the cold wet crept into his
shoes he became inhuman with irritation.
He trotted over the whole of Paris in the rain of that
week, from la Villette to Montparnasse and from the Bois
de Boulogne beyond the Place de la Bastille by the main
THE OUTSIDER 257
Boulevards, by the Exterior Boulevards, north and south.
One evening he found himself outside the Monico where,
less than two months before, he had flung hundred franc
bills away with Ezra and Juliette and Odette. He shouted
the louder here, in ironic celebration of the past. He re-
cognised the man who had helped him to his feet that night ;
but the man did not recognize him. There was a good
reason; he had not shaved for three days; the rain had
taken all the shape out of his clothes; his hat was a
crumpled jumble of felt, and, unbeknown to himself, his
eyes were feverishly restless. He watched the taxis draw-
ing up to the door, watched the prodigals step haughtily
forth and slip something to the doorkeeper. He offered
them "le Flambeau," but they were not interested. He
moved off soon, for the Place Pigalle was not a good buyer.
The crowd was too interested in the pleasure hunt.
He became accustomed to fatigue and to hunger, but not
to the wet feet. When he came home in the evenings he
pulled his shoes and stockings off and drew fresh stockings
on. It was like a re-birth. He sat there on one chair, his
slippered feet on another, and almost moaned in the ecstacy
of restfulness. And Carmen sat by him, mute, and waiting
painfully for the occasional smile he threw her out of his
weariness.
He had not told her what he was working at ; she only
knew that he returned late of nights, a broken man, unable
to move a limb. He did not speak. He threw her caresses
off impatiently, and then smiled at her to console her. She
asked him once or twice what he was doing, and though he
did not tell her, she implored him not to work so ha'rd. She
could guess that he spent most of the day on his feet, in the
rain. But the truth never once suggested itself to her.
She was infinitely gentle with him, knowing that he was
miserable beyond words; but her gentleness became un-
258 THE OUTSIDER
bearable to him. He meditated evenings on the next
month's rent. Where would it come from? Carmen should
not pay it, not if he had to go into the street and knock a
man down for it. He knew that every week she had put
aside the sum she had used to pay out in rent ; but she
should never use that except to buy herself clothes. He
swore it wildly and impotently to himself and he almost
hated her because his debt to her tortured him so. Even
when she told him timidly one evening that Monsieur Blumer
had made her contremaitre, on a fixed salary of three hun-
dred and fifty francs a month, he did not relax. All the
more reason that he should earn more money, now that
she earned so much. And every alternate day he would
leave five francs with her, or ten francs. He did not care
that the money was not needed, that she put it aside. He
would give her whatever he had. Why? Why? Had he
any belief in the economic obligation of a man to a woman ?
None, he asserted obstinately to himself. And as obstinately
he cut down his meals, stinted himself tobacco, and brought
her money; an instinct stronger than himself, other than
himself, forbade him to live with the woman and bring her
no offerings.
The mended shoes came at last, and when he paid for
them his capital was cut to seventeen francs. There were
eight days to the new month a hundred and fifty francs
were needed. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FRANCS.
Then, two days after the shoes came back, he perceived
that fresh laundry had returned. Carmen had paid and
said nothing, hoping he would not notice. He was annoyed
by her duplicity.
"What did the laundry cost?"
She stammered in her discomfort. ' ' Nothing, Mortimer. ' '
''Don't be foolish. Here's ten francs."
"Mortimer, it only cost five."
THE OUTSIDER 259
"Doesn't matter, doesn't matter."
Then he reflected, to his horror, that he would be left
with only seven francs, not enough to buy his batch of news-
papers in advance. He was chilled to the marrow. The
ten francs lay there on the table. He could not take them
back not to save himself from death.
"Put that money away, Carmen."
"Mortimer, please, please."
"Put it away, Carmen."
She put the money slowly into her old bag. There were
tears in her eyes.
Mortimer maintained a savage silence. He cast about
him, vainly. If he only tool; seven francs worth of news-
papers, he could make no more than three francs fifty on
them . . . Three francs fifty would pay for his lunch.
Breakfast could be forgotten for once.
There was his typewriter, but he shrank in on himself
at the suggestion of selling that. Without the machine he
would indeed be a beggar. True, he never used it, but it
was all his wealth besides his worthless clothes. It was
the final bulwark before the horrible abyss. Better no
breakfast, a trifling lunch he would soon have his fifteen
francs again for the usual batch of papers.
The next morning he sold his watch, and when he re-
turned late at night he was sick, and brought up the mis-
erable supper he had eaten in a dirty little restaurant at
the other end of Paris.
CHAPTER XIV
EVERY reasonable instinct warned him to stay at home
the following day. All night he had been feverish, with a
curious, unloeated fever, that shook his body, his limbs and
his head alternately. He believed he had not slept a single
moment; but he could not be certain of anything; he was
light-headed, and he labored under an exaggerated self-
assurance, the irresponsibility of which amused him. Deep in
him something quiet said again and again, "Stay in bed,
stay in bed, ' ' but side by side with that voice another said,
* ' If you don 't earn any money, Carmen will have to buy you
things out of her own money. It will then be as if she were
keeping you, ' ' and the room reeled.
He had to make no formal resolution to go to work that
morning. A vindictive obstinacy pulled him in due course
out of bed, clothed him while he shivered, dragged him,
stumbling, down the stairs, and thrust him into the cafe at
the corner, where he asked for his usual breakfast, a cafe
and two croissants. He would not ride to work. He
shambled unevenly along the avenues, heedless of men and
women, keeping his mind grimly on his destination, as
though, if he forgot it for one moment, he would never re-
member it again.
When, half-way to the newspaper offices, the rain began
to fall, he took off his hat to it with a sardonic friendliness,
and spoke aloud, "Bless me, I was expecting you." A few
people observed the long, ill-dressed, unshaven American
waving his hat and talking to himself, but Mortimer did
not think of them until five minutes later &nd then he said,
laughing aloud, "They must have thought me drunk."
The day went by like a series of incredible dreams: he
260
THE OUTSIDER 261
believed that he was selling papers, shouting, handling small
coins, saying "Merci," and the belief filled him with ter-
rific amazement. Was it true? "Was he there, doing these
extraordinary things, or was he not ? Was he lunching in a
cubicle in the rue St. Roch, amongst gruff, noisy beasts,
that smacked their thick lips, wiped the reeking sauce off
the heavy, chipped plates and thrust the spongy piece of
bread into great, glutinous mouths unshaven brutes,
healthy, dirty and women with them? He calculated
whether they were there or not stink and everything : very
gravely he calculated it, groaning at his own absurdity,
putting his hand from time to time to his forehead to wipe
away the tickling sweat, and finding it drier than summer
chalk.
During part of the afternoon an unexpected and fictitious
sense of energy pervaded him. He was not as heavy to him-
self as usual; he remarked this with infantine pleasure,
walked rapidly for stretches, forgetful of his papers, to test
his new condition. "Quite good, extraordinarily good,"
he said, after deliberating carefully. "Inexplicable re-
crudescence of juvenility, probably preceding inevitable
senility ' ' and he went on rhyming with much relish ' ' in-
duced prematurely by feverish debility, helped by congeni-
tal sub-imbecility " his eyes glittered on the passers-by,
seeking a kind of approbation.
Now and again he woke to commercial activity, flourish-
ing his newspapers, and shouting fiercely, "Le Flambeau,
voyez le Flambeau!" and on several occasions he brushed
excitedly by people who wanted to stop him to purchase
a copy. They were in the way.
But in the later evening, when he sat down to eat again,
he knew he was behaving like a fool, and he set a vicious
guard on himself. He began to do things with grim care-
fulness ; he ordered the menu slowly, watching the waitress
262 THE OUTSIDER
for any signs of astonishment. He ate slowly, with a brief
meditation on each mouthful that he lifted. There was
nothing erratic about his behaviour nor about his thoughts,
for that matter. Of course not. The only illusion was that
he thought them erratic while they were ordinary. This
explanation came like a flash of lightning into his mind.
Of course ! Of course ! He was quite normal, his thoughts
were normal; he only thought they were abnormal; see?
How simple and obvious ! He was indescribably delighted.
Oh for someone to explain it to !
He only needed a drink after the meal to dispel that last,
foolish illusion. He smiled indulgently at the waitress and
ordered a Benedictine, and when it came he stared at it,
still smiling indulgently. He lifted the glass and drank,
witlxhis eyes closed. When he set the glass down and opened
his eyes, he saw Gaby, sitting in front of him.
A pointless cunning checked the slightest motion of sur-
prise. Why should he be surprised. She was not surprised.
She would get an advantage over him if he showed surprise.
"Good evening, Gaby," he said, and held out his dirty
hand.
"Good evening," she said, but did not see his hand.
"I was thinking," said Mortimer, infusing apology into
his voice. Then they both remained silent, and he remem-
bered her by this habit. He was carelessly conscious of his
dirty hands and face, the lack of a collar, the bundle of
unsold papers on the seat.
"It's a long time since I saw you," he said sadly.
She nodded. ' ' She is looking at me, and wondering what
the devil has come over me," he thought. "A very long
time," he repeated, casting about for conversation. She
nodded again.
"How is Fernande?" he asked, inspired.
"As usual."
THE OUTSIDER 263
"Do you see her often?"
"Every day, as usual."
"Will you drink with me?" he asked; the cost did not
matter. "Madame, another Benedictine," he said to the
waitress. The waitress brought the drink and set it down
in front of him. "Thank you," he said, advisedly.
"Times have changed," said Mortimer sighing, but re-
flected that it would be quite silly to tell her any of his
personal troubles ; she would not even be not interested ;
her ear would just not receive them. ' ' Times have changed
since you and I and Fernande and Ezra were together."
She nodded. "Ezra is with Fernande," she said, dis-
tinctly.
"Of course, of course," said Mortimer, again repressing
the quiver of surprise. "It's a long time since I saw him,
too."
Then followed another pause.
"We're quite close to the rue de Breuil," said Morti-
mer; "you said number ten, didn't you?"
She nodded.
They sat looking at each other for many minutes. A de-
sire welled up like a pain in Mortimer's heart to see Ezra
again, to hold his hand for a moment, like a friend.
"We'll go now," he said, assuming that she would come
with him. "I may not be round here again soon." He
gave this as an excuse, for every day he would come in
this direction.
He called the waitress and paid, but before going he
noticed that Gaby 's glass was untouched. He was not sur-
prised. Outside he turned at once in the direction of the
rue du Breuil. He could calculate fairly accurately the
whereabouts of number ten; it would be near the corner
of the rue Clignancourt. His heart rioted in him. He
felt he could not speak, lest he should choke. When he
264 THE OUTSIDER
reached the house, with its closed iron doors, he hesitated,
almost overcome. Gaby was not with him. He would
ask the concierge where Mademoiselle Fernande lived.
He rang twice. The catch clicked and the door swung
in slightly. A voice came out of the darkness, "Who's
that?" "It's for Mademoiselle Fernande," answered
Mortimer into the darkness. "Fourth on the right," was
the answer. He waited till he could see a little and began
the climb. His legs were hot and bent with difficulty.
The light glimmered under the door. He could not see
a bell, so he rapped, then leaned against the wall, panting,
and wondering why his heart behaved so strangely. There
were footsteps, the door opened, and a face was pushed
round it.
"Good evening, Fernande."
"Ah, look! Monsieur Mortimer! What a surprise!"
They stared at each other, Mortimer grinning and pant-
ing.
"But come in, please."
"Ezra is here, isn't he?"
"Of course."
She was cunning, too. Why of course ? He would never
have thought of it but for Gaby. But he would not tell.
He followed her down the lobby into a big, dim-lit room
under a double-skylight. A gas-stove stood in the middle,
throwing a soft circle of holes of light. The corners and
sides of the room were hidden behind busts, casts, wooden
models, lay figures, canvasses, easles; but along one wall
a flight of steps ascended and reached a door let into the
wall. Desolate !
Unasked, he took off his coat and threw it on to a chair.
"How are you, Fernande?"
"Well, and you?"
"So, so. Where's EzraT"
THE OUTSIDER 265
She pointed to the stairs climbing up the wall.
"Ezra's up there, in the den."
A cold, still odor lay in the room, unfamiliar and friendly.
"Can I go up?" he asked.
' ' Of course. I '11 be up in a moment. ' '
He went up, excited, scarce able to control himself. He
knocked at the door in the wall, and a voice that he did
not recognise, said, "Entrez." He pushed open the door
and came into sudden brightness; a tiny room, with a
broad divan taking up one-half of its space; and at one
end of the divan, seated Turkish fashion on a pile of
cushions, Ezra, in a dressing gown. His yellow face, rest-
ing against the wall, remained fixed for a while on Morti-
mer, and a slow, deadly smile came over it.
"Hello, Mortimer."
