Running Sands Part 37

Jim was accustomed to thinking that there was but one real America.

"The United States," said he.

"Ver' well," laughed the girl in an English prettily accented. "Your good 'ealth, sar--and the good 'ealth of mademoiselle."

She raised from the table Jim's goblet of champagne and drank a little.

It was evident that her English was now exhausted.

Jim, frankly puzzled, looked at Muriel.

"What shall we do?" he wondered.

He thought that Muriel would resent the intrusion, but Muriel did not seem to resent it.

"It appears to be the custom," said Muriel again. "I suppose that we had better ask her to sit down and have some champagne."

"Very well," said Stainton, none too willingly. "You ask her, then: the French verb 'to sit' always was too much for me."

Muriel offered the invitation; the visitor laughingly accepted; another bottle was ordered and, while Jim, unable to understand what was being said, leaned over the rail and looked at the dancers, his wife and the vermilion-lipped intruder engaged in an encounter of small-talk that Muriel began by enjoying as an improvement at once of her French and her knowledge of the world.

The visitor, however, so managed the conversation that, though she did give Muriel her address in a little street off the Boulevard Clichy, it was she who was gathering information. She was extremely polite, but extremely inquisitive.

"You have been long in Paris, is it not?" she asked.

"No, not long; only two weeks," said Muriel.

"But in France--no?"

"We came direct to Paris."

"But you speak French well, mademoiselle."

The compliment pleased Muriel to the extent that she missed the t.i.tle applied to her.

"My knowledge of French is very small," she replied. "I studied the language in America."

"In America? Truly? One would never suppose."

"We had a French nun for teacher."

"Yes, yes. And monsieur your sweetheart, he does not speak French--no?"

Muriel started.

"Monsieur," she said, a little stiffly, "is my husband."

But the visitor, far from feeling reprimanded, was openly delighted.

"Your husband?" she echoed. "Very good. He is handsome, your husband."

"I think so," said Muriel.

"And it is always good," pursued the guest, "that the husband be much older than the wife, is it not?"

Instantly Muriel relapsed. She could not know that the girl spoke sincerely. She was among strangers, and, like most of us, instinctively suspected all whose native tongue was not her own.

"He is not much older!" she retorted.

"Oh--but yes. And it is well. It is so that it is most often arranged in France."

"No doubt--but our marriages are not 'arranged' for us in America. We choose for ourselves."

The visitor seemed surprised. She raised her long, high brows and looked from Stainton to Muriel.

"How then," she enquired, "you choose for yourself a man so much older?"

"I say he is _not_ much older, not any older," said Muriel, despising herself for having fallen into such a discussion, yet unable, in an alien language, to disentangle herself.

"But madame is a mere girl," said the visitor, seeking only to be polite.

"And my husband is young also," declared Muriel.

Something in the tone of this repet.i.tion convinced the French girl that the subject was not further to be pursued. She essayed another tack.

"And the babies?" she asked. "Is it that you brought with you the babies?"

Muriel's cheeks warmed again, and she looked away.

"We have no children," she responded, shortly.

"No children?" The visitor plainly considered this unbelievable. "You have no little babies? Then, why to marry?"

"No."

"Not one?"

"We have none."

"But how unhappy, how unfortunate for monsieur! Perhaps soon----"

"We have been married only a short time."

"Ah!" The French girl seemed to rest upon that as the sole reasonable explanation. "Then," she said with a note of encouragement in her tone, "it is not without hope. After a while you will have the babies."

Muriel was angry. She looked to Jim for rescue; but Jim was still leaning over the rail, engrossed in the spectacle presented by the dancers.

"I do not want any children," said Muriel, suddenly.

"No children? You wish no children?" gasped her inquisitor. "You choose to marry, and yet you want no children? But why then did madame marry?"