The Reef

by Edith Wharton

  IV

  As their motor-cab, on the way from the Gare du Nord, turned into thecentral glitter of the Boulevard, Darrow had bent over to point out anincandescent threshold.

  "There!"

  Above the doorway, an arch of flame flashed out the name of a greatactress, whose closing performances in a play of unusual originalityhad been the theme of long articles in the Paris papers which Darrow hadtossed into their compartment at Calais.

  "That's what you must see before you're twenty-four hours older!"

  The girl followed his gesture eagerly. She was all awake and alive now,as if the heady rumours of the streets, with their long effervescencesof light, had passed into her veins like wine.

  "Cerdine? Is that where she acts?" She put her head out of the window,straining back for a glimpse of the sacred threshold. As they flew pastit she sank into her seat with a satisfied sigh.

  "It's delicious enough just to KNOW she's there! I've never seen her,you know. When I was here with Mamie Hoke we never went anywhere but tothe music halls, because she couldn't understand any French; and whenI came back afterward to the Farlows' I was dead broke, and couldn'tafford the play, and neither could they; so the only chance we had waswhen friends of theirs invited us--and once it was to see a tragedy bya Roumanian lady, and the other time it was for 'L'Ami Fritz' at theFrancais."

  Darrow laughed. "You must do better than that now. 'Le Vertige' is afine thing, and Cerdine gets some wonderful effects out of it. Youmust come with me tomorrow evening to see it--with your friends, ofcourse.--That is," he added, "if there's any sort of chance of gettingseats."

  The flash of a street lamp lit up her radiant face. "Oh, will you reallytake us? What fun to think that it's tomorrow already!"

  It was wonderfully pleasant to be able to give such pleasure. Darrow wasnot rich, but it was almost impossible for him to picture the state ofpersons with tastes and perceptions like his own, to whom an evening atthe theatre was an unattainable indulgence. There floated through hismind an answer of Mrs. Leath's to his enquiry whether she had seen theplay in question. "No. I meant to, of course, but one is so overwhelmedwith things in Paris. And then I'm rather sick of Cerdine--one is alwaysbeing dragged to see her."

  That, among the people he frequented, was the usual attitude toward suchopportunities. There were too many, they were a nuisance, one had todefend one's self! He even remembered wondering, at the moment,whether to a really fine taste the exceptional thing could ever becomeindifferent through habit; whether the appetite for beauty was so soondulled that it could be kept alive only by privation. Here, at any rate,was a fine chance to experiment with such a hunger: he almost wished hemight stay on in Paris long enough to take the measure of Miss Viner'sreceptivity.

  She was still dwelling on his promise, "It's too beautiful of you! Oh,don't you THINK you'll be able to get seats?" And then, after a pause ofbrimming appreciation: "I wonder if you'll think me horrid?--but it maybe my only chance; and if you can't get places for us all, wouldn't youperhaps just take ME? After all, the Farlows may have seen it!"

  He had not, of course, thought her horrid, but only the more engaging,for being so natural, and so unashamed of showing the frank greed of herfamished youth. "Oh, you shall go somehow!" he had gaily promised her;and she had dropped back with a sigh of pleasure as their cab passedinto the dimly-lit streets of the Farlows' quarter beyond the Seine...

  This little passage came back to him the next morning, as he opened hishotel window on the early roar of the Northern Terminus.

  The girl was there, in the room next to him. That had been the firstpoint in his waking consciousness. The second was a sense of relief atthe obligation imposed on him by this unexpected turn of everts. Towake to the necessity of action, to postpone perforce the fruitlesscontemplation of his private grievance, was cause enough for gratitude,even if the small adventure in which he found himself involved had not,on its own merits, roused an instinctive curiosity to see it through.

  When he and his companion, the night before, had reached the Farlows'door in the rue de la Chaise, it was only to find, after repeatedassaults on its panels, that the Farlows were no longer there. Theyhad moved away the week before, not only from their apartment but fromParis; and Miss Viner's breach with Mrs. Murrett had been too sudden topermit her letter and telegram to overtake them. Both communications,no doubt, still reposed in a pigeon-hole of the loge; but its custodian,when drawn from his lair, sulkily declined to let Miss Viner verify thefact, and only flung out, in return for Darrow's bribe, the statementthat the Americans had gone to Joigny.