Mortimer's excitement was checked by a dreadful, in-
comprehensible fear. He did not go forward, he did not
offer his hand. The unfamiliar yet friendly odor was
stronger in this tiny room.
"Hello, Ezra," he said dully. The half-delirium of the
day slipped from him like a garment. His mind was clear,
but he did not understand. Ezra held his hand out. He
went forward and took it. It was cold, yellow, like the
quiet face above it.
"Sit down, Mortimer. How 're things?"
Mortimer looked down on his shapeless clothes and put
a hand up to his collarless neck. "So, so," he answered,
and felt the blood come into his face. ' ' How are you ? ' '
"The same," said Ezra, laughing softly at him. "We
are fallen on evil days, both of us, ha? Who told you I
was here?"
"No one," said Mortimer. "It occurred to me this eve-
ning. You don't mind my coming?"
"Now that you are here, no. Indeed, I'm glad to see
266 THE OUTSIDER
you. I'd have come to see you some day myself, but I
haven't stirred out of this house for weeks."
Mortimer looked about him. The walls of the room
were green, and a yellow line ran round them half-way up.
Above this yellow line a number of fantastic designs in
red and black went up as far as the green ceiling; always
the same theme a fan, at the centre a goblin figure, and
the ribs of the fan the long, bony fingers. The bodies and
faces of the goblins differed, but all of them grinned.
"Fernande's work," said Ezra. "She's clever. She's
done some curious illustrations for the 'Jardin des Sup-
plices.' '
To Ezra's right by the divan, stood a low table, and on
it burned a tiny spirit lamp. Round the lamp were scat-
tered small bowls, and across these lay a brown tube. A
glimmer of understanding came into Mortimer's mind,
but he dared not trust himself.
"The days follow each other, and are alike," quoted
Ezra, as if to himself. "One learns new things and tires
of them, and the immortal boredom wakes again. Where
shall we hide our heads from the eternal ennwif What
are you doing these days, old Mortimer." There was a
touch of helplessness and affection in the last question.
Mortimer would have taken his hand and pressed it. All
sense of false shame for his new poverty left him there
and then. He could speak to Ezra freely and simply, as
of old.
"I'm dragging along," he said smiling. "I've got a
new job. I'm selling newspapers. It's as good as any-
thing else. I'm glad of it, or I wouldn't have met Gaby
accidentally this evening, and I wouldn 't have known where
you were."
Ezra ignored this contradiction, in Mortimer's account;
he only said, slowly.
THE OUTSIDER 267
"It's curious. Gaby hasn't been here since I came here.
I wonder how she knew."
"She told me she comes here every day," said Mortimer,
puzzled.
"No. Before I came here, she picked up with a rich
Norwegian. They're still in Paris, but we don't know
where they're living."
Mortimer put his hand to his head.
"It's very strange," he said weakly. "But she was
always an inexplicable little devil."
"Everything is inexplicable," said Ezra, in his dreamy
voice. "Tell me, where are you living now?"
"With Carmen," said Mortimer, looking bitterly at the
floor.
"Ah." Then, after a pause, "Are you content?"
Mortimer answered yes with a gesture, but his face
belied it.
"Everything seems inexplicable, I meant to say," said
Ezra, closing his eyes. "Nothing really is so; if it isn't
Fernande."
Mortimer waited.
"Here is a strange being for you, Mortimer, made up
of the remnants of a dozen persons, and with nothing of
her own. Strange being. Created for me to know. I
hate her Mortimer, and to hate some people is a liberal
education.
"Do you know, she actually tries to be kind to me
and she has no more natural kindness in her make-up than
a hungry snake. She tries to because she loves me, but
love doesn't really mean that to her. If she only knew.
She wants me to love her, you understand. If she under-
stood, she would see that I could love her if she didn't
try to be kind. She does little things for me now and
again. Quite meaningless ; quite valueless. Makes tender,
268 THE OUTSIDER
artificial inquiries for my health ; moves a cushion for me,
sometimes even brings me a glass of water. And she
throws an infinitude of hysterical tenderness into each
act; and gloats over it; and gazes yearningly at me. False!
And she expects such a gesture to bring tears into my
eyes gratitude expects me to be touched to the quick.
It drives me mad. I shall go away soon. She's like a
starved viper; but I could love her as such. Only the
other she makes my soul sick, sick, sick. Oh God ! Why
does she mix things up in that way? Why? Because
she's a woman. That's it.
"You'll be thinking that's a curious outburst for the
first five minutes we see each other after as many weeks.
I wanted to say it to someone. I've already said it to
myself several times. If I told it to Fernande, she'd hiss
in my face, like the serpent she is. She's coming up now.
Soon you'll understand."
Fernande came in, and sat down on the divan near Ezra.
She put a question to him with her eyes.
"It's alright," said Ezra, in French. "Mortimer is
my friend. We '11 teach him how to pass weeks and weeks. ' '
' ' You 've never smoked opium ? ' ' asked Fernande. Mort-
imer shook his head. "You'll see it now," she said. "Will
you take the first, Ezra?"
"Yes, please."
She settled herself comfortably next to him, stretching
herself along the divan and leaning on an elbow. She
took up the tube that Mortimer had seen lying on the
table, and now he saw that one end was fitted with an
ivory mouthpiece, and that near the other end what looked
like the rose of a watering can was fixed on one side. From
the table Fernande picked up a thin rod, hooked finely at
one end, then opened one of the small jars, and dipped in
the hook. When she brought it out the hook was covered
THE OUTSIDER 269
with a blot of dark-brown paste. Mortimer watched, fas-
cinated. She carried the end of the rod over the flame
of the tiny spirit lamp, twirling the rod deftly between
her fingers. The brown blot of paste began to swell and
bluster. A thin srnoke went out of it. Still she turned
the rod until the molten paste seemed ready to drip off
the end. Then she carried the rod to the rose of the pipe,
and smeared the hot paste over the perforations. Several
times, slowly and skillfully, she repeated the operations.
Finally she handed the pipe over to Ezra. He, leaning
back against the cushions, took the mouthpiece between
his lips and closed his eyes. Fernande carried the spirit
lamp to him and he, turning the rose till it lay over the
flame, inhaled steadily, deeply, direct into the lungs. He
held his breath for nearly thirty seconds, and exhaled de-
liberately, a pale cloud that carried to Mortimer's nostrils
the unfamiliar, heavy odor that he had first observed on
entering the room below.
"That was a good one," whispered Ezra. "There's
some left." He inhaled a second time, as slowly as he
could, and blew the smoke out again. "Another," he
whispered, handing the pipe back to Fernande ; then, open-
ing his eyes, he looked long at Mortimer, smiling queerly,
as if at a memory.
She prepared a second pipe for him. She forgot Morti-
mer in a grave, impersonal preoccupation. Ezra forgot
him, too. Half an hour passed while she prepared pipe
after pipe, alternately inhaling it herself and passing it
to Ezra. In a deadly stillness the fine haze drifted to-
wards the ceiling; only from time to time there was the
tiny crackling from the bulb of opium turning and blister-
ing in the watery flame of the spirit lamp. Mortimer, at
the other end of the divan, leaned against the wall, and
watched them for a time ; till the unreality of their actions,
270 THE OUTSIDER
their silence, the twilight mist in the room, seemed to
dissolve in his mind, and he ceased to wonder at them and
himself.
Ezra's voice came out to him, suddenly, calm and clear.
"Will you try some, Mortimer?"
"No thanks," he said, with a dry throat.
"It's a mistake on your part, Mortimer. You've got
the common, ignorant belief that this stuff drowses you.
It doesn't. It only gives the body rest, and leaves the
mind alone. Try it, Mortimer."
There was a friendly tone in Ezra's voice. The mist
dissipated slowly, and a feeling of rationality returned to
Mortimer. It did not seem such a desperate business
after all. He looked at Ezra and Fernande propped side
by side on the divan, their faces, lit a lustrous yellow,
their eyes wide open and calm.
"Turn out the electric light, Mortimer, and take a
couple of pipefuls," said Ezra
He switched off the light, so that the flame of the spirit
lamp leapt into sudden prominence in the darkness. "Will
you make one for me, Fernande ? " he asked.
"Make yourself comfortable," she answered.
He gathered three cushions under his elbow, and curled
his legs up on the divan. Fernande prepared a pipe for
him. Tremulously he took it with one hand, and with
the other held the spirit lamp under it, with the flame
against the rose.
"Breathe deep, straight in, steadily; not like an ordinary
pipe, into the mouth, but straight into the lungs."
He inhaled, and choked back a cough; inhaled again, a
sickly, heavy smoke.
"Hold it awhile."
He held it and breathed out slowly.
THE OUTSIDER 271
"You're not sitting well. Stretch out your legs, and
lean back."
He obeyed. There was nothing new to feel.
She prepared a second pipe for him, and a third; and
with the third he began to feel a sweet heaviness in his
legs, chiefly between the knees and the thighs, a dreamy
dullness that pleased him, that made his heart inexpressibly
lighter, and shot a wave of freshness through his mind.
"That's good," he said, with a short hysterical laugh.
"Try another," she said, "then we can all rest and talk."
She gave him two pipes more. With every pipe a
stronger preliminary sickness passed through him; and,
when it was gone, the torpor in his limbs deepened a shade,
so that he passed his hands over them, eliciting infinite
pleasure from their deadly restfulness. His mind was
still, and lucid as crystal. He wanted to talk, to listen.
"What do you think of it, Mortimer?"
"It's good," he repeated.
"It's the best of all," said Ezra. "Fernande has given
me everything to taste; but this is the best. Cocaine is
too sharp, and it is too physical. Hasheesh exhausts you.
You laugh like a madman; the ineluctable joke of every-
thing gets at you for the first time, and the tears of laugh-
ter hop down your cheeks. Afterwards your mind and
your body ache. But this is royal."
He spoke in English, though Fernande did not under-
stand him.
"I once thought," he went on, "that opium brings
dreams, in the ordinary sense of the word. It does not
to me. But it brings me dreams as they come to the poet-
philosopher. I have evolved four complete explanations
of the universe, all different and all true. I have seen
the other side of the moon. I have invented an arrange-
ment of corridors of mirrors, through which light must
272 THE OUTSIDER
travel for nine years. You save your memories in that mir-
ror. You can reflect out from a given point in that mir-
ror-corridor, images that entered years ago. You look
in at one end of the corridor today, and go to the other
end nine years later to catch yourself looking in. Tell
me what Carmen is like. She is a good child and I wish
her well."
"She is goodness incarnate," said Mortimer. "Provi-
dence isn't a patch on her."
"All men flee from Providence and goodness," said
Ezra, aloud. "You can't stand Carmen any more, can
you."
"It's true," said Mortimer. "Her goodness is killing
me."
"It isn't that," said Ezra, shaking his head. "Don't
ape me, Mortimer. Why can't you stand Carmen?"
"But how do you know I can't?"
"You wouldn't have been here if you could. Tell me
now, plainly and honestly, why you must leave Carmen, as
I must leave " he did not pronounce the name, but indi-
cated Fernande.
"I didn't know till you asked me, Ezra," answered Mor-
timer, truthfully. "Only now I understand that I must
leave her."
"Tell me why, then."
"Because I have been long enough with her. The won-
der has worn off, and only her plain love remains; she
loves me not as a stranger, a rare event, but as she loves
herself, as vulgarly, as fiercely. Yes, I see it, as vulgarly ;
that is what I meant. I am familiar to her now, she has
no fear of my presence. She does a hundred little things
that revolt me ; she is a peasant."
"All women are vulgar," said Ezra, carefully. "All
good women, that is. A good woman cannot be a physical
THE OUTSIDER 273
artistocrat because she is too near to the dirty business
of every day. Only perverted women are physical aristo-
crats. All good women who love remember this are as
vulgar as animals, as vulgar as the earth, and as strong."
"I fear it is true," said Mortimer, thinking it over.
"Of course it is true. All strength, all power in action
which is life and love is vulgar. It has no eyes for
delicate, careful harmonies. It is fierce with the desire
to achieve, to break down, to recreate. Love is aristocratic
only when it is calf-love ; it is vulgar and terrible when it
is man and woman love. But I have done with love of any
kind, so my aristocracy is safe."
"Then I am at fault, not she?" asked Mortimer.
"No one is at fault; but as far as the purposeless pur-
pose of life is concerned, you are at fault. Don't believe
its a special coarseness in her, Mortimer, because she's a
peasant girl, because she has no sensibilities. All good
women are coarse, all aristocratic ones are ineffectual."
"A little too clever, Ezra, as usual."
"But it's true that good women mar their love by want-
ing to do something for you. Didn't Emerson say that
men spoil friendship by receiving and conferring favors?
Love has nothing to do with unselfishness or kindliness;
that is an economic intrusion. I'm boring you."
