Running Sands Part 38

Muriel rose.

"For reasons that you cannot understand," she said. "We must go now,"

she added; and she touched Jim's arm. "Come," she said to him; "let's go, Jim."

Stainton turned slowly.

"What's the hurry?" he asked.

"It must be after one o'clock," said Muriel.

"But we are in Montmartre."

"Yes--and we have still a great deal of it to see before daylight, I believe."

Jim rose.

"All right," he said.

The girl put out her hand.

"_S'il vous plait, monsieur_," she said: "_la pet.i.te monnaie_."

Stainton had tried to take the extended hand to bid its owner good-night, but he noticed, before she began to speak, that it was turned palm upward.

"What's this?" he enquired of Muriel.

"My cab-fare," said the visitor in French, and Muriel, vaguely appreciating the fact that here was another custom of the country, translated.

"Give her a five-franc piece," she said. "Something of the sort is evidently expected."

"So I have to pay her for the privilege of buying her champagne?"

laughed Jim. "Ask her what I _am_ paying for. I am curious about this."

"No," said Muriel.

"Do," urged Stainton.

But the girl appeared now to comprehend. She was not embarra.s.sed.

"In brief," she explained, "for my time."

"You pay her," Muriel grudgingly translated, "for her time. But," she concluded, "I wouldn't pay her much, Jim."

"So that's it!" chuckled Stainton. "Oh, well, I don't want to seem stingy after all this discussion of it."

He handed her a ten-franc louis.

The girl's eyes caught the unexpected glint of gold.

"Oh, la-la-la!" she gurgled, and, with what seemed one movement, she pocketed the money; drank to Jim's health; flung her arms about him with a sounding kiss on his mouth, and ran giggling through the folding-doors.

Stainton, tingling with a strange excitement and looking decidedly foolish, gazed at his wife.

"What do you think of that?" he choked.

Muriel stood before him trembling, her black eyes ablaze.

"How _dared_ you?" she demanded.

"_I?_" Jim was still bewildered. "What on earth did _I_ do?"

"And before my very eyes!" said Muriel.

"But, my dear, _I_ didn't do anything. It was the girl----"

"You permitted it."

"I hadn't time to forbid. Besides, it would have been absurd to forbid.

And she meant it as a compliment."

"Not to you. Don't flatter yourself, Jim."

"Well, at any rate, my dear, it is merely another custom of the quarter that we are in. Really, I scarcely think you should object."

"It was the money that she liked, Jim. I think that, as for you, you couldn't have been more absurd even if you had forbidden her."

He quieted her as best he could. They would go, he said, to L'Abbaye, of which their chauffeur had spoken to them; and to L'Abbaye, that most gilded and most brilliant of all the night palaces of Montmartre, they went.

They climbed the crowded stairs and paused for a moment in the doorway, while Jim began to divest himself of his overcoat. Muriel, ahead, was looking into the elaborate room.

Pale green and white it was and loud with laughter and music, with the popping of many corks and the chatter of persons that seemed to have no mission there save the common mission of enjoyment. In the centre was a cleared s.p.a.ce, and there, among handsomely appointed tables, the white waistcoated men and radiantly-gowned women loudly applauding, two Spanish girls in bright costumes were dancing the sensuous mattchiche.

Muriel saw that, at one of the tables nearest the dancers, was a young man who applauded more enthusiastically than any of his neighbours. She saw that the girls observed this and liked it. She saw one girl, with an especially violent embrace, seize her partner, hold her tight for an instant, release her, and then, das.h.i.+ng to the young man, extend her arms, to which the young man sprang amid the tolerant laughter of his companions. Muriel saw the Spanish girl and the young man continue the dance.

Quickly she wheeled to her husband.

"I don't want to go in here," she said.

"What?" Jim was utterly dumfounded.

She caught the lapels of his coat and held him, with his back to the room, in the position that he had thus far maintained.

"I say that I don't want to go in. Take me away. Here, these are the stairs. I'm tired. It's vulgar. I'm not well."

She released her hold of him and started to descend alone. He was forced to follow with hardly the chance to get his coat and hat.

In the motor-car she grasped his face in her hot hands and fell, between sobs, to kissing him.