U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [290]
-316-usual time in the afternoon. There was nobody in J.W.s anteroom but Miss Wil iams, his secretary. She stared Eveline right in the face with such cold hostile eyes that Eveline immediately thought she must know something. She said Mr. Moorehouse had a bad cold and fever and wasn't seeing anybody.
"Wel , I'l write him a little note," said Eveline. "No, I'l cal him up later. Don't you think that's the idea, Miss Wil iams?" Miss Wil iams nodded her head dryly.
"Very wel ," she said.
Eveline lingered. "You see, I've just come back from leave . . . I came back a couple of days early because there was so much sightseeing I wanted to do near Paris. Isn't the weather miserable?"
Miss Wil iams puckered her forehead thoughtful y
and took a step towards her. "Very . . . It's most unfor-tunate, Miss Hutchins, that Mr. Moorehouse should have gotten this cold at this moment. We have a number of important matters pending. And the way things are at the Peace Conference the situation changes every minute so that constant watchfulness is necessary . . . We think it is a very important moment from every point of
view . . . Too bad Mr. Moorehouse should get laid up just now. We feel very badly about it, al of us. He feels just terribly about it."
"I'm so sorry," said Eveline, "I do hope he'l be better tomorrow."
"The doctor says he wil . . . but it's very unfortu-nate." Eveline stood hesitating. She didn't know what to say. Then she caught sight of a little gold star that Miss Wil-liams wore on a brooch. Eveline wanted to make friends.
"Oh, Miss Wil iams," she said, "I didn't know you lost anyone dear to you." Miss Wil iams's face got more chil y and pinched than ever. She seemed to be fumbling for something to say. "Er . . . my brother was in the navy,"
-317-she said and walked over to her desk where she started typing very fast. Eveline stood where she was a second watching Miss Wil iams's fingers twinkling on the keyboard. Then she said weakly, "Oh, I'm so sorry," and turned and went out. When Eleanor got back, with a lot of old Italian
damask in her trunk, J.W. was up and around again. It seemed to Eveline that Eleanor had something cold and sarcastic in her manner of speaking she'd never had be-fore. When she went to the Cril on to tea Miss Wil iams would hardly speak to Eveline, but put herself out to be polite to Eleanor. Even Morton, the valet, seemed to make the same difference. J.W. from time to time gave her a furtive squeeze of the hand, but they never got to go out alone any more. Eveline began to think of going home to America, but the thought of going back to Santa Fé or to any kind of life she'd lived before was hideous to her. She wrote J.W. long uneasy notes every day tel -ing him how unhappy she was, but he never mentioned them when she saw him. When she asked him once why he didn't ever write her a few words he said quickly, "I never write personal letters," and changed the subject. In the end of April Don Stevens turned up in Paris. He was in civilian clothes as he'd resigned from the re-construction unit. He asked Eveline to put him up as he was broke. Eveline was afraid of the concièrge and of what Eleanor or J.W. might say if they found out, but she felt desperate and bitter and didn't care much what happened anyway; so she said al right, she'd put him up but he wasn't to tel anybody where he was stay-ing. Don teased her about her bourgeois ideas, said those sorts of things wouldn't matter after the revolution, that the first test of strength was coming on the first of May.
-318-He made her read L'Humanité and took her up to the rue du Croissant to show her the little restaurant where Jaurès had been assassinated.
One day a tal longfaced young man in some kind of a uniform came into the office and turned out to be Freddy Seargeant, who had just got a job in the Near East Re-lief and was al excited about going Out to Constantinople. Eveline was delighted to see him, but after she'd been with him al afternoon she began to feel that the old talk about the theater and decoration and pattern and color and form didn't mean much to her any more. Freddy was in ecstasy about being in Paris, and the little children sailing boats in the ponds in the Tuileries gardens, and the helmets of the Garde Republicaine turned out to salute the King and Queen of the Belgians who happened to be going up the rue de Rivoli when they passed.