Part 5

Meadows’ blue cloak made a daub of color in the picture and Hamilton’s quick eyes noted it. He was thinking how well she fitted into his brief world here. He was wondering how she would fit into life in New York--or Corinth. And again he compared her with that other figure. He wished it were Spring.

A man and woman went by, their arms around each other, unmindful of the world--a man with long hair and a silky beard, meanly dressed, without gloves; a frail blonde with high run-down heels and torn gloves. But their eyes shone. Hamilton envied them.

They crossed the Boulevard St. Michel and entered the Luxembourg Gardens. There were other couples walking about, examining the statuary and sitting on the benches. Some were making love openly; others more subtly. Near a bronze statue of a fawn sat a one-legged soldier and his wife. They were holding hands and looking before them vacantly. A boy of four in a soldier’s suit stood watching them gravely. There were other soldiers, many of them crippled.

Hamilton was acutely conscious of the shortness of the day. A few more hours and it would be over. Then, farewell to Paris and Meadows. He was falling into a sentimental mood. He wondered whether he should tell her of his engagement to Margaret. Probably she had guessed it. At any rate, he decided, there was no occasion for his mentioning it now.

Near the Fontaine de Medicis they found a bench thoughtfully hidden from the walk by shrubbery. They sat down and suddenly looked into each other’s eyes. The sun was falling in a stream across her hair and a coquettish puff of wind was toying with a loosened strand. They were so close now that the end touched his cheek. He leaned over, his heart pounding, while his hand found hers. But she lowered her head, turned it to one side and looked away.

He remained holding her hand and presently she looked up. They went on talking, rapidly, lightly, neither understanding what they were saying, conscious of only one thing, and determined not to acknowledge its presence. To acknowledge it would mean to stifle it.

How had this happened? He had simply meant to say good-bye to Dorothy--that is, to Meadows. He owed her much for her kindness in the hospital. That was all. And here he was holding her hand. It was too late to withdraw his hand. He must wait until she took hers away. But probably she was unconscious that they were holding hands. Women sometimes were like that. Or, perhaps, it had no special meaning to her. Other persons were doing it and thinking nothing of it, couples probably even less intimate than they.

“And I suppose you’ll be seeing that girl in Corinth,” Meadows was saying.

“Yes, of course.” Hamilton didn’t know how the talk had drifted to her.

“Does she know you’ve been wounded?”

Hamilton did not wish to talk about Margaret, but he answered, “Yes and no. That is, I wrote her that I had been slightly scratched by a piece of shell. She doesn’t know how serious it’s been. I was afraid it might give her a shock. She’s such a child. It’s really nothing to worry about, although Dr. Levin said I must take things easy, for a time at least.”

“Poor, brave boy,” said Meadows, shaking her head slowly.

“I suppose it’s my contribution to settling the great war. But you’ve given more, infinitely more, for a woman.”

“Oh, only about two years that I might have spent in dancing, attending teas and receptions, playing the society girl--and I haven’t missed all the receptions, either. It’s all been very fascinating--and hard. I got into the work before we declared war--that is before we declared that a state of war existed.”

“How did you happen to join the Red Cross? You’re not a professional nurse, are you? It must have taken a lot of pluck.”

“I’m almost a graduate, six months from being one. You have to be, you know. But I’m not a professional nurse in the sense that I expect to earn a living at it. You see, I’ve always had a hobby for social service. But when I was studying sociology in college I found that the trouble with the professional sociologists is that they lack technical training. They can make fine reports, but when it comes to showing a mother of six children how to care for a sick child, they fall down. One has to know more, in a practical way, than the manual of home nursing offers.

“I want to be able to go into a home and show a woman how to bathe the babies, how to prepare the bottles, how to make the beds and wash diapers quicker. It’s hardly an aristocratic conception, you see. There are a hundred things like that I’ve learned by nursing.”

“But when did you have time for all this?” Hamilton looked puzzled. “Two and a half years in training, two years over here, and a college course. You look like a college junior.”

Meadows blushed. “I’m older than you think, perhaps. But I used to be something of a child prodigy. I was fifteen when I graduated from high school and I did college in three years. So, you see, I’m not hopelessly old yet.”

“And when you get back?”

“Oh, there’s so much to do. Father and mother were shocked when I took up nursing and again when I left for France. But I think they’ve become reconciled. You see they expected me to fit smoothly into their little social scheme.”

Meadows sketched her career with illuminating, humorous sidelights.