  To pursue them there at that hour was manifestly impossible, and MissViner, disturbed but not disconcerted by this new obstacle, had quitesimply acceded to Darrow's suggestion that she should return for whatremained of the night to the hotel where he had sent his luggage.

  The drive back through the dark hush before dawn, with the nocturnalblaze of the Boulevard fading around them like the false lights ofa magician's palace, had so played on her impressionability that sheseemed to give no farther thought to her own predicament. Darrow noticedthat she did not feel the beauty and mystery of the spectacle as muchas its pressure of human significance, all its hidden implicationsof emotion and adventure. As they passed the shadowy colonnade of theFrancais, remote and temple-like in the paling lights, he felt a clutchon his arm, and heard the cry: "There are things THERE that I want sodesperately to see!" and all the way back to the hotel she continued toquestion him, with shrewd precision and an artless thirst for detail,about the theatrical life of Paris. He was struck afresh, as helistened, by the way in which her naturalness eased the situation ofconstraint, leaving to it only a pleasant savour of good fellowship. Itwas the kind of episode that one might, in advance, have characterizedas "awkward", yet that was proving, in the event, as much outside suchdefinitions as a sunrise stroll with a dryad in a dew-drenched forest;and Darrow reflected that mankind would never have needed to invent tactif it had not first invented social complications.

  It had been understood, with his good-night to Miss Viner, that the nextmorning he was to look up the Joigny trains, and see her safely tothe station; but, while he breakfasted and waited for a time-table, herecalled again her cry of joy at the prospect of seeing Cerdine. It wascertainly a pity, since that most elusive and incalculable of artistswas leaving the next week for South America, to miss what might be alast sight of her in her greatest part; and Darrow, having dressed andmade the requisite excerpts from the time-table, decided to carry theresult of his deliberations to his neighbour's door.

  It instantly opened at his knock, and she came forth looking as if shehad been plunged into some sparkling element which had curled up all herdrooping tendrils and wrapped her in a shimmer of fresh leaves.

  "Well, what do you think of me?" she cried; and with a hand at her waistshe spun about as if to show off some miracle of Parisian dress-making.

  "I think the missing trunk has come--and that it was worth waiting for!"

  "You DO like my dress?"

  "I adore it! I always adore new dresses--why, you don't mean to say it'sNOT a new one?"

  She laughed out her triumph.

  "No, no, no! My trunk hasn't come, and this is only my old rag ofyesterday--but I never knew the trick to fail!" And, as he stared: "Yousee," she joyously explained, "I've always had to dress in all kinds ofdreary left-overs, and sometimes, when everybody else was smart andnew, it used to make me awfully miserable. So one day, when Mrs. Murrettdragged me down unexpectedly to fill a place at dinner, I suddenlythought I'd try spinning around like that, and say to every one: 'WELL,WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ME?' And, do you know, they were all taken in,including Mrs. Murrett, who didn't recognize my old turned and dyedrags, and told me afterward it was awfully bad form to dress as if Iwere somebody that people would expect to know! And ever since, wheneverI've particularly wanted to look nice, I've just asked people what theythought of my new frock; and they're always, always taken in!"

  She
dramatized her explanation so vividly that Darrow felt as if hispoint were gained.

  "Ah, but this confirms your vocation--of course," he cried, "you mustsee Cerdine!" and, seeing her face fall at this reminder of the changein her prospects, he hastened to set forth his plan. As he did so, hesaw how easy it was to explain things to her. She would either accepthis suggestion, or she would not: but at least she would waste no timein protestations and objections, or any vain sacrifice to the idols ofconformity. The conviction that one could, on any given point, almostpredicate this of her, gave him the sense of having advanced far enoughin her intimacy to urge his arguments against a hasty pursuit of herfriends.