"Speak more calmly," said Mortimer, delighting silently
in the peace that had invaded his body. But Ezra spoke
no more. And the three of them closed their eyes and
talked wordlessly with themselves. Only Mortimer could
not wholly forget himself, for soon, he knew, he would
arise and leave them. There was no power in the world
which could hold him to this way of living. Still this
taste was good. His body sang gratitude to the drug.
How strange that pleasure should arise from evil! Why
were we not so made that nothing evil could appeal to our
274 THE OUTSIDER
bodies? What well-being was in his body and in his
mind! He had no need of something to interest and dis-
tract him. Within himself was a well of life, a fulness
that sufficed for all needs. In such a mood he could pass
years away, without the desire for action or stimulation.
So must a sate animal feel when it lies in the sunlight and
has no desires. Now he understood that all human activity,
all creation and effort, was merely an escape from bore-
dom. Could men feel all their lives as he felt now, there
would be no action, no tumult.
The minutes passed. The tiny spirit lamp burned stead-
ily. The shadows retreated into the corners of the room,
and a dim half-light hung round the table and over the
divan.
' ' The sense of passing time, ' ' said Ezra, ' ' does not exist
under opium. All moments are alike. How then, can
there be a past or a future? Nothing has taken place,
nothing takes place. How then, can there be a measure
of time."
Then, later, he spoke again.
"Who sees and who is blind? Because the eyes are
sensitive to certain wave-lengths, we use them as a measure
of the truth. Was anything ever more foolish? What
is to see, to feel, to hear? To vibrate to a few waves,
and is that all there is in the wide, wide universe ? Folly !
And for this men torture and are tortured. God forgive
us all! I say, Mortimer."
"Yes."
"I wonder what the devil I'm going to do."
"Why?"
"I'm at the end of things. The last few francs went
a few days ago in the management of this household and
the purchase of philosophic indifference. She, too, has
reached the end of her resources."
THE OUTSIDER 275
"I have maybe twenty-five francs in the world," sighed
Mortimer.
"Do yon think there is a mortal within a radius of
eight thousand miles or so who cares whether we live or
die, Mortimer?"
"About one or two."
"Accident. To be loved by an individual, for that in-
dividual to care, is an insult to us on the part of Provi-
dence. It is making us paupers, dependent on accidental
doles of love. I want mankind to care whether I live or
die. Failing that, I'm out for blood."
"Where will you find blood?"
"Aye, there's the rub. I want mankind's blood, that I
might live. I'm at the end of things."
A silence followed.
"I wouldn't be at the end of things but for an accident.
Do you know what we've been doing?"
"Of course not."
' ' Quite so. Guess. ' ' Then, after a pause : ' ' Buying and
selling dope. Does that shock you?"
"Not just now."
"No, nor me. Would the miserable world which con-
demns me find me a better means of living?"
"I've thought that over myself," said Mortimer.
"Yes. We had a steady supply from a Chinaman. Yes-
terday, the girl tells me, he disappeared. There's not an-
other soul in Paris that we know of who can sell us the
stuff."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know, I don't know. There's a dozen people
I know who would buy any quantity we'd bring. We
never could obtain enough of it, as a matter of fact. But
finding that stuff when you don't know the ropes is just
276 THE OUTSIDER
hopeless hopeless. You'll get a knife in your ribs sooner
than an ounce of dope."
"There's no chance of your having a tip, Mortimer?"
asked Fernande. "A friend of a friend, eh?"
"No one that I can think of," said Mortimer untruth-
fully. His heart was beating.
"Think," said Fernande. "You never can tell. A
friend of yours whom, you never suspected the last per-
son in the world, may know where to get the stuff. Think,
think hard," she added earnestly.
"And you can sell any quantity," said Mortimer, quiver-
ing, but throwing a false carelessness into his voice.
"Any quantity," insisted Fernande. "We used to get
it from the Chinaman at one franc a gramme. Half a
kilo was the most he ever brought us at a time. "We made
a thousand francs on that. If you could bring me a kilo,
half I'd go half and half with you. You'd get a thou-
sand francs out of a kilo."
She looked intently at him, as if she knew what was in
his mind, as if she knew it only needed temptation enough.
"What's the good," said Mortimer weakly. "I haven't
the faintest notion in the world where I could lay hands
on a gramme of it." The flame of the spirit lamp danced
fantastically in front of him. A thousand francs! And
perhaps Gorman could get him two kilos. Two thousand
francs! Or three thousand francs! The figures repeated
themselves slowly in his mind three thousand francs!
He drew sharply between his teeth.. It was crazy. Three
thousand francs just so. And days of aching effort, hun-
ger, coarseness, filth, sickness, for dirty meals. How good
it would be to remain one whole day in bed in some new
hotel, in a big, fresh bedroom, with clean sheets, and a
fire, and a good, tasty meal brought to him; one day like
that.
THE OUTSIDER 277
" Mortimer wouldn't do such a thing," said Ezra, with-
out malice.
"Why wouldn't he?" answered Mortimer, iu anger.
"Hasn't Mortimer a belly to fill which the world ignores?
Hasn't Mortimer to stand the cheap insults of the world
on top of his hunger? "Whom will I wrong? The world
at large? So much the better."
"Tut tut, that isn't the spirit in which to approach it,"
said Ezra, laughing. "It's as if you knew it was a mis-
deed and did it for revenge."
Mortimer did not answer. He was raging within him-
self, and at himself. He was a fool, a suicidal fool, com-
pact of futilities. The passionate wave of resentment at
his own psychology rose higher, hotter, with every effort
he made to stem it. Then came a blinding pain through
his head, and passed, and then a second. He tightened his
lips and gripped the soft cover of the divan. The flame
of the spirit lamp flew round the room, then settled down
again.
"I'm going," he said with set teeth, and stood up, his
legs planted firmly apart. The place sickened him. Ezra
sickened him. He would have liked to spit at Fernande's
tight-drawn pallid face, with its foul, thin lips.
"Goodnight," he said and, without offering his hand,
turned and went out. He held fast to the shaking rail of
the steep stairway, and leaned against the wall as he went
down, sliding his body heavily lest he should fall. The
great, bare room, with the mutilated statues and casts,
danced up and down with every footstep. He reached the
last step and paused to recover himself. The door above
had opened again, and in the glare of light that streamed
from it, stood Fernande, staring down at him. Hastily,
stumblingly, he picked up his hat and coat and fled down
the corridor. His footsteps were irregular and he was
278 THE OUTSIDER
aware that he must be reeling, for now his right shoulder
and now his left buffeted the wall. And reeling in this
way he stumbled down four nights of stairs. He remem-
bered enough to shout "Cordon, s'il vous plait," when he
reached the outer door, but his voice was hideous to him-
self. Then at last he staggered into the cold street and
stood as if paralysed in the shadow of the door. In his
left hand were his hat and coat.
Men and women went by, ignoring him. A rain as deli-
cate as mist washed his face and neck with a light, chill
hand. He felt colder. With an effort he leaned away
from the wall and put on his coat and hat. But to walk
was not so easy. Step by step, and haltingly, he moved
away from the door towards the corner of the rue Clignan-
court. The passers-by eyed him, and shook their heads.
He turned his face from them, an infinite contempt in his
soul.
At the corner he found a lamp-post to lean against, and
here he waited for a taxi. He thrust back furiously the
considerations of economy that rose in his mind. Should
he die like a dog on the streets?
''Taxi!"
The taxi halted. "Passage Bobillot, near the Ecole
Militaire. ' '
"How much will you give me?"
His last energies boiled up wildly. He gripped the lamp-
post with one arm.
"You swine," he howled. "Haven't you a metre on
your taxi?"
The chauffeur started the machine again. Mortimer
longed for the strength to leap at the brute. "What's the
use," he whispered to himself. "The world is that way."
A second taxi passed.
"Taxi. Passage Bobillot, Ecole Militaire."
THE OUTSIDER 279
"How much will you give me?"
"How much do you want?"
"Ten francs."
He flung himself into the taxi, and as it rolled downhill
swallowed hard several times to keep down his sickness,
hut in his sickness a miserable impishness rose. What a
joke it would be to be sick in the taxi, in revenge for the
heartless profiteering! But there was no relish in the
joke. He felt his ribs and stomach contracting with suc-
cessive efforts. He fought silently, savagely a long mer-
ciless fight that lasted till he staggered into the room where
Carmen sat in the lamplight waiting for him. Only when
he saw the terror that flashed into her face did he under-
stand that he was going to be ilL
CHAPTER XV
HE WAS hot all night long, as though a light fire burned
under his skin. But when he uncovered himself, he shiv-
ered with cold. It was impossible to strike a tolerable
medium. And never had sleep seemed so alien to his
nature. In desperation he forced himself to lie stone still
for weary periods, resisting obstinately all temptation to
stir a limb, to turn his head. He tried hard to believe that
the preliminary drowsiness of sleep was invading him; he
struggled against all intrusion of active thought; but, tiny
and distinct, the germ of a restless idea bore up in the dark-
ness of his brain. He tried to close his consciousness upon
it. It persisted, it grew larger, it thrust back the drowsiness.
And again he was hopelessly awake, his brain hammering
clearly under his skull. He groaned in his impotence.
He would never sleep again ; he had lost the faculty.
Far into the night footsteps clattered up and down the
narrow stairs. They broke into his illusions of drowsi-
ness, and started trains of thought. His mind was a tre-
mendous serpent, issuing coil by coil from a dark forest,
endlessly, endlessly. One ring straightened itself out and
another slid up behind it from an exhaustless reservoir.
The dull infinitude of length maddened him, and every
new coil was an ecstacy of irritation and astonishment.
Two or three times Carmen woke and asked, very softly,
whether he slept. He thought the question so heartlessly
stupid that he would not answer, lest he be tempted to
shriek at her.
It was the tiny germ of an idea that kept him awake.
He did not know what idea, it was an indeterminate
thought, minute, vicious, that lay in ambush at the back of
280
THE OUTSIDER 281
his head; and as soon as he succeeded in reaching mental
quiescence, it asserted itself, as a glow-worm asserts itself
when the light dies out. If he could only know the sub-
stance of that thought, he might seize it and destroy it.
But it was beyond reach. It bickered at him, intangible
but omnipotent. It was altogether marvellous; even in
the madness of his resentment he could not help admiring
its vitality. He yielded himself to an observation of it,
but when he became too conscious of it, it disappeared,
and the moment he forgot it, and was slipping into sweet
restfulness, it was there, compact, compelling. "Damn
you!" he said to it, half-sobbing, half -laughing.
The greyness of morning found the room, and Carmen
was no longer there. But that was comprehensible to him,
for he was no longer himself, so why should Carmen be
there with him? Moreover, besides not being himself, he
was not alone. He lay to one side in the bed, to make
room for the others, which were himself, for they had rights
equal to his own. And they, like himself, still wanted to
sleep, for they had not slept all night. But it depended
on him whether they slept or not. Yet they so pestered
him in their want of sleep that their very insistence on his
sleeping kept him awake.
But he knew he was a single person ; his multiplicity dis-
tressed him, it was unfixed ; now they were fewer, now they
were more. It was no use feeling the bed with his arms
and legs, spread-eagling himself to touch the four corners ;
instinctively he drew to one side, for they were there.
Madame Lebihan came in and spoke to him, and went
out. When she was gone he asked himself whether it was
true that she had put her hand on his forehead, or whether
someone had told him that she had done so, which was quite
different. He could not decide on this point, and gradually
it lost its importance. It was really the other point that
282 THE OUTSIDER
he wanted desperately to settle ; but he did not know what
the other point was, though it was not the one that had so
cruelly kept him awake all night.
He ate something which Madame Lebihan brought him
and administered, and he hoped dimly that the others
would be satisfied with what he was swallowing, if, in-
deed, he was swallowing something, and it was not Madame
Lebihan who was doing all the swallowing. He laughed
feverishly at the thought that Madame Lebihan had come
up into his room in order to swallow something. He lay
back to rest after he had finished swallowing, for she tired
him, and again he fell to examining curiously himself and
the others.
The room was light. Across the torn curtains he saw
the brick wall on the opposite side of the court, with dirty,
curtainless windows. Some windows were open, and on
their sills lay masses of grey bedding, half in, half out.
Such windows, he thought, were the jaws of the house,
swallowing something also, for all things eat and are eaten.
Only his window was closed, and his room was eating
nothing. That was why he felt after a time that it was
hungry. He wished Madame Lebihan would come up
again, and bring it something to eat.
He heard Carmen 's voice suddenly. The room was dark,
the lamp burned on the table. Her voice was tender, solicit-
ous. She was kneeling at the bedside, her face pleaded.
But what could he say to her. He thought hard for some-
thing to tell her, and at last found it.