Her first revolt had come when she insisted on entering the University of Wisconsin instead of an Eastern girls’ college and had elected to major in sociology, with economics as her minor. Shock two came when she turned down the bid of the Kappas--at that particular time the most desirable sorority--and denounced fraternities and sororities for their snobbishness before her “lit” society. Then she had joined the students’ Socialist society, taken part in organizing a daily newspaper that would be free from faculty control, and joined the staff of a monthly magazine, started in opposition to the Literary Magazine, for the purpose of supporting free verse, modernist literature and art and, principally, of poking fun at the conservatism of the professors.

“Of course, I’ve gotten over most of my enthusiasms,” she laughed. “It was simply a stage in my growth. But I’m still pretty radical, I guess, for my people--and for you. I’m not even a Socialist now, although at one time I was on the verge of anarchism and used to hear Emma Goldman every time she came to Madison. But, at least, I am a liberal.”

She suddenly broke off.

“But, of course, this doesn’t interest you. You’re probably wondering whether I’ve spoiled my complexion by going in for all these things instead of taking vocal lessons and--I was going to say French--but I’ve learned French at that. I’ll bet you’re wondering right now more how I managed to get through school so young without wearing glasses and looking like a freak.”

Hamilton started. It was exactly what he had been thinking.

He had been watching her lips and eyes as much as attending to her words. It was a dangerous game, he knew, but he was being carried along by a tide stronger than he could stem. Suddenly a bell tinkled, announcing the closing of the gates. It was growing dusk. Hamilton bent down and kissed her. She lifted her arms and raised her lips to his, and for as long as one can hold one’s breath they remained thus.

Arm in arm, they retraced their steps through the gardens of the Luxembourg. Other couples were walking similarly, singing, laughing. Through the gathering gray, lights were twinkling on the boulevard. They walked in silence. There were tears on her lashes.

XI

Hamilton did not see Dorothy again before leaving France, although he sent her a short note from camp announcing the good news. For on their return to their regiment, both Hamilton and McCall had found orders promoting them to captaincies. In reply Dorothy sent a note of congratulation.

To Margaret, Hamilton sent a longer letter and another to his parents. He was beginning to feel ashamed of his display of emotion toward Dorothy--ashamed and perplexed. He meant to marry Margaret as soon as he returned to America and he knew that the first principle of any system of ethics was fidelity--fidelity to one’s country, to one’s church, to the woman of one’s choice. Dorothy merely had interested him. True he had much for which he would always be deeply grateful to her. Yet there could be nothing more than friendship between them.

He did not even know Dorothy--had spoken to her intimately only twice. He had no idea whether her peculiar fascination for him would survive more frequent meetings, whether their brief friendship was anything more than a passing fancy. Why then had he kissed her?--if he really had kissed her. Sometimes it seemed like part of a dream.

Still, other men did it. One of the majors in the regiment, a married man, was always bragging about his exploits, not merely kissing episodes. Yet he continually referred to “the wife and kiddies” and expressed his longing for them. There might be an exception here and there, but practically every officer in the regiment practiced and preached the creed: “What they don’t know”--“they” referring to wives, fiancées and sweethearts--“won’t hurt ’em.” In civil life, Hamilton recalled, it had been the same.

Margaret was so obviously the woman intended for him. She had beauty, youth, the social graces and an assured social position. She would make an ideal wife and mother and grace any home. They had always moved in the same social circles; his friends were her friends. Their social conventions were the same. There would be no barriers to break down, no lessons to learn.

But after all a man didn’t love that way. One didn’t reason about such things. He loved her--just because he loved her. And he really did love Margaret. He had loved her when he was still in knickerbockers. He had loved her when he was going to prep school. He had loved her all those years in Harvard and since then.

Yet, in spite of this, Hamilton wondered whether he would now be engaged if it had not been for the sentimentalism attendant on leaving America to fight and possibly to die. He wondered whether she would have come to camp at the time when he was most susceptible, if she had not thought it a duty. Sometimes one’s motives were very complex. She had come because she thought it her duty to give him the opportunity to ask for all that she could give--her promise to marry him. And knowing why she had come, he had proposed out of a sense of gallantry. If he had not asked her it would be equivalent to jilting her.

But what difference did that make? He would have proposed to her eventually, anyway. In the end he would marry her.

The officers spent most of their time on board the Mauretania homeward bound in playing cards. It was early in March and still cold and foggy on deck.

“What’s worrying you?” said McCall to Hamilton, one night over the card table, after the other players had turned in for the night. McCall was dealing out “cold” hands as a fitting conclusion to the evening’s play. The cabin was thick with smoke.

