III
The first faint breath of spring was in the air, bringing daffodils to the flower-stalls of Paris. Once again Mary’s young cherry tree in the garden was pushing out leaves and tiny pink buds along the whole length of its childish branches.
Then Martin wrote: “Stephen, where can I see you? It must be alone. Better not at your house, I think, if you don’t mind, because of Mary.”
She appointed the place. They would meet at the Auberge du Vieux Logis in the Rue Lepic. They two would meet there on the following evening. When she left the house without saying a word, Mary thought she was going to Valérie Seymour.
Stephen sat down at a table in the corner to await Martin’s coming—she herself was early. The table was gay with a new check cloth—red and white, white and red, she counted the squares, tracing them carefully out with her finger. The woman behind the bar nudged her companion: “En voilà une originale—et quelle cicatrice, bon Dieu!” The scar across Stephen’s pale face stood out livid.
Martin came and sat quietly down at her side, ordering some coffee for appearances’ sake. For appearances’ sake, until it was brought, they smiled at each other and made conversation. But when the waiter had turned away, Martin said: “It’s all over—you’ve beaten me, Stephen … The bond was too strong.”
Their unhappy eyes met as she answered: “I tried to strengthen that bond.”
He nodded: “I know … Well, my dear, you succeeded.” Then he said: “I’m leaving Paris next week;” and in spite of his effort to be calm his voice broke, “Stephen … do what you can to take care of Mary …”
She found that she was holding his hand. Or was it someone else who sat there beside him, who looked into his sensitive, troubled face, who spoke such queer words?
“No, don’t go—not yet.”
“But I don’t understand …”
“You must trust me, Martin.” And now she heard herself speaking very gravely: “Would you trust me enough to do anything I asked, even although it seemed rather strange? Would you trust me if I said that I asked it for Mary, for her happiness?”
His fingers tightened: “Before God, yes. You know that I’d trust you!”
“Very well then, don’t leave Paris—not now.”
“You really want me to stay on, Stephen?”
“Yes, I can’t explain.”
He hesitated, then he suddenly seemed to come to a decision: “All right … I’ll do whatever you ask me.”
They paid for their coffee and got up to leave: “Let me come as far as the house,” he pleaded.
But she shook her head: “No, no, not now. I’ll write to you … very soon … Goodbye, Martin.”
She watched him hurrying down the street, and when he was finally lost in its shadows, she turned slowly and made her own way up the hill, past the garish lights of the Moulin de la Galette. Its pitiful sails revolved in the wind, eternally grinding out petty sins—dry chaff blown in from the gutters of Paris. And after a while, having breasted the hill, she must climb a dusty flight of stone steps, and push open a heavy, slow-moving door; the door of the mighty temple of faith that keeps its anxious but tireless vigil.
She had no idea why she was doing this thing, or what she would say to the silver Christ with one hand on His heart and the other held out in a patient gesture of supplication. The sound of praying, monotonous, low, insistent, rose up from those who prayed with extended arms, with crucified arms—like the tides of an ocean it swelled and receded and swelled again, bathing the shores of heaven.
They were calling upon the Mother of God: “Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu, priez pour nous, pauvres pêcheurs, maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort.”
“Et à l’heure de notre mort,” Stephen heard herself repeating.
He looked terribly weary, the silver Christ: “But then He always looks tired,” she thought vaguely; and she stood there without finding anything to say, embarrassed as one so frequently is in the presence of somebody else’s sorrow. For herself she felt nothing, neither pity nor regret; she was curiously empty of all sensation, and after a little she left the church, to walk on through the windswept streets of Montmartre.