''There's some money in my coat pocket, Carmen," he
said, hoarsely. "Go and buy me something to eat." He
would not mention anything about the room, at least, not
now ; later perhaps. Or tomorrow he would have her open
the windows and shove half the bedding out, for the room
not to be lonely in the face of those windows opposite.
THE OUTSIDER 283
She talked to him, so gently, with all the sweetness of
her love in her voice. "You are ill, little Mortimer," but
it was not true. He was only exhausted. He let her speak
on, for her voice was good to him. Then he ate, and knew
he was eating. And he remembered dimly that it was long
since he had cried Le Flambeau! in the streets, and he won-
dered who had taken his place; for the places in the world
do not change. Only they that fill them vanish and are re-
placed. Yes, he pitied the one who had taken his place, for
none could bear it as he had borne it, treading street after
street, hour long, day long, shouting till the voice cracked,
collecting those coins till the pockets became heavy and
the hands greasy and the street lamps were lit. And all the
time the crowds pouring, pouring, and the rain. Poor, poor
devil who had taken his place !
Someone returned afterwards with Carmen and woke
him. It was a man with a tawny beard, and dressed in
dingy black clothes. He looked like a doctor. He spoke
with Mortimer while Carmen lingered tremulously on the
other side of the circle of lamp light. Mortimer was not
interested. When the man was gone, Carmen gave him
medicine, which he swallowed to please her, and because he
could not resist her voice. The medicine had a sour, thick
taste, and lingered foully in his mouth even after he had
drunk a cup of coffee.
From that evening till the afternoon of the day follow-
ing, the hours danced through his mind like an irregular
procession of wild dervishes. There remained a distinct
enough element of sanity to make him understand that he
stood on the verge of insanity. But his suspicion was con-
founded in the night with the furious question of what con-
stituted sanity. Academically, at different times, he had
argued that there was no essential difference between sanity
and insanity; but to feel it, as now, to question, as now,
284 THE OUTSIDER
the very substance of his consciousness, was a new, tem-
pestuous realisation of this truth. To say "Nothing exists
outside of me" is an intellectual affectation. To feel it is
insanity. Yet why was he insane if at last he was feeling
what he had philosophically believed?
"There is nothing outside of me," he repeated wildly.
"Nothing, not even a void not even nothing. It is me
I am Carmen, I am the opium, I am Paris, I am good and
evil. Can I do wrong when I am alone ? ' '
It was folly to argue like this, for he knew he could rise
and do wrong. Or, stay, perhaps that curious expression of
multiplicity, those others that shared the bed with him, they
were the opium, Ezra, Carmen, Gorman all of them. Ha!
That might explain it.
But after a time even this irrational effort to understand
failed him, and his mind became the anteroom of a vast
and horrible assembly hall, in which intolerable and unseiz-
able conceptions met and mingled and bred obscenely. Be-
yond the anteroom he himself could not pass ; but through it
filed into the ghastly half-darkness beyond a dance of im-
becilities, that turned gigantic, bloated faces on him as
they retreated, and eyes that stared at him only to reflect
his idiot futility. Should he dance with them? Should he
become as they, and dance with them, mouth, gibber, stare,
idiotically at himself, as they were doing? Still he shrank
from that, for the kernel of rationality, of world-cunning,
told him that that would be the end. If he joined them,
it would be forever and ever to hop round the assembly
room, abandoned, hysterical, his teeth fastened on his
tongue, his hands twisted grotesquely, and the bony fingers
as long as those of the demons that squatted in the middle
of the fans there above the yellow line. "Save me," he
screamed to himself, but no sound issued, for the dance
went on in silence, and the rhythm was slow and sick, like
THE OUTSIDER 285
the swaying of fungus under the scum of a ruffled ditch.
He was glad to feel horror holding him like a death-chill,
for from that moment when he felt no horror, he would be
one of them. So he cowered in the flickering anteroom,
and shoved them off with his crooked hands, feeling the
tenuous filth of them sliding along his palms and contami-
nating his fingers. So he would resist them, for all eternity,
if need were.
But they become more active, stronger. They crowded
closer, and their scummy bodies took shape and solidity.
An arm, a tentacle, was laid on him, and the touch of it
shook him from head to foot. It was too late, he knew in
his despair, yet he fastened his hand on the tentacle, and
tried to tear it off. It clung to him, shaking him fiercely,
till he saw the sallow face of Jeanne, more terrified than his
own, close to him, and stammering words of death.
"Monsieur Mortimer; there is no one in the house but
you. It is dead. It is dead."
He sat up and watched her rave.
"Monsieur Mortimer, I implore you, come to my room
and see. God, I am afraid. I dare not leave alone. I
dare not stay with it. ' '
She tore at his arm, as if to pull him from the bed. Her
thin, dishevelled hair hung over her unwashed face and
eyes ; she showed her dirty teeth. He could not understand.
"Monsieur Mortimer, come with me; only till Madame
Lebihan returns. Only for a few minutes, Monsieur Mor-
timer, Monsieur Mortimer.
He slipped from the bed, scarce knowing what he was
doing. She gave him his robe, and he thrust his arms into
it. Then she seized his hand and, barefoot, he went after
her, astonished to feel cold solidity under his feet. She
chattered spasmodically all the time, as she led him up two
286 THE OUTSIDER
flights of narrow stairs. She thrust him into the tiny room
before her, and stood near the door.
A wooden floor, a dusty window, a table, a small iron
bed, and something on the tumbled, dirty bed. He went
closer firmly a dead baby, waxen, the small, toothless
mouth open, and blackness within ; the tiny eyes were shut,
the two tiny hands clenched on the bosom. He looked round
from that to Jeanne and back again.
"It's dead," he said.
"Oui," she whispered. "It isn't my fault."
He stared long and curiously at the yellow, waxen figure
on the bed, and shook his head slowly, as if grave thoughts
were passing through it but it was empty of thought. He
only felt a dull dismay, pity, helplessness.
"What shall I do?" whispered Jeanne.
"There's nothing to do. Wait till Madame Lebihan re-
turns. She '11 know what to do. ' ' He sighed. Poor Jeanne !
Poor Paris !
Jeanne stood at the half-open door, listening for foot-
steps below.
"I think she has come in." She left the room and he
heard her clattering down the stairs. He took a step closer
to the dead baby, and brought his face close down to it;
then straightened himself and went deliberately out of the
room, back to his own. There he washed himself, dressed
himself carefully and, as it was dark, lit the lamp to wait
for Carmen. He heard them going up and down to and
from Jeanne's room, but no one interrupted him again.
He was hungry, but he would not move. He wanted to sit
still and gather himself together. A swift, icy change had
come over him.
He was a different man. There was weakness and un-
reliability in his body, but his mind functioned coolly and
steadily. There was one thing to do. When Carmen would
THE OUTSIDER 287
return it would be time to start, and he would do it, not
because he had decided on it, but because it was to be done.
His heart was as of stone. There was no argument within
him there was grimness and the will to live.
He heard her at last. She opened the door and stood
petrified, parcels in her hand, to see him out of bed and
seated at the table.
"Mortimer, you are mad."
She dropped the parcels on the table and threw her arms
round him.
"I am better, Carmen," he said. "Give me something
to eat, quickly, for I must go out this evening, alone, for a
couple of hours."
"But Mortimer, little Mortimer
"No, no," he said, fiercely. "Give me something to eat.
What have you brought ? ' '
' ' I have fruit, and pate de foie gras and bread ' ' she
answered him, frightened.
"That will do." Then he drew a deep breath. "What did
it cost you ? ' '
"Mortimer," she pleaded, near to tears.
"Damnation," he shouted. "What did it cost you?"
"I don't know. I must reckon it up."
' ' Do that for when I come back ; and add up what you 've
spent in the last two days, what you've paid the doctor. I
shall give you the money when I return this evening. ' '
He knew that she was struggling to restrain herself from
pleading with him to stay at home that evening ; but there
was a ferocity of determination in his face that she had
never seen before. It was not Mortimer 's face ; it was too
hungry and desperate.
He ate swiftly, asked for water, and put on his overcoat.
"Mortimer, darling, when will you come back?"
"What time is it?"
288 THE OUTSIDER
"Half-past seven."
"I'll be back before ten, perhaps. But I'll be back."
He put his hand into his overcoat pocket and thrust his
fingers into a heap of small change. ' ' Finished with that, ' '
he said, spitefully, and pulling a fistful of coins from his
pocket, he hurled them into a corner of the room. He
pulled out his wallet ; he still had a five-franc note, and the
card that Gorman had given him.
"Do you know where I am going, Carmen?"
"No, my darling."
"I am going out to bring money hundreds and hun-
dreds of francs thousands, maybe."
Her eyes grew rounder.
"It's true," he babbled on, letting himself go, "I might
bring you two thousand francs tonight; two thousand
francs. ' '
He went out before she could speak again. At the corner
of the Avenue he found a taxi; five francs would about
carry him to the Lapin Cuit. He felt better now. He would
not go under. No ! As the taxi rolled tow.ards the Lapin
Cuit he congratulated himself. There was confidence in his
veins now. He shook his fist through the taxi window.
Gorman was at the Lapin Cuit, and Mrs. Cray with
him. Mortimer came in tempestuously. "Ha," he said,
seeing them.
They stared at him.
"Good God, man, what's the matter with you?" asked
Mrs. Cray.
Mortimer ignored her. ' ' Come out a moment, Gorman, ' '
he said imperiously. "Right now."
Gorman rose and came out with him.
"Gorman, I've been sick, I'm down and out, clean down
and out. ' '
Gorman looked at him in the light that filtered through
THE OUTSIDER 289
the curtained windows of the Lapin Cuit. ' ' You look sick-
er 'n a dog, Long," he said.
"Does your promise hold good. Gorman?"
"If you're in need of money, Long," said Gorman, and
put his hand in his breast pocket.
"Not that, Gorman," said Mortimer, swiftly, "the
other."
"What d'ye mean?"
"Listen, Gorman," he lowered his voice to a whisper.
"I can dispose of all the opium you can get me."
Gorman started.
"Only I want it right now, Gorman, right now. All you
can get me two kilos, three kilos, four kilos. D 'ye under-
stand?"
The other stared fixedly at Mortimer.
"Is this straight, Long?"
"Damn you, man, d'you think I've come here to joke
with you?"
"Long, I can lay my hands on six kilos, without a word
of a lie. Tonight. In twenty minutes from now. ' '
"Listen, Gorman. Leave that woman and let's go. I'll
get you two francs a gramme. The party who wants it'll
sell it again. Only it's now Gorman, not tomorrow."
Gorman hesitated, wrestling with a thought. ' ' Why can 't
I bring the woman along ? " he asked.
Mortimer revolted from an intimacy in evil with that
abominable woman. "I don't want her along, Gorman,"
he said passionately.
"Wait a minute, Long."
Gorman went in and returned. "I've told her I'll be
back in ten minutes, ' ' he said, grinning. ' ' I should worry.
She'd wait a week for me. Now, what's the dope?"
"Can you get that stuff in twenty minutes?" asked
Mortimer, as they set off in the direction of the rue Royale.
290 THE OUTSIDER
"Six kilos," said Gorman "and I've got the money in
my pocket to pay for it. We'll get a taxi."
"Right, then. Get that stuff and come with me," said
Mortimer. " I '11 bring you twelve thousand francs for it in
an hour. That's three thousand for each of us."
They found a taxi in front of the Madeleine.
"Place de la Republique," said Gorman.
They got out at the first corner of the square. Mortimer
noted now that Gorman was nervous.
' ' Long, you wait for me here. Find a new taxi and hold
it till I come back. I'll come from down there "he pointed
to a dark, narrow street off the Boulevard Magenta. ' ' Keep
a lookout for me. When you see me at that corner get the
chauffeur to crank up, then get in, and leave the door open.
Keep your eyes open, Long. I'll be about fifteen minutes.
You'll find a taxi easy in that time."
He looked round him desperately, and set off at a long
stride. Mortimer's spirits rose with a sense of adventure,
but something of Gorman's nervousness was in him. He
shivered as he watched Gorman turn the corner of the
narrow street, and then turned to look for a taxi.
The great square was tumultuous with crowds, with
trams, with taxis. Periodically black crowds were disgorged
from the white subway opening in the centre of the square.
Mortimer was bewildered for a moment; then he fixed his
eyes on the nearest approaching taxis, to see if their flags
were up or down.
He hailed half a dozen of them before one of them stopped.
" Montmartre, " said Mortimer. "But you must wait a
few minutes for a friend of mine"- - then, as the driver
shook his head discontentedly, "only a few minutes. You'll
get five francs tip."
With his hand on the door of the taxi he stationed him-
self so as to watch the corner of the dark street down which
THE OUTSIDER 291
Gorman had disappeared. In his nervousness he made two
or three false starts ; the instructions to the chauffeur were
on his lips when he realised his mistake. Then at last he
saw Gorman, beyond all doubt, emerge into the Boulevard
Magenta, and stride rapidly in his direction.