  Yes, it would certainly be foolish--she at once agreed--in the caseof such dear indefinite angels as the Farlows, to dash off after themwithout more positive proof that they were established at Joigny, andso established that they could take her in. She owned it was but tooprobable that they had gone there to "cut down", and might be doing soin quarters too contracted to receive her; and it would be unfair, onthat chance, to impose herself on them unannounced. The simplest way ofgetting farther light on the question would be to go back to the rue dela Chaise, where, at that more conversable hour, the concierge might beless chary of detail; and she could decide on her next step in the lightof such facts as he imparted.

  Point by point, she fell in with the suggestion, recognizing, in thelight of their unexplained flight, that the Farlows might indeed be in asituation on which one could not too rashly intrude. Her concern for herfriends seemed to have effaced all thought of herself, and this littleindication of character gave Darrow a quite disproportionate pleasure.She agreed that it would be well to go at once to the rue de la Chaise,but met his proposal that they should drive by the declaration that itwas a "waste" not to walk in Paris; so they set off on foot through thecheerful tumult of the streets.

  The walk was long enough for him to learn many things about her. Thestorm of the previous night had cleared the air, and Paris shone inmorning beauty under a sky that was all broad wet washes of white andblue; but Darrow again noticed that her visual sensitiveness was lesskeen than her feeling for what he was sure the good Farlows--whom healready seemed to know--would have called "the human interest." Sheseemed hardly conscious of sensations of form and colour, or of anyimaginative suggestion, and the spectacle before them--always, inits scenic splendour, so moving to her companion--broke up, under herscrutiny, into a thousand minor points: the things in the shops, thetypes of character and manner of occupation shown in the passing faces,the street signs, the names of the hotels they passed, the motleybrightness of the flower-carts, the identity of the churches and publicbuildings that caught her eye. But what she liked best, he divined, wasthe mere fact of being free to walk abroad in the bright air, hertongue rattling on as it pleased, while her feet kept time to the mightyorchestration of the city's sounds. Her delight in the fresh air, inthe freedom, light and sparkle of the morning, gave him a sudden insightinto her stifled past; nor was it indifferent to him to perceivehow much his presence evidently added to her enjoyment. If only as asympathetic ear, he guessed what he must be worth to her. The girlhad been dying for some one to talk to, some one before whom she couldunfold and shake out to the light her poor little shut-away emotions.Years of repression were revealed in her sudden burst of confidence; andthe pity she inspired made Darrow long to fill her few free hours to thebrim.

  She had the gift of rapid definition, and his questions as to the lifeshe had led with the Farlows, during the interregnum between the Hokeand Murrett eras, called up before him a queer little corner of Parisianexistence. The Farlows themselves--he a painter, she a "magazinewriter"--rose before him in all their incorruptible simplicity: anelderly New England couple, with vague yearnings for enfranchisement,who lived in Paris as if it were a Massachusetts suburb, and dwelthopefully on the "higher side" of the Gallic nature. With equalvividness she set before him the component figures of the circle fromwhich Mrs. Farlow drew the "Inner Glimpses of French Life" appearingover her name in a leading New England journal: the Roumanian lady whohad sent them tickets for her tragedy, an elderly French gentlemanwho, on the strength of a week's stay at Folkestone, translated Englishfiction for the provincial press, a lady from Wichita, Kansas, whoadvocated free love and the abolition of the corset, a clergyman'swidow from Torquay who had written an "English Ladies' Guide to ForeignGalleries" and a Russian sculptor who lived on nuts and was "almostcertainly" an anarchist. It was this nucleus, and its outer ringof musical, architectural and other American students, which posedsuccessively to Mrs. Farlow's versatile fancy as a centre of "UniversityLife", a "Salon of the Faubourg St. Germain", a group of Parisian"Intellectuals" or a "Cross-section of Montmartre"; but even her facultyfor extracting from it the most varied literary effects had not sufficedto create a permanent demand for the "Inner Glimpses", and therewere days when--Mr. Farlow's landscapes being equally unmarketable--atemporary withdrawal to the country (subsequently utilized as "Peepsinto Chateau Life") became necessary to the courageous couple.

