THE taxi went up the hill, passed the lighted square, then on into the dark, still climbing, then levelled out onto a dark street behind St. Etienne du Mont, went smoothly down the asphalt, passed the trees and the standing bus at the Place de la Contrescarpe, then turned onto the cobbles of the Rue Mouffetard. There were lighted bars and late open shops on each side of the street. We were sitting apart and we jolted close together going down the old street. Brett’s hat was off. Her head was back. I saw her face in the lights from the open shops, then it was dark, then I saw her face clearly as we came out on the Avenue des Gobelins. The street was torn up and men were working on the car-tracks by the light of acetylene flares. Brett’s face was white and the long line of her neck showed in the bright light of the flares. The street was dark again and I kissed her. Our lips were tight together and then she turned away and pressed against the corner of the seat, as far away as she could get. Her head was down.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “Please don’t touch me.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t stand it.”
“Oh, Brett.”
“You mustn’t. You must know. I can’t stand it, that’s all. Oh, darling, please understand!”
“Don’t you love me?”
“Love you? I simply turn all to jelly when you touch me.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do about it?”
She was sitting up now. My arm was around her and she was leaning back against me, and we were quite calm. She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else’s eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.
“And there’s not a damn thing we could do,” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to go through that hell again.”
“We’d better keep away from each other.”
“But, darling, I have to see you. It isn’t all that you know.”
“No, but it always gets to be.”
“That’s my fault. Don’t we pay for all the things we do, though?”
She had been looking into my eyes all the time. Her eyes had different depths, sometimes they seemed perfectly flat. Now you could see all the way into them.
“When I think of the hell I’ve put chaps through. I’m paying for it all now.”
“Don’t talk like a fool,” I said. “Besides, what happened to me is supposed to be funny. I never think about it.”
“Oh, no. I’ll lay you don’t.”
“‘Well, let’s shut up about it.”
“I laughed about it too, myself, once.” She wasn’t looking at me. “A friend of my brother’s came home that way from Mons. It seemed like a hell of a joke. Chaps never know anything, do they?”
“No,” I said. “Nobody ever knows anything.”
I was pretty well through with the subject. At one time or another I had probably considered it from most of its various angles, including the one that certain injuries or imperfections are a subject of merriment while remaining quite serious for the person possessing them.
“It’s funny,” I said. “It’s very funny. And it’s a lot of fun, too, to be in love.”
“Do you think so?” her eyes looked flat again.
“I don’t mean fun that way. In a way it’s an enjoyable feeling.”
“No,” she said. “I think it’s hell on earth.”
“It’s good to see each other.”
“No. I don’t think it is.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“I have to.”
We were sitting now like two strangers. On the right was the Parc Montsouris. The restaurant where they have the pool of live trout and where you can sit and look out over the park was closed and dark. The driver leaned his head around.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked. Brett turned her head away.
“Oh, go to the Select.”
“Café Select,” I told the driver. “Boulevard Montparnasse.” We drove straight down, turning around the Lion de Belfort that guards the passing Montrouge trams. Brett looked straight ahead. On the Boulevard Raspail, with the lights of Montparnasse in sight, Brett said: “Would you mind very much if I asked you to do something?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Kiss me just once more before we get there.”
When the taxi stopped I got out and paid. Brett came out putting on her hat. She gave me her hand as she stepped down. Her hand was shaky. “I say, do I look too much of a mess?” She pulled her man’s felt hat down and started in for the bar. Inside, against the bar and at tables, were most of the crowd who had been at the dance.
“Hello, you chaps,” Brett said. “I’m going to have a drink.”
“Oh, Brett! Brett!” the little Greek portrait-painter, who called himself a duke, and whom everybody called Zizi, pushed up to her. “I got something fine to tell you.”
“Hello, Zizi,” Brett said.
“I want you to meet a friend,” Zizi said. A fat man came up.
“Count Mippipopolous, meet my friend Lady Ashley.”
“How do you do?” said Brett.
“Well, does your Ladyship have a good time here in Paris?” asked Count Mippipopolous, who wore an elk’s tooth on his watch-chain.
“Rather,” said Brett.
“Paris is a fine town all right,” said the count. “But I guess you have pretty big doings yourself over in London.”
“Oh, yes,” said Brett. “Enormous.”