"Start the taxi, chauffeur," he said hastily, his heart
thumping. "I shan't wait any longer."
"What address?"
"Yes, that's right," he gabbled. "Boulevard Roche-
chouart, corner of the rue Clignancourt. Quick now, I'm
late." He groaned at the man's slowness.
He stepped into the taxi and closed the door nearest the
sidewalk. The machine began to tremble as the chauffeur
cranked it. Mortimer opened the other door of the taxi and
signalled out to Gorman. It worked out to a nicety. The
machine started with a jerk when Gorman rushed up, flung
the bag on to the floor and leapt in. He pulled the door
to violently.
' ' Can 't be too careful, ' ' he panted. ' ' That was sure fool-
ish, waving your hand to me like that. I saw you alright."
He stopped to get breath. "It ain't the police I'm afraid
of so much, as the Chinks. They'd give any amount to
know my real name and my address. Never let 'em know
that, by God, or you're done, Long. When one of em's
caught, he'll squeal on you then, sure as God made little
apples. Saves 'em a few months, maybe. Where's he
going?"
"Montmartre."
"I think it's alright," said Gorman, wiping his forehead,
and grinning. "This game gives me cold feet, sometimes.
At first I used to change taxis half-way, but there 's no sense
in that."
He stooped and lifted to his knees the bag he had thrown
into the taxi. "There's the stuff," he said, and took out
292 THE OUTSIDER
what looked like a number of batteries for electric pocket
lamps. Mortimer handled them curiously. "Stuffed full
of dope," said Gorman, tickled at Mortimer's astonishment.
' ' Cute idea, ain 't it ? There 's five hundred grams of dope
in every battery; fifteen hundred francs."
They were drawing near the rue Clignancourt.
"You'll wait at the corner for me," said Mortimer.
"There's a cafe. It'll take the woman an hour to bring
me the money. Is that alright?" He realised he was ask-
ing Gorman to take a good deal on trust.
"Sure, it's alright," said Gorman.
The taxi drew up at the corner. "You pay, Gorman,"
said Mortimer. "I'm broke. There's the cafe."
He got out first, and whilst Gorman was paying, took the
bag and set out. Strange, for Mortimer Long to be walking
through a street in Paris with a bagful of opium ; more than
strange it was mad.
He kept his mind off the subject the less thought the
better. He walked faster, to absorb himself in action. When
he reached the house he went up the steps at a run that
took the last ounce of energy from him. He heard Fernande
coming to answer the bell. He panted, and thought of the
surprise in store for her.
' ' Good evening, Fernande. ' '
"Why, Mortimer!"
"It's me again. On urgent business."
He went in ahead of her.
"Ezra up there?"
"Yes."
* ' Come up. I 've something urgent to tell you. ' '
They went up hastily. He found Ezra exactly as he had
left him ; but now he had no spirit for observation or com-
ment. He had business on hand that was burning. He
THE OUTSIDER 293
glanced round the room, offered his hand to Ezra and
turned to Fernande.
"Fernande, can you still sell all the opium I can get
you?"
Ezra started up on the divan. Fernande fixed a startled
eye on Mortimer.
"Answer me quick, Fernande. I've brought six kilos of
it with me. I want two francs a gram for it from you. All
above that you can keep. Can you still do it ? "
' ' Where did you get it ? " she asked, in a voice of supreme
astonishment.
An intolerable excitement was pouring through Morti-
mer's veins.
"Never mind that, Fernande." He opened the bag, took
out a battery, and pulled away the cover. "I've got a
dozen of these," he said, showing the dark brown stuff
packed in: "Five hundred grams in each." His hand
shivered so that he almost dropped the battery.
' ' What 's the matter with you ? ' ' asked Fernande, draw-
ing back.
"Never mind that," said Mortimer, stamping his foot,
"do you think I've been selling opium all my life? Of
course I'm excited. Will you sell this stuff tonight and
bring me the money yes or no?"
"Of course I will."
"Remember, I want twelve thousand francs from you.
The other six thousand is yours. ' '
"But where did you get it?"
"Fernande," said Ezra, sharply, "don't ask any ques-
tions. Take that stuff and go." His voice was thin and
bitter. " Go now, " he repeated. " These damned women, "
he growled in English.
She lifted her head twice to speak, then took the bag
and went from the room.
294 THE OUTSIDER
"You musn't ask me any questions, Ezra," said Morti-
mer, seating himself at the other end of the divan and clasp-
ing his knees fiercely.
"No," said Ezra. He could see that Mortimer was
dangerously near to a nervous collapse.
"Don't think, don't think," said Mortimer, to himself.
"Don't think." He repeated this rapidly, continuously, to
shut out all possibility of reflection. He rocked himself
to and fro and began to mutter the first nonsense that
came into his mind.
Only not to think, not to think.
More than an hour must have passed much more. Then
came the footsteps on the stairs climbing the wall. Fer-
nande burst in, her thin, sick face ablaze with yellow color.
She threw the bag on the floor and drew from under her
cloak a bundle of notes.
"I've got it all," she said, choking, "all."
The two men fixed their eyes on the bundle of notes. Fer-
nande flourished it wildly in the air, then knelt down sud-
denly and began to count. "One thousand, two thousand,
. . . eight thousand five hundred, . . . eleven thou-
sand eight hundred and fifty, . . . twelve thousand
that's yours, Mortimer. And there's six thousand for us
in the bag. ' ' She looked up at each man in turn and
laughed boisterously then drew a battery from under her
cloak, and threw her arms round Ezra ' ' and I kept one of
them at that, little Ezra. ' ' She was tigerish in her jubila-
tion. ' ' We 're not hungry tonight. ' '
Mortimer deliberately took up the notes. He cast a single,
venomous glance at Ezra and Fernande in turn, and grabbed
the empty bag.
"Mortimer," Fernande had put a hand on his arm. Her
voice was triumphant.
He shook her off, hissing, "Let me go," and without
THE OUTSIDER 295
another word ran from them. He found Gorman in the
cafe. He made no answer to the look of inquiry on Gorman 's
face. He sat down, and in response to the other's im-
patient questions, counted out nine thousand francs on the
table.
"My God, man, can't you answer me?" asked Gorman
angrily. Mortimer pushed the notes over. His face was
white, his eyes savage. Without a word lie rose and rammed
the remaining notes into his pocket. Then, unheeding,
feverish, he ran from the cafe.
He found a taxi on the Boulevard Rochechouart, While
it sped homewards, he said slowly, over and over again,
" You've asked for Paris; now you have it. What Paris
offers, take."
Under the lamplight in the centre of the room was Car-
men's patient face. But the sweetness and relief that
shone on him suddenly as he came in were gall.
" I 've brought you a present, Carmen. ' '
To that wild voice it was impossible to make reply.
"A present," he repeated, crashing his fist with the
notes in it on the table. "A present from a thief. Take
it."
''Mortimer!" She had risen, she was trembling.
' ' Take that money ! " he said furiously. ' ' It belongs to
Paris, so it belongs to you. Take it, I say."
Awhile he glared at the shrinking girl, his face tense
with rage and hatred; then, like a tornado, he was gone.
Rooted in terror to her place, she heard his footsteps crash-
ing down the stairs; but in the street he did not hear the
cry of anguish that filled the room a moment later. "Mor-
timer!"
I
CHAPTER XVI
HE RAN as if from an impurity. He did not care whither
he ran. He only felt that every moment of motion put dis-
tance between him and an abomination ; and without note
of the emptying streets, blind to all but an inner dread and
a terrified relief he ran, and hot words of shame and amaze-
ment flashed to and fro in his mind.
It was incredible ! He clung at times to the word ' ' In-
credible." It had not happened, it could not have hap-
pened. It was outside the cycle of possibilities. And he
walked faster, and rubbed his hands as if to cleanse them ;
and he longed for a great wind.
Was this he, Mortimer Long? This motley vagabond,
this seller of opium, this ragged companion of thieves and
drug fiends ?
The very clothes he wore were contaminated. He longed
to run naked till the night was gone, until, bathed in chilly
dew, he came into a clean dawn.
Then an implacable question took to hammering under his
skull. "How have I come to this? How have I come to
this?" and there was no answer; there was not a single
excuse, not a grain. He writhed in his walking, and hated,
with a vehement hatred, himself, his body, his mind.
He returned, for a moment's agonising relief, to the word
' ' incredible. ' ' What sophistry had turned his mind ? What
sickness of brain and eye had twisted his life to this shape ?
And rage turned from himself and against others. Who
were these people, this shabby, grimacing mob, these Ezras,
and Grays and Gormans and Fernandes? What had he,
Mortimer Long, to do with them? Was he mad? Was he
mad ? He cursed them suddenly as he had cursed himself,
296
THE OUTSIDER 297
with an abysmal, wordless curse, fiery as shame and bitter
as gall ! Paris !
Oh, they had taken him and bound him, and his limbs
were tangled in the meshes forever, if he did not tear them
now. But he would tear them, with all his strength ; he
would break through and be free, he would fly from them
forever and forever.
No, they could not hold him. He realised this, slowly,
and with surging certainty. And the higher the certainty
rose, the wilder grew his horror at the life he had escaped
from, and as men grow sick with fear at the memory of a
danger which they barely survived, so his heart grew sick
at the memory of the mob.
"I am free," he said, again and again. "I am free."
There was a hysteria of joy in the words.
Unknown to himself his footsteps, led by a subtle in-
stinct, had followed the path he had traced on that night
of exultation, the first night he had spent in Paris as a free
man. He found himself in the net of streets between the
Hotel de Ville and the Place de la Republique. The coinci-
dence startled him, and then he understood that, inspired
by a strength he could not direct, he was retracing in minute
and desperate revision the drunken path of that night.
What had he dreamed that night? A dream of ease and
fruitless leisure, of calm, strifeless days, calm, strifeless
years, a life of effortless silence, passed in obscure content.
He had turned from the world he had known till then, the
world of his parents, because he hated its narrowness, its
puritanical stupidity.
How clearly he understood the folly that was born of
that hatred. He knew himself better now. Was he not a
child of his race ? Was he not a puritan ? Was there not
in his veins, as in the veins of his fathers, a loathing for the
298 THE OUTSIDER
drifting, careless ways of life, a will to fashion himself and
the world according to his lights?
No, he had not hated them because they interfered with
the drift of life, and banded themselves together to alter
men's lives and direct men's thoughts; he hated them be-
cause they were stupid. He did not hate puritanism and
human interference in human affairs; he only hated their
puritanism, their interference.
For he hated, as bitterly as he hated his father's world,
this world of Ezra's and Gorman's, this shifty, planless
world, even with its exultations and joys, for it was not a
world of strength, but a world of putrefaction ; the gleams
of beauty that shone through it were evil, for they were
strengthless.
For good or evil he knew himself now. He could not
move drowsily with the tide. The blood of many genera-
tions bade him struggle and swim. It was a blind instinct.
It was senseless and animal, a fiery desire to create he knew
not why, he knew not what. It was derisive to men like
Ezra. To himself it was life, and each man must live his
own life. . . .
He was climbing the last steep way to the summit of
Montmartre. He became aware that he was abominably
tired. But he would go on till he could look again on the
city, and he dragged out the last footsteps till he came to
the low wall that runs like a rampart in front of the church.
Behind him was the Sacre Co3ur and at its foot the statue
of the Chevalier de la Barre.
His heart was lighter, as if after a strong renunciation.
He looked at the black circle far away below him, and he
felt neither bitterness nor resentment. He could not hate
it, for it was mute to him, and there is no hatred against
the powerless. He could muse on it and wonder ; he could
try to understand what had fooled him into believing he
THE OUTSIDER 299
could be a part of it. He could even respect it, at a dis-
tance, and pay it the homage of a stranger. For he had no
quarrel with Paris as long as it did not tempt him ; and all
temptation was past now.
"It is time to go to sleep," he said suddenly, and realised
at the same instant that he had nowhere to sleep. He was
not startled, but he thought awhile, dismayed superficially
by the prospect of a night on the streets. He walked hur-
riedly up and down in front of the tortured statue of de la
Barre, and thrust his hands into his overcoat pocket.
His fingers played among a little heap of copper coins.
An idea came to him. How much had he ? He rummaged
every coin into his grasp and counted out the result under
a lamp ; one franc and eighty centimes. He shook his head,
and thought hard. What could he do with one franc and
eighty centimes?
And then he remembered and laughed. If he could find
the place, it would be a fitting farewell to Paris, a last night
in her embrace ; and the price was one franc.