“Worrying me?” Hamilton’s brows went up. “Nothing at all. I’m going to beat you again. Come on, deal me that king.”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean something else.”

“Why, do I look downhearted?”

“Sometimes, a little. Perhaps it’s my imagination. Perhaps it’s the getting back, the uncertainty. Sometimes I feel it. I wonder how I’ll be able to get back into the old life. I wonder if I’ll fit in.”

Hamilton laughed.

“I’ll fit in beautifully. I’ll sleep until noon every day for a year. I’ll take three baths a day--steam baths, cold baths, stingy shower baths. The rest of the day I’ll lie around the house in my most disreputable clothes, reading and sleeping.”

McCall stopped dealing the cards and leaned back in his chair. “Well, I won’t get up for any reveille, Hamilton, but I’m going to work when I get back.”

“Going to write the great American novel?”

“Oh, something like that. There’s one thing I’ve got out of the war. A theme--a thumping big theme for a novel. It’s the sense of our national unity. Before the war there used to be talk about America being a conglomeration of races. This war has proved for all time that we are a real nation, a single people, united so strongly by an ideal that we have been able to sacrifice everything in a common war with an enemy separated from us by three thousand miles of water. What other nation can show such a record?

“France was fighting for her life. Naturally she was united. Germany for an extension of her trade. England to oppose it and protect her own. Belgium had been invaded. Russia was afraid of losing her interest in the Balkans. All the other countries had economic or political interests one way or the other, and in the end they were fighting for their lives.

“But we had absolutely nothing tangible to fight for--nothing but an ideal, or set of ideals. Making the world safe for democracy may seem too simple a formula to explain the complex political and economic motives for our entering the war, but it was true in the main. As far as the soldiers were concerned, that’s exactly what they were fighting for--what we used to tell them at training camp. You didn’t find any difference in the courage or loyalty of your men, simply because of their parentage, did you?”

Hamilton considered.

“No. I don’t think so. I haven’t really thought it out. There might be an advantage in favor of one nationality or another--but it would probably be small. Of course, we got most of the lower east side element in our companies, a lot of little sweat-shop tailors, Jews. Most of them had probably never seen a rifle before in their lives. But they turned out surprisingly well. They’ve got intelligence.”

“Well, it’s this feeling of national unity I want to express. This unity we used to talk about in the training camps--that we used to instill into the men with their bayonet drill and manual of arms. This unity of America’s children, regardless of race or creed.”

“‘_Long, too long, America, Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and prosperity only, But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not. And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en masse really are, (For who except myself has yet conceived what your children en masse really are?)_’”

“I see,” said Hamilton thoughtfully, “you want to show what America is en masse.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

He laid down the cards and ran his long, tapering fingers through his hair. Then he closed his eyes and began:

“‘_Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon; I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of comrades. I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies; I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks, By the love of comrades-- By the manly love of comrades. For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme! For you, for you, I am trilling these songs._’”

For a moment they were silent. It was Hamilton who broke the silence.

“I’ve been feeling the same thing,” he said. “You know I’ve been brought up in the South. Ancestors lived in Georgia before Oglethorpe and all that.”

He waved his arm expressively. “And I suppose I’ve been something of a snob. All through the war I got to realizing it. But old ideas die hard. Take Williams, for instance, the nigger that saved my life. I wanted to thank him and yet I couldn’t. Something stuck in my throat. It was the same way when I saw him at the reception. I couldn’t stand seeing him there on a par with white men. It was the way I’d been brought up, I guess. Grandfather owned a hundred slaves.

“I don’t believe in social equality for the negro. I think the white man was destined to rule and the black to be ruled--don’t interrupt--still I’ve begun to see that the white man, we rulers, haven’t been doing the fair thing by the black. I wasn’t fair to Williams, and the South isn’t fair to its millions of Williams. We deprive them of an education, we don’t give them a fair trial in our courts. We don’t let them vote.

“It’s the same way with foreigners. I’ve been with them, slept with them, eaten with them, fought with them. Under the skin we’re all the same. The same elemental passions, the same hopes and fears. Not so much difference in culture as you’d think, except what’s due to difference in education.”

Hamilton went on eagerly, often incoherently, while McCall nodded his head in approval.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you talk like that,” he put in. “What’s happened to you?”

Hamilton pondered. “I suppose I’ve been coming to it gradually--and without realizing it. You know how those things go. You advocate an idea and then for the sake of consistency you keep advocating it.”

“Yes, I understand. It’s what I always call ‘mental inertia.’”