  Five years of Mrs. Murrett's world, while increasing Sophy's tendernessfor the Farlows, had left her with few illusions as to their power ofadvancing her fortunes; and she did not conceal from Darrow thather theatrical projects were of the vaguest. They hung mainly on theproblematical good-will of an ancient comedienne, with whom Mrs. Farlowhad a slight acquaintance (extensively utilized in "Stars of the FrenchFootlights" and "Behind the Scenes at the Francais"), and who had once,with signs of approval, heard Miss Viner recite the Nuit de Mai.

  "But of course I know how much that's worth," the girl broke off, withone of her flashes of shrewdness. "And besides, it isn't likely that apoor old fossil like Mme. Dolle could get anybody to listen to her now,even if she really thought I had talent. But she might introduce me topeople; or at least give me a few tips. If I could manage to earn enoughto pay for lessons I'd go straight to some of the big people and workwith them. I'm rather hoping the Farlows may find me a chance of thatkind--an engagement with some American family in Paris who would want tobe 'gone round' with like the Hokes, and who'd leave me time enough tostudy."

  In the rue de la Chaise they learned little except the exact addressof the Farlows, and the fact that they had sub-let their flat beforeleaving. This information obtained, Darrow proposed to Miss Viner thatthey should stroll along the quays to a little restaurant looking out onthe Seine, and there, over the plat du jour, consider the next stepto be taken. The long walk had given her cheeks a glow indicative ofwholesome hunger, and she made no difficulty about satisfying it inDarrow's company. Regaining the river they walked on in the directionof Notre Dame, delayed now and again by the young man's irresistibletendency to linger over the bookstalls, and by his ever-fresh responseto the shifting beauties of the scene. For two years his eyes had beensubdued to the atmospheric effects of London, to the mysterious fusionof darkly-piled city and low-lying bituminous sky; and the transparencyof the French air, which left the green gardens and silvery stones soclassically clear yet so softly harmonized, struck him as having a kindof conscious intelligence. Every line of the architecture, every archof the bridges, the very sweep of the strong bright river between them,while contributing to this effect, sent forth each a separate appealto some sensitive memory; so that, for Darrow, a walk through the Parisstreets was always like the unrolling of a vast tapestry from whichcountless stored fragrances were shaken out.

  It was a proof of the richness and multiplicity of the spectacle thatit served, without incongruity, for so different a purpose as thebackground of Miss Viner's enjoyment. As a mere drop-scene for herpersonal adventure it was just as much in its place as in the evocationof great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again perceived whenthey were seated at their table in a low window above the Seine, Pariswas "Paris" by virtue of all its entertaining details, its endlessingenuities of pleasantness. Where else, for instance, could onefind the dear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically-laidanchovies and
radishes, the thin golden shells of butter, or the woodstrawberries and brown jars of cream that gave to their repast the lastrefinement of rusticity? Hadn't he noticed, she asked, that cookingalways expressed the national character, and that French food wasclever and amusing just because the people were? And in private houses,everywhere, how the dishes always resembled the talk--how the verysame platitudes seemed to go into people's mouths and come out of them?Couldn't he see just what kind of menu it would make, if a fairy waved awand and suddenly turned the conversation at a London dinner into jointsand puddings? She always thought it a good sign when people liked Irishstew; it meant that they enjoyed changes and surprises, and taking lifeas it came; and such a beautiful Parisian version of the dish as thenavarin that was just being set before them was like the very best kindof talk--the kind when one could never tell before-hand just what wasgoing to be said!

  Darrow, as he watched her enjoyment of their innocent feast, wondered ifher vividness and vivacity were signs of her calling. She was the kindof girl in whom certain people would instantly have recognized thehistrionic gift. But experience had led him to think that, except at thecreative moment, the divine flame burns low in its possessors. The oneor two really intelligent actresses he had known had struck him, inconversation, as either bovine or primitively "jolly". He had a notionthat, save in the mind of genius, the creative process absorbs toomuch of the whole stuff of being to leave much surplus for personalexpression; and the girl before him, with her changing face and flexiblefancies, seemed destined to work in life itself rather than in any ofits counterfeits.