He walked back to the other side of the church and into
the Place des Tertres. An alley that went out from one
corner terminated in a flight of steps. He went down the
steps and at the bottom turned to the right down a second
flight. Halfway down the second flight he found it. The
door of the hovel was open. In the peeling corridor a jet
burned. Now, at night, it looked less hideous than on the
sunlit day when, in the company of Ezra, he had seen it
first.
He knocked on the door that leaned from its upper hinge,
and the door rattled under his hand. A door opened at
the other end of the corridor and a fat woman issued from
it. Her hair was tousled over her hoggish face. Her clothes
were dirty and tattered.
"What is it?" she snarled.
300 THE OUTSIDER
"I want a room." said Mortimer, and approached her.
She held out her grubby hand.
"Ung Frang," she said, with a Gascon accent.
Mortimer pulled out the change and counted a franc la-
boriously.
"He has lots of time," she muttered, waiting, then
snatched the money and dropped it into a pocket. With-
out a word she turned and went up the stairs. Mortimer
watched her, puzzled. At the top she turned round.
"Afais nong de Dieu!" she cried. "You want a room,
don't you?"
He understood he was meant to follow, and he mounted
the steps after her. In the semi-darkness he bumped
against her and recoiled, too disgusted to apologise. She
did not seem to mind.
"Here," she said, opening a door. He felt the wall and
found the door. As he shuffled past her, the full blast of
her breath covered him with an alcoholic closeness. He
slammed the door to behind him, and struck a match ; then
he heard the door being locked behind him. He understood.
He was surprised to find a bed. It was all he wanted
and, somehow, more than he had expected. He felt his way
to it, and examined it briefly by the light of a second match.
It was the simplest construction that could lay claim to the
name of bed ; but it possessed the essential, namely, a toler-
ably soft repository for the body slightly elevated from the
floor. There was a tattered blanket, a mattress, but neither
cushion nor sheets.
He took off his coat and shoes, wrapped the blanket
round him like a toga, and lay down on the crackling mat-
tress. Before he knew it, he slept.
He woke to a grey light that came in through a dirty
window. His body was stiff and grubby : slowly he looked
round the room, and noted the rotten floor and peeling
THE OUTSIDER 301
walls. In a corner of the room stood a three-legged chair.
This and the bed comprised the entire furniture.
He rose and threw off the blanket in horror. Tie shook
himself and shivered ; what was the time ? He looked down
at his hands, and their filthy greasiness revolted him. "Where
could he wash? He was disgusted with himself. Soon,
soon all this would change.
He went to the door and remembered it was locked. Even
that blanket represented temptation to someone. He kicked
at the door and shouted, shivering with the cold.
The fat woman opened the door at last.
"I want to wash," said Mortimer.
"Trois sous," said the woman, curtly.
Mortimer nodded.
"Downstairs," said the woman. "And take your things
with you."
Mortimer obeyed and followed her down into a kind of
pantry. There the woman gave him a towel, dirty but dry,
and a fragment of yellow soap. She stood by while he
washed and collected the toilet articles when he had finished.
He was better now, but. a dreadful day, he knew, was in
front of him, and the most dreadful part of it would be the
next hour. He went out and down the stairs into the rue
Rochechouart. A jeweller's clock pointed to eight o'clock.
He would have liked a cup of coffee, but now there re-
mained to him only sixty-five centimes. Thirty he would
need for the subway, and the rest he could not spend.
In some twenty minutes he stepped out of the metro at
the Ecole Militaire. His heart was uneasy, but his mind
was cold and firm. He was sorry for Carmen, sorry for
the pain he was going to inflict on her now. But the one
fear that had haunted him most existed no longer. He
would not be leaving her penniless; she had the money he
had given her the night before.
302 THE OUTSIDER
And then came over him the realisation of the night she
must have spent, and his heart contracted. But what could
he do ? He was done with that life. Not Carmen nor any-
one else could ever bring him back to it. He repeated this
firmly to himself when he knocked at her door and, with-
out waiting for -an answer, went in.
When he came in she was lying on the bed, fully dressed.
She started up with a gasp, and her white, drawn face was
distorted in a cruel mingling of relief and incredulousness.
They looked at each other wordlessly.
"Good morning," said Mortimer, as if to dispel a sense
of unreality.
"Good morning," she whispered, mechanically, then rose
from the bed and straightened her dress. He saw that she
had already prepared to leave, for she was washed, and her
hair was done. But on her face was a stupor that wrung
his heart. The thought of the night she had passed made
him shudder.
Neither of them could find anything to say. Mortimer's
resolution was plain on his face, and he knew that she un-
derstood. At last he gathered himself to speak.
"I am taking all my things away today, Carmen," he
said, in a dull, cracked voice.
"Oui," she whispered.
' ' Are any things of mine out at the laundry ? ' '
She shook her head.
He watched her awhile.
"Aren't you going to work this morning?"
She shook her head again.
Then he realised that if he stayed any longer pity for
her would prove too strong for him. With a brutal effort
he began to collect his things. There was something gra-
tuitously cruel, he thought, in rummaging for his possessions
in the drawers with her wide, unmoving eyes on him, but he
THE OUTSIDER 303
forced himself to continue, and held back the desire to give
words to his pity, to enter into explanations, to soften his
behaviour. That way, he knew, lay failure.
So he kept his face averted from her and brought the
few things from the cupboard. Poor little Carmen, good
little girl. There would be a horrible loneliness in this place
for her. He hardened himself. These reflections were fu-
tile torture to him.
He brought in the two bags and began to pack. Not a
sound came from Carmen and he himself choked back tho
heavy sighs that oppressed him. It was painful, unbear-
ably painful, and the worst was yet to come. He sought to
prolong the packing. He went into the tiny anteroom and
shaved hurriedly, thinking all the time of Carmen standing
in the next room. Then he put on a clean collar and dusted
his clothes.
He was ready.
"I must go, Carmen," he said, and felt himself helpless
in front of her.
"Oui," she whispered.
He explained.
"I am taking my typewriter out just now to sell it, then
I shall come back for my other things, sometime during
the day."
A momentary distortion passed over her face and was
gone. She put her hand to her mouth as if to keep herself
from crying.
"Where are you going, Mortimer?"
"I don't know yet."
"You will never come back?"
"No, never." He said this with unnecessary emphasis,
and in it she felt a touch of weakness ; but she was too weak
herself just then. She only put both hands in front of her
eyes, as he had seen her do that night near the Hotel Pi-
304 THE OUTSIDER
cault, when he had sought to break from her. The resigna-
tion in the gesture relieved him and cut him at once. Words
were trembling on his lips ; he would have liked to comfort
her, but it was folly.
" Adieu, Carmen," he said, suddenly.
She dropped her hands, and the wide-open eyes showed
that only now did she understand. There was a hunted
perplexity in her eyes.
"My God!" she said, tearing the fingers of her hands
in an extremity of despair. Her voice quivered. "Morti-
mer, tell me where you are going."
"Carmen, I don't know." He felt his eyes smarting.
"Will you tell me when you have found a room?"
He did not answer.
' ' You must tell me, Mortimer. I swear by my mother that
I will not molest you. I only want to know where you are.
I know, it is finished ; only promise me to let me know where
you are. Mortimer, Mortimer."
Still he did not answer.
"Mortimer, you shall not see me again. I swear I shall
not molest you; by my dead mother."
He knew her oaths were vain; she would not be able to
help herself. His incredulousness was plain to her. Sud-
denly she dropped on her knees to him, and tugged at his
coat.
"Let me know where you are going," she said, desper-
ately. "I must know. You will tell me or not go from
here."
The blood left Mortimer's face; he stooped and tried to
lift her, but she wound her arms round his knees.
"You will tell me where you are going, you will tell me
where you are going. ' '
' ' Yes, ' ' he said, choking. ' ' Get up. ' '
She rose to her feet, panting, dishevelled.
THE OUTSIDER 305
"Good bye, Carmen," he said again. The promise he had
given made him firm suddenly. She made as if to kiss him,
but he stepped back from her, for he knew that if she kissed
him she would break down ; he only took her hand and she
pressed it for an instant ; then he turned swiftly and went
into the little room, closing the door behind him. Swiftly
he picked up the typewriter and ran down the stairs. In
the street he breathed like a man emerging from physical
torture.
The edge of the typewriter resting on his hip hurt him
as he walked, but merely physical pain was a relief just
then ; and he could not stop lest, after all, Carmen should
have decided to follow him. At the corner of the Boulevard
he put the machine down and waited for a taxi.
He sold the typewriter to a firm in the rue Richelieu for
eight hundred francs.
The taxi had cost him twelve francs fifty. He dismissed
it as soon as the machine was sold, breakfasted lightly in a
cafe, and set out Montmartrewards in search of a room.
For the first time in many weeks he felt human again.
He spent the whole morning on the slopes above the
Northern outer Boulevards, wandering from hotel to hotel.
He would not pay more than a hundred and twenty-five
francs a month, and rooms at that price were seldom free.
But by noon he had picked on a tiny room on the first floor
of a hotel in the rue Tholoze. The place was clean ; he had
some doubts as to the nature of the female clientele, but
no cheap hotel in Paris and few of the expensive is free
from that danger.
Early in the afternoon, after a light lunch, he set out on
foot as far as Carmen's hotel, and hired a taxi on the bou-
levard near by. He went up to the room. Carmen was
not there, so he left a note with his new address on the
mantlepiece. He had only a momentary temptation to
306 THE OUTSIDER
break his promise, but a lie at that moment was the last
baseness. The chauffeur had come up with him to help
him with the book-case, and now Mortimer felt that there
was a kind of desecration in the presence of this stranger
at his departure. The room suddenly looked bare when
the book-case was removed from the little table in the cor-
ner. Mortimer sighed deeply despite himself, and won-
dered why he regretted this room. He looked round a last
time when he returned for the two grips ; what had he to do
with this solitary looking room that in leaving it he should
be heavy-hearted? He thought of the lonely nights that
Carmen would pass here. How would she bear them ? No,
it would not do to remember these things. He went out reso-
lutely and gave the chauffeur his new address in the rue
Tholoze. "Finis."
His new room pleased him when he had installed the
book-case on the mantlepiece opposite the bed. There was
only room enough to pass sideways between the bed and
table, but that only added snugness. The bed was simple
and hard, which was what he liked. A very ancient clock
stood on the mantlepiece (in every room of every cheap
hotel in Paris there stands an old gilt clock that does not
go), but this he took out to the landlady. Then he returned
to his room and changed his underwear. He was a new man.
Towards seven in the evening he went out to look for a
convenient restaurant. A number of restaurants on the
rue Lepic looked too expensive according to the menus
pasted on the windows boiled beef and potatoes ranked at
two francs ; the restaurant he would choose would have to
offer boiled beef and potatoes at one franc twenty-five, and
such a restaurant, "Taverne Bostvirronois, " he found at
last near the Place des Abesses.
It was after all a relief to be alone again in Paris. He
wanted breathing-space ; he wanted a few days in which to
THE OUTSIDER 307
think peacefully and take his new orientation. And mean-
while he wanted work. It was strange that at this moment
he was confident of finding it.
He called for a modest supper which the proprietaire
himself served an enormous, round-faced man with a vast,
blond moustache. It was Mortimer's opinion that all men
who grew extravagant moustaches were fools, but there
was a pleasing friendliness about this man.
By half-past eight the restaurant was almost empty.
Mortimer called for his bill and, whilst paying it, opened
the conversation.
"Monsieur le proprietaire, I am looking for work."
"Ah fa," said the proprietor, with a jerk of his features
indicating at once interest and inability to be of service.
"What trade are you?"
Mortimer smiled. "I have no trade just now," he said,
"I am big, strong, ready to work, and voild tout. I want
work of any kind. ' '
The proprietor took a seat opposite him.
"What country are you from?"
"England," said Mortimer; he felt ashamed that an
American should be in such straits.
The proprietor was examining him with a new interest,
that raised a startled hope in Mortimer.
"You are strong?" he said.
"Strong as an ox," said Mortimer, standing up. He
was tall and lean, but his whole figure suggested a wiry
force and power of endurance.
The proprietor made noises in his throat.
"That's rather drole," he said. "I could use a strong
man. But it's for hard work, and dirty work. My last
man left me. He drank like a fish, and I threw him out
yesterday."
"What work is it?" asked Mortimer.
308 THE OUTSIDER
"Everything. I want a man to come with me to the
Halles, at five o'clock in the morning, to help me lay in the
day's stock. He must bring the pushcart back with me.
You see, I 'm too fat to pull a cart f rom the Halles up here
and then my heart isn't right. He must wash the dishes,
clean the place out every day, everything, restaurant and
kitchen, and at noon take out lunches. I don't want a
shirker. ' '
' ' Give me the job, ' ' said Mortimer, firmly. He would not
ask the rate of pay even.
"When would you start?" asked the proprietor, and
Mortimer, feeling that the man was somehow ^leased, felt
a distinct friendliness for him.