“Mental or moral inertia, that’s it. The inertia that one has to overcome in order to change an opinion--the subconscious prejudices and reactions, the fear of being thought inconsistent, all that. When I first learned that the universe had not been created in seven days--that is, seven days of twenty-four hours each--I fought against it. I didn’t want to believe it. A rational being would obviously weigh the facts coldly and dispassionately and then arrive at a conclusion. But it took me a long time to accept the fact that the earth is millions of years old.”

“Oh, that’s the way with all new ideas,” McCall fished a cigarette box out of his pocket, passed it over to Hamilton and selected a cigarette himself. “Hand me the matches. Nobody wants a new idea, until it’s forced on him, including, of course, Christianity. The man with a new idea--whether it’s a new religious philosophy, a new system of government, a new way of painting, a new way of writing, a new invention--is hooted down in the church, the school or the market-place. About the best thing that can happen to any innovator is to die of hunger in an attic. You know that old saw about building a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door. Emerson was all wrong. Now if you take a standard, common, ordinary mouse trap and open a stand on Fifth Avenue and Broadway or on State and Madison Streets and advertise Hamilton Mouse Traps consistently, you will get the world to use them. But, believe me, if you retreat to a wood and spend twenty years in studying the weaknesses of mice and inventing an entirely new trap for their ensnarement, you will stick in that same wood until travelers find your body devoured by the squirrels. Nobody will buy your better mouse trap. Why? Simply because it’s a different kind of mouse trap than anyone has used before--unless you spend time and effort showing him that it is better.”

“Yes, I suppose we’re all like that. We hate change. Our engineers study means of reducing friction, overcoming inertia, when the most important inertia is in our minds.”

They paused and remained silent for a moment, puffing reflectively on their cigarettes.

“I’ll tell you what has set me thinking,” said Hamilton at length, laying his cigarette down. “No, thanks, no more. Some one I met in Paris. Of course, all this time, all these two years, my ideas had been changing gradually. Did you ever study physics? You know how it is when you have a salt in solution and you try to crystallize it; you have the proper solution, the temperature is correct, but nothing happens until you give it a little jar. I suppose that jar offsets some sort of inertia--the inertia of form.

“Well, my jar came by my contact with some one. All the time my ideas had been changing subconsciously. I had been piling up new impressions. But I still continued to reason along old lines. Then I came in contact with some one who had given up a life of--well, the sort of life I had planned--for one of service. I’ve always been an egoist. I’ve always sneered at reformers and idealists. But here was a person whose motives were so obviously different from anything I had ever encountered that my mind was jarred. I didn’t know it at the time. I wonder how many revelations are discovered after they actually take place? It sounds like a paradox.”

“Aha, so another woman has come into your life!” McCall grinned and lit a fresh cigarette.

“Woman?”

“Certainly! She’s given you this little jar--set you thinking.”

“I didn’t say it was a woman.”

“But you didn’t say it wasn’t. Which amounts to the same thing. If it had been a man you would have said Major Jinks, or Dr. Levin, or Peter Smith or whoever it was. You wouldn’t say ‘some one’ all the time.”

“You _are_ right,” said Hamilton, at length. “Let’s open a door and get some of this smoke out before we turn in. Miss Meadows has set me thinking. But you know what I think--”

“No.”

“I’m going down to Corinth first thing and get married.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. You’ve been engaged long enough. Ever since we were at Camp Mills. Best of luck, old man.”

Hamilton was disappointed. He had thought that the announcement would surprise McCall. It had surprised himself. He had suddenly expressed his intention aloud. Was it to commit himself to making a decision? He was in love with Margaret. He wished to be united with her irrevocably. He wished that there be no doubt in his mind about it. There really was no reason, after all, why McCall should be surprised. He had expected it right along. Hamilton wondered why he should wish to pledge himself to marry Margaret, and why he should take this means of proclaiming his intention. He wondered whether McCall would think it odd, or whether he thought about it at all.

“Well, two more days and we’ll see land,” said McCall, as he hopped into bed. “Just think, one more night after this, then home again! No more reveille. No more trenches. No more slumgullion. No more rain. Whee! We really _ought_ to get drunk!” Hamilton agreed and slowly prepared for bed.

XII

There was much drinking the next night, Hamilton acquitting himself like a gentleman--that is, imbibing large quantities without perceptible effect--and McCall like a zealot.

“Ought to get drunk. Ought to get drunk.” McCall kept repeating. “Last chance on the bounding, boundless Atlantic.”

McCall went on explaining his philosophy of intoxication between swallows.

“This is occasion that demands intoxication,” he said. “Demands intoxication, like poet demands fine frenzy with his eye rolling between heaven and earth and hell, or something.