  The coffee and liqueurs were already on the table when her mind suddenlysprang back to the Farlows. She jumped up with one of her subversivemovements and declared that she must telegraph at once. Darrow calledfor writing materials and room was made at her elbow for the parchedink-bottle and saturated blotter of the Parisian restaurant; but themere sight of these jaded implements seemed to paralyze Miss Viner'sfaculties. She hung over the telegraph-form with anxiously-drawn brow,the tip of the pen-handle pressed against her lip; and at length sheraised her troubled eyes to Darrow's.

  "I simply can't think how to say it."

  "What--that you're staying over to see Cerdine?"

  "But AM I--am I, really?" The joy of it flamed over her face.

  Darrow looked at his watch. "You could hardly get an answer to yourtelegram in time to take a train to Joigny this afternoon, even if youfound your friends could have you."

  She mused for a moment, tapping her lip with the pen. "But I must letthem know I'm here. I must find out as soon as possible if they CAN,have me." She laid the pen down despairingly. "I never COULD write atelegram!" she sighed.

  "Try a letter, then and tell them you'll arrive tomorrow."

  This suggestion produced immediate relief, and she gave an energetic dabat the ink-bottle; but after another interval of uncertain scratchingshe paused again. "Oh, it's fearful! I don't know what on earth to say. Iwouldn't for the world have them know how beastly Mrs. Murrett's been."

  Darrow did not think it necessary to answer. It was no business of his,after all. He lit a cigar and leaned back in his seat, letting his eyestake their fill of indolent pleasure. In the throes of invention shehad pushed back her hat, loosening the stray lock which had invited histouch the night before. After looking at it for a while he stood up andwandered to the window.

  Behind him he heard her pen scrape on.

  "I don't want to worry them--I'm so certain they've got bothers of theirown." The faltering scratches ceased again. "I wish I weren't such anidiot about writing: all the words get frightened and scurry away whenI try to catch them." He glanced back at her with a smile as she bentabove her task like a school-girl struggling with a "composition." Herflushed cheek and frowning brow showed that her difficulty was genuineand not an artless device to draw him to her side. She was reallypowerless to put her thoughts in writing, and the inability seemedcharacteristic of her quick impressionable mind, and of the incessantcome-and-go of her sensations. He thought of Anna Leath's letters, orrather of the few he had received, years ago, from the girl who had beenAnna Summers. He saw the slender firm strokes of the pen, recalled theclear structure of the phrases, and, by an abrupt association of ideas,remembered that, at that very hour, just such a document might beawaiting him at the hotel.

  What if it were there, indeed, and had brought him a completeexplanation of her telegram? The revulsion of feeling produced by thisthought made him look at the girl with sudden impatience. She struck himas positively stupid, and he wondered how he could have wasted half hisday with her, when all the while Mrs. Leath's letter might be lying onhis table. At that moment, if he could have chosen, he would have lefthis companion on the spot; but he had her on his hands, and must acceptthe consequences.

  Some odd intuition seemed to make her conscious of his change of mood,for she sprang from her seat, crumpling the letter in her hand.

  "I'm too stupid; but I won't keep you any longer. I'll go back to thehotel and write there."

  Her colour deepened, and for the first time, as their eyes met, henoticed a faint embarrassment in hers. Could it be that his nearnesswas, after all, the cause of her confusion? The thought turned his vagueimpatience with her into a definite resentment toward himself. There wasreally no excuse for his having blundered into such an adventure. Whyhad he not shipped the girl off to Joigny by the evening train, insteadof urging her to delay, and using Cerdine as a pretext? Paris was fullof people he knew, and his annoyance was increased by the thought thatsome friend of Mrs. Leath's might see him at the play, and report hispresence there with a suspiciously good-looking companion. The idea wasdistinctly disagreeable: he did not want the woman he adored to think hecould forget her for a moment. And by this time he had fully persuadedhimself that a letter from her was awaiting him, and had even gone sofar as to imagine that its contents might annul the writer's telegraphedinjunction, and call him to her side at once...