"I'll come with you tomorrow morning, if you want," he
said.
"You'll have to be here at five o'clock," said the pro-
prietor, incredulous.
"That's alright for me," said Mortimer. He was elated
beyond words, but he tried to maintain what he thought
should pass for a grim and sturdy reliability.
' ' Aiid if you 're the right man, I '11 give you food and ten
francs a day. That's good pay, young man; but I don't
like a miserable man round the place. ' '
"It is understood," said Mortimer, with dignity. He
could have jumped up and hugged the red-faced, clumsy-
looking giant. Surely everything was conspiring with him
He rose from his place; it was half-past eight. By nine
he should be in bed, so as to rise at half-past four.
"Goodnight," he said, nodding indifferently to the
proprietor. "A demain."
"A demain," said the proprietor, staring after the excit-
able Englishman.
He went out choking with elation. His old calculating
THE OUTSIDER son
instincts bubbled up in him again. Of three hundred
francs, now his food was assured, he would save one hun-
dred and fifty francs, at least. His room was one hundred
and twenty-five. Twenty-five would be ample for extras,
laundry included. He almost danced on his way home.
The day when he would have one thousand francs, he
would sail steerage for New York. And six hundred francs
he had already, six hundred and fifty nearly. He only
wanted to be in the States again. If he arrived with five
dollars in his pocket, that was ample for him. And he
would arrive in the spring. Back in the States! His joy
was foolish even to himself and yet wildly sincere. Back
in the States ! He laughed aloud in the street. The thought
of the tumult of New York, the clanging, the shouting, the
rushing, the memory of it all intoxicated him. "Why had
he not understood before ?
When he undressed in his room he realised how tired he
was. He was too happy to trouble himself about the hour
of rising. He knew that he would wake in time.
CHAPTER XVII
HE woke by instinct and dressed rapidly in the dark, his
teeth chattering with the cold. The streets were grey-blue
so long before dawn, but already the thin advance guards
of the day's workers were filing along the pavements, a
grim and cheerless company, clattering loudly under the
dead windows. He heard a clock strike five when he reached
the Place des Abesses. Under Bostvirronois' door the light
glimmered and, approaching, he saw that the door was
ajar. It was not a pleasant morning or not at this time.
The old man was tramping up and down the empty
restaurant like a substantial ghost, visible only by a tiny
gas-jet glimmering in the lobby that led to the kitchen.
"Ha! You are here! Quick! We haven't much time
to lose."
He blundered away to the kitchen, and returned with a
cup of hot, black coffee, and a croissant. The coffee was
sour, and the bread dry, but after they had been swallowed,
they assumed new values. Mortimer wiped his lips and
rose from the chair. "I'm ready," he said.
They went through the lobby and kitchen into a rough
courtyard, blue-dark and cold at this hour. Here a hand-
cart was chained to a staple. The old man unlocked the
chain and opened the gate leading into the Place des
Abesses. Mortimer put his hands to the cart, wheeled it
and trundled it out, and they set out through the half
darkness for the Halles.
They rattled noisily down the rue Pigalle, then across
the rue Lafayette and by a narrow street on to the Main
Boulevards. In the semi-darkness the streets were begin-
ing to live. There must be hundreds of thousands here in
310
THE OUTSIDER 311
Paris, thought Mortimer, who rise at this hour every day,
to whom it is a natural thing. One never thinks of them
in connection with Paris. He shivered out of sympathy
with the lives of such people.
They passed the back of the Bourse, monumentally va-
cuous, at that hour, and by a network of close streets, came
into sight of the Halles. The old giant had tramped word-
lessly all the way, but now he touched Mortimer on the arm.
"Work begins," he said.
Under the vast, gloomy roof of the market-place, the
lights above the stalls gleamed with infernal hardness.
This part of Paris was not asleep. There was din and bus-
tle, shouting, a rushing to and fro, a repellant frenzy of
activity that thrust Mortimer back on himself.
The hardest voices were those of the women, and they
seemed to dominate the halls. They were like goblins,
shrill-voiced, irrepressible. Down an alley whose walls
were lined with these unfriendly vendors, he pulled the
handcart after Bostvirronois. He marvelled at the din
and bustle; so few people filled the place with so much
noise. But, he reflected, it is the illusion of the vulgar that
to be noisy is to be active.
Then began the lading. Mortimer was pleased with the
way his patron worked. He went up to the stall, spoke
quietly to the owner, and began to pack vegetables on to
the handcart. Never did Mortimer, where he stood, catch
a word of his. He liked the old man for it ; to work under
such circumstances was pleasant. They went from one
stall to another, steadily. Vegetables and fruit came first,
and last came meat and poultry. By the clock under the
lamp at the end of a hall, Mortimer saw that it was six
o'clock when they were done with the purchasing. Now
remained the return journey.
The streets were lighting dimly by now and the trickle
312 THE OUTSIDER
of early workers had swelled into two double streams on
either pavement. Individual footsteps were no longer au-
dible, and the rolling of the handcart was deadened. It was
a hard pull back to the Place des Abesses. The old man
offered a helping hand and he refused it at first, but later
he was glad to accept it and to feel the new weight push-
ing with him while he laboured in front. He was warm and
tired and hungry when he reached the restaurant, but now,
as Bostvirronois said again, the work began.
The greater part of the crockery remained to be washed
from the previous night. The restaurant, lobby and kitchen
had to be swept, the stove cleaned out, the windows wiped
over. The old man worked with silent and effortless energy,
Mortimer viciously, to forget the hunger he would not com-
plain of till the old man mentioned it. At eight o 'clock the
cook arrived and a girl with her. Then Mortimer sat down
to his second breakfast still coffee and rolls, with milk
and sugar this time, and as much as he wanted. After the
breakfast a short spell of rest. Bostvirronois sat with
him, red-faced, genial, his white hair standing up on his
vast bullet head.
"Not an easy life." he said.
"Nothing terrible," said Mortimer.
"Quite right. Nobody ever died of it. But only fit for
an animal."
Mortimer shrugged his shoulders, French fashion. "It's
life," he said.
The old man repeated the words with a sigh. "It's life !"
oui. Ah, bon Dieu de bon Dieu!" He shook his head and
stared out of the window, beyond Mortimer. "It's weary-
ing, wearying," he continued sadly. "Always the same
thing." He fell into melancholy meditation for some min-
utes, then rose to take up his work.
The morning passed slowly in a multitude of occupations.
THE OUTSIDER 313
The crockery and the huge pots were the worst disgust-
ing, greasy work. A sense of thoroughness inherited from
frequent K. P. days under a bitter old chief cook kept
Mortimer up to the mark. The heavy pots were immacu-
late when he had finished with them. The cook looked
into them with approval. "C'est ga," she said smiling.
"Not like Andre; he left it so greasy you could scrape
a kilo of fat out of it." Mortimer was absurdly pleased
with her praise and showed it. Nevertheless, he did not
like the soft flabbiness of his finger-tips when he had fin-
ished with the hot water, nor the irritating dryness that
haunted them for hours after.
From nine o'clock on the iron pots on the stove steamed
richly. Mortimer spent an hour preparing "Mendiants"-
bags of mixed fruit which Bostvirronois would not buy
ready prepared. He had calculated that he could save
almost a sous on every bag, and give his clientele better
value. He let drop hints through which Mortimer saw
at times into the skin-close economy of the business, a thing
of accumulating centimes, every one of which had to be
watched with ceaseless vigilance. But the old man had
not been spoiled by his business, for Mortimer recalled
how, at the second breakfast, he had insisted on Morti-
mer's taking a third cup of coffee and a third croissant.
At half -past eleven the clientele began to drop in. Bost-
virronois and the girl did the serving. In between Morti-
mer attended to a certain outside service, and served a
few customers in their homes. He mounted with loaded
trays, returned for items forgotten, like mendiants, or a
half bottle of wine. Later on, in the afternoon, when he
came to collect the crockery, he was astonished to receive
tips thirty centimes, forty, even fifty ; in all three francs.
He pocketed the money and laughed.
The afternoon passed in the washing of the crockery
314 THE OUTSIDER
for the evening service, the filling of innumerable bottles
and half bottles of "pinard" from barrels in a dusty cel-
lar, the sweeping of the restaurant, the collecting of the
outside crockery. At six he sat down to supper, and his day
was ended. He felt ready to collapse.
Before he went, the old man put a hand on his shoulder.
1 1 Shall I pay you by the day ? " he asked significantly.
Mortimer was grateful but shook his hand. "Thank
you," he said, "I have some money."
"Sure?"
"Yes. thank you."
""Well, so much the better. You've worked well. A
demain, heinf"
"Goodnight."
A half bottle of pinard at supper had put the last
touch on his weariness. He dragged himself up to his room,
took off his shoes, and lay down on the bed. He tried to
read a little, but in vain. He undressed and got between
the sheets. For all the weariness that ran with sluggish
pain along his veins, he was content, and his last mood be-
fore he forgot himself in sleep was one of returning nor-
mality.
The next morning was an easier one, for nine hours of
sleep had put a new solidity into his body. Besides, it was
not so cold during the visit to the Halles. He was
acquainted in advance with his duties and he was conscious
of having made a hit with the patron and with the cook.
He also calculated that if he could rely on those three
francs a day in tips, that would make no little difference
to his plans. His native contentment returned. He was
like a man glad and astonished to find that an evil dream
had been only a dream and not a reality.
All day long he worked in a subdued content. When
six o'clock came he was tired, but pleasantly, and not even
THE OUTSIDER :U5
averse to a walk to the Butte before he turned in for the
evening.
He went home first to put 011 a clean collar. As he wont
by the hotel office the concierge handed him two letters,
both with French stamps, marked Paris. The handwriting
of both was unfamiliar to him. He took them up to his
room, wondering, and there, before washing, opened them.
The first was from Lessar, a check for three hundred
and seventy-two francs. Mortimer stared at that in bewil-
derment, and scarcely understood the brief note that fol-
lowed it. He thrust the check into his pocket, chuckling,
and glanced at the end of the second letter, to know at once
who had written it. , It was signed Carmen.
Dear Mortimer,
Why have you left me like this? Why have
you left me without a word, as if I was a dog? Yet
you know well enough how I love you, and you ought
to know how I weep all night long, and all day long at
my work.
I cannot live without you. Life is too bit-
ter and too hard and, apart from you, I have nothing,
nothing in the whole world. What have I done that you
should leave me ? Have I been exacting ? Have I not
loved you enough ?
I cannot sleep at night, and I am ill. I came
back to the house and found your note, with your ad-
dress. That was all you wrote. You did not even say
in the note that you are sorry to leave me. Yet I have
loved you well, and I would have given everything to
you. It was unjust to leave me like that. You have
not done well. I want to see you, to say goodbye to you.
Mortimer, you are emel, you do not know how cruel
you are. I must see you. I have something to tell
316 THE OUTSIDER
you. I cannot let you go without having said goodbye.
That is all I want. Mortimer, I implore you, do
not leave me in this fashion.
I shall wait for you outside your house to-
morrow evening, at eight o'clock. I shall wait there till
you come. A thousand good kisses,
from your little Carmen.
He read the note through twice, with its uncouthness,
its errors of spelling, and the sincerity of it stunned him.
There were phrases of it that dinned fiercely in his ears.
"I weep all night long and all day long at my work." It
was true, she had not needed to write that, and yet he
had never thought of it. He thought of it now, those
tired, blunt fingers of hers working heartlessly from morn
to night, the heart weeping, weeping above them, and hia
own heart almost ceased to beat. And even from where he
stood he could see the desolation of the room to which
she returned from work.
He remained awhile standing in a trance of pain. Then
suddenly he pulled himself together with a sharp gesture.
This would not do. It was over and done with. He had
been a fool, after all, to leave her his new address. It had
been infinitely better to have ended it definitely, ruth-
lessly.
Unconsciously he took up her letter, again. What insis-
tence, what irreducible hope! And the same childish,
transparent subterfuges, so strong to him because they were
so helpless. She wanted only to see him once! And per-
haps she believed what she said. Or there was a wild,
unworded hope that she could win him back. Love is like
life, he thought heavily, it clutches at straws. What could
she hope for? Another week? Another month? Could
she not see that?
THE OUTSIDER 317
Ah, he was hard and unjust! He recognised that. He
might as well chide some outcast lost in a desert, who had
given up hope of rescue, and who yet insisted on drinking
his water to the last drop. Yes, he would do better to kill
himself at once, but who could expect it of him ?
"I have loved you well!"
It was true. The words stabbed him. Then again, with
passionate brusqueness, he put the letter down and went
on changing his dress. One of them would have to be
strong, for it was the end.
He went slowly from, the house, absorbed in thought,
and heedless of his path. Mechanically he took the up-
ward streets, toward the church. A light snow was fall-
ing, the first of the year. It carried into the lower cham-
bers of his consciousness a bitter sense of loss, and an
unmeaning relief, as of a man undeceived from a torturing
hope. The end of the year was here nothing done, no-
thing done nothing done. Like the roar of a bell the
words lifted and sank. He might have been back in the
homeland by now, with feet planted firm in the soil of
action, with the beginning of a record.
He did not observe the timid figure that followed him
on the opposite side of the road; but his thought reverted
to her, rising out of a chaos of indefinite discontent to
this clear reproach.
"I have loved you well."
Was it his fault? Should he pay because she had not
understood. He rebelled at this assumption of debt. She
had not understood. . . . He hesitated on the phrase,
tried to repeat it, and his heart failed him. Was it true?
Had she alone misunderstood? Had there been no misun-
derstanding on his part . . . then? . . . Now? . . .
He came face to face with her on the deserted plateau.
She had crossed the street and when he turned brusquelj
318 THE OUTSIDER
she could not avoid him. But she shrank from his startled
look.
"You here?"
No answer. They stood at gaze, she tortured by a single
passion, he by a multitude. "What should he say to her?
Perhaps she had a right, after all, to see him from time
to time. She spoke at last.
"I have brought you something back, Mortimer."
"What?"
She held out an envelope.
"That money," she stammered.
He was bewildered a moment, and then recoiled. "Good
God, no. I don't want it."
"I don't want it, either."
"But I don't want it, I can't have it!"
"I don't want it." she repeated mournfully. "You
mustn 't buy yourself out like that. ' '
He bit his lip. How curiously she saw things!
' ' We must not talk about money, Carmen. I can 't touch
money I earned like that."
"And I can," she said, almost inaudibly. "I understand
you," she said, in the same terrible whisper. "I understand
everything. ' ' The envelope dropped from her hand.
"I am a cad," he said to himself, the blood rushing into
his face. "I don't mean that, Carmen, you know I didn't."
His voice was eager and friendly. He laid his hand on
her arm. "It's different. It would be horrible for me to
use it for myself. But not you, Carmen. ' '
The warmth and instinctive tenderness of his voice elec-
trified her. She lifted her eyes suddenly to his and the
old, fierce question burned in them. He dropped her arm.
Good God! Was there no way of speaking plainly and
simply with her?
He stooped, picked up the envelope and thrust it sud-
THE OUTSIDER 319
denly into the pocket of her coat. She made no gesture.
Her head had fallen again. And again they stood silent.
Mortimer set his teeth, and words he could not control
came icily from his lips.
' ' Carmen, you must not see me any more. ' '
She did not stir. She seemed not to have heard.
"You must leave me now."
She did not look up. " Where shall I go?" she asked, in
a low voice.
"I don't know, Carmen," he said, struggling to repress
a note of despair. "I must leave you."
He held out his hand to her. She ignored it. He waited
a moment then turned and went from her. His lips were
set, his hands clenched. He would have to be the strong
one.
The snow was falling more thickly. His footsteps were
deadened under him. Waves of flakes dashed into his face
and settled on his clothes. Gone was the content of the
day. There was no rest for him, no rest, no peace, till he
had left this country.
He stopped a moment as a thought came into his mind,
and turned round. A few feet behind him Carmen was
shrinking into the shelter of a wall. He stood still and
drew hissing breath between his teeth. What would this
mean?
He went up to her.
"Carmen!"
She looked at the ground; a shudder ran through her
body.
He was seized with a sickness of bewilderment. What
was to be done ?
"You mustn't do this," he said, hoarsely.
"What?"
320 THE OUTSIDER
"Follow me, like this." He made a violent gesture of
emphasis.
"Where shall I go?"
"But what shall I do, Carmen?" He struggled with
himself not to scream this question at her. "What shall I
do? You mustn't follow me about like this."
' ' I have nowhere to go, " she said, and began to cry softly.
"Wherever I go it is terrible. It makes me think you are
dead."
' ' But I cannot doanything. ' '
"Last night I tried to stay in my room," she said, sobbing.
' ' Oh, I could not, I could not. I went out, and where could
I go but here ? I stood here last night and I thought of you
because I love you, Mortimer. ' '
She became incoherent. "What shall I do?" she asked,
and* held his arm in a fierce hand. "What? Shall I tear
my heart out and show it to you ? You do not believe me ?
Last night at home it was dreadful. I wish I were buried
with Jeanne's baby. But I cannot die, Mortimer, I cannot
leave you. I would rather stand outside your window all
this winter night, and think of you lying in your room, you,
and I would kiss you when you sleep. Oh when you sleep,
you do not think of me, and that is so good to me. If I
were in the room then you would not be angry with me. I
would sit by and look at you all the hours you slept and I
would love you and love you while you slept, Mortimer, my
darling. ' ' She began to cry again and put her hands to her
face with that familiar trick of hers that pierced his heart.
"Mortimer, you are so good. I know that you are good, and
that is why I love you. You think I do not know how good
you are. All my life I will love you, because you are good."
He groaned.
"Just now," she said, "let me stand near you only a
minute. Then you can go. But I will follow you, Mortimer,
THE OUTSIDER 321
You need not look at me. I will not come and speak to
you."
"You must not follow me, Carmen." She seemed not to
hear.
"You must not follow me," he said, and the sickness of
bewilderment began to turn into blind action. "I will not
have it. Do you hear me? You must not dare to follow
me."
She sighed. Reaction, a hysteria of cruelty, seized Mor-
timer.
"I want to be free of you," he said, in an intense whisper.
"I am finished with you, finished. Do you hear? Do you
hear?"
She lifted a hand to seize his arm again. He struck the
hand from him and turned. He walked away swiftly,
raging, unseeing. He ran. He took every corner he
reached, careless of his destination. Then, at last, terrified,
breathless, he stopped and looked round. Carmen was not
to be seen. He leaned against a wall, panting, unable to
take deep breath for the needle in his left side. Was the
girl mad, mad?
He would go home, he would read, he would forget her.
Then he remembered that all the time she would be standing
outside his room, on the opposite side of the street. "So
much the worse," he said, grinding his teeth, and with de-
liberate steps turned homewards again.
When he reached the rue Tholoze he kept his eyes fixed
rigidly on his own side of the street. He would not look in
her direction. Let her stand there. What could he do?
Then, when he reached the door of his hotel, he looked
swiftly round. No one. He stopped at the door and looked
searchingly at the other side. No, she was not there. Yet
it was almost half an hour since he had left her. He went
322 THE OUTSIDER
over to the other side of the street and paced fifty yards
each way in front of his door. She was not there.
He looked up and down the street and then went up to
his room. Thank God, he would be able to sleep that night.
He sat down first to read, and stared stupidly at one book
after another. After a while he put the light out suddenly
and went to the window. The moon was hanging full over
the street, to his right, and the opposite side of the street
was in slight shadow. But the snow threw a pallor up
against the wall. He looked carefully left and right. No
Carmen. Surely it was an hour since he had left her.
She had gone home then. It was better, for what could
she gain by this double torture? She had understood at
last; she knew now that she must renounce him, that no-
thing remained of their adventure but a doubtful memory.
Poor little Carmen, good little Carmen. She was not of
his world, she was of the Paris he had abandoned forever.
He stood at the window a long time, thinking idly, and,
as his habit was, took to turning over in his mind one of
his own thoughts ; she was not of his world, she was of the
Paris he had abandoned forever. And he wondered: was
she indeed of that Paris? "Was she of the Paris he had
known apart from her, the Paris which is not France ? Did
she belong to the lost world, the hopeless, careless, indiffer-
ent wastrels, the empty of grace and will ? The slow doubt
gathered in his mind. That was not Carmen. That world
did not love as she did. Then he added, startlingly, nor
understand as she did ! She did understand, without know-
ing it. She understood that under the surface blundering
his soul longed for goodness and order; he was not good,
yet she had called him good. That was what, unknowing,
she had meant.
She was gone and done with ; this grew steadily on him
as a second and a third hour went by, and he stood yet at the
THE OUTSIDER 323
window, dreaming on the snow that was falling, drift of
gold round the lamps and vague drift of ghostlings out-
side the circles of their light. They were covering up the
footsteps that still remained on the sidewalk her footsteps,
too, filling them up, hiding them forever. He wondered if
he could still go out and find her traces of two or three
hours ago. No, they were gone now, the last sign he might
have of her, this curious, passionate little soul, tortured by
the mind and body it had snatched at random to enter the
world in.
She was back in her room now, thinking of his room, as he
of hers. Lying in bed, or working with head bowed under
the lamp.
He could think safely of her now she was gone forever ;
there was no danger. He lay down to sleep, and long, long
he pondered on a hopeless problem. Who was this Carmen ?
He could not find an answer, but a conviction lurked, cer-
tain and intangible, at the back of his mind, that to this
question there was a startling answer, one which would
light up his mind and his life, if he could but find it. And
in the dreams and half-dreams of that night he saw her,
and asked himself, perplexed, desperate, "Who is she?
Who is she?"
All the day long that followed he was glad of his work ;
for though thoughts of Carmen haunted him without respite
they could not torture him. Dimly he was aware that his
mind was working with an aim ; and because he could only
give subdued and hidden attention to its labors he believed
it would succeed. He even strove to drive her from his
mind, believing that time and the blind converse of unin-
tended thought would be more successful than he. And a
strange, intangible confidence came over him towards the
end of the day. He would learn with certainty who Carmen
was. All would be well in the end.
324 THE OUTSIDER
In this mood he returned to his room in the evening, and
found on his table a letter with an American post-mark.
On the reverse side of the envelope he read, "Fred Ainsley,
248 Michigan Avenue, Milwaukee, Wis." He remembered
suddenly and was startled.
' ' Dear Mortimer,
The first point of this letter is to advise you that I'm
sending you two hundred and forty dollars through the
First National Bank which you can collect at the Farmer's
Loan and Trust Company in Paris. . . .
He did not read further awhile. Then, when he tried to
read he caught only phrases which he could not string to-
gether "Wilfred Hill . . . coming back . . . your
Indian and canoe fetched . . . the boys. . . ." He
put the letter down, knowing he could not read it that
evening, and sat down. Only a few moment's later did the
significance of this break through to his intelligence and
overwhelm him. It was money, his own money, two hun-
dred and forty dollars, more than he needed, much more
than he needed.
He walked feverishly along the narrow strip from the
window to the book-case and back again. Was not every-
thing clear in his mind? Was he not returning to the
States, to his own country with Carmen?
With Carmen, he said, laughing hysterically, with Car-
men, my wife There was the answer, come of itself Who
else was Carmen, if not his wife ? The word rang with in-
finite assurance and purpose. "My wife." he said aloud.
How certain was the world now, how steadily the issues of
his life were emerging from tangle and darkness. All
things work with an aim for him who has an aim. he said
jubilantly. A week ago, because I had no aim, life was
THE OUTSIDER ,325
chaos and accident; and today I would not revoke a single
lesson of those days.
He would wait no longer. He left the house and took a
downward path through the streets ugly with trampled
snow. Oh, it was good to walk so, to feel invisible atten-
dance, all his life walking with him, strong and wholesome.
Not a hundred times the tumult of this city, or of the whole
world, vehement with action and counteraction, could turn
him from his path. Nay, infinity was in conspiracy with
him. He gloried in the universe, in himself. . . .
He walked deliberately, not too swiftly. Time did not
matter now. He knew, too, that Carmen would not reach
home for another hour. He could walk all the way down
the slopes to the Boulevards, by the rue Royale, then across
to the Invalides, and then up to her room. Even her joy,
her bewilderment he forgot. The purposes of their lives had
ordained it so It was natural, she, the Normande, he, the
American, walking with the threads of their destiny in their
hands, to meet in Paris, so, to become man and wife. There
was no room for bewilderment. Better than he, because she
was nearer in heart to the mother-pulse of life, she had
known that they could not leave each other. She would say,
"I knew it," and laugh into his eyes. . . .
When he reached the Madeleine, he still had three
quarters of an hour to spare. He went down the rue Royale,
and at the corner of the rue St. Honore stopped, amused.
He would go down to the Lapin Cuit, and take a drink
there, and laugh at the place. Poor Lapin Cuit! Poor
people that haunted it, filtering through its dinginess out of
chaos into chaos, out of the void into the void.
He opened the door and looked round swiftly. He saw
Gorman with Mrs. Cray in their corner, Masters with Renee,
a few strangers, Jeanne and, in another corner, Fulson
with Mado. He took in the scene with a single look.
326 THE OUTSIDER
' ' Good evening, ' ' he said smiling at them.
There was no reply.
He saw their eyes fixed on his, startled. There was sud-
denly a fearful stillness in the room. He stared at their
frightened faces, tried to speak and failed. He knew that
on his own face the same terror was now written. And he
heard a deadly whisper from someone :
"The murderer!'
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