Chapter I

Except her hands and feet; Alma has such pretty bare feet. Keith was the only other person I ever knew who had smooth shapely feet like a child. Wasted on a man ... Only her back is as lovely as ever. The in2 NEVER ASK THE END nocent and the beautiful h(Jv~ no ~nemy but time. Her hair seems even blacker, Indian black. It's the Scotch blood; her eyes are the color of cairngorms, and the classic almond shape; but you can see she's cried so nluch • . • By her mouth, the contour of her face Isadora Duncan's face went like that. It's queer; the children, too .•. I wouldn't; I ran away. When you're the odd one of nine, that's enough; you can't go on with it. But then you run into something else. Maybe it all comes to the same thing in the end; what ever you do, you're just yourself; though I'd sooner have gone on the street-no, but a scrubwoman, any kind of work· ... "Don't be a goop. He invited you; said he'd be de lighted," Marta repeated.

"Why should he? A middle-aged woman from the Middle West." Accuracywas sacrificed to the phrase. "Well, Russ is a middle-aged man from the Middle West," which was true. ((Wait and meet him. Then if you'd rather not come, you can make your own excuse. You'111ike Russ. He's nice." "He's your friend; it's you he wants to see." "We belonged to the same crowd. But he was Nonie Macray's beau,' ,not mine. I haven't seen him for six years. He went to China for the company, and after ward they sent him over here. He told Nonie to tell me to look him up; that's all." She thought: neither of us ever said a word about that night coming back from Brooklyn, in Alma's car.

NEVER ASK THE END 3 It was disgraceful ... I wonder if he did go to the Waldorf next morning? For breakfast~ at twelve o'clock ... I didn't; I was afraid he wouldn't be there. And if he had, I wouldn't have known what ... Alma said he wouldn't. I suppose Alma could hear the non sense we talked; Nonie had a pretty good idea of it, I'm sure. It doesn't matter now. Good heavens, it's seven, no, over eight years ago. When he took me home from Alma's, months afterward, he asked me if I wanted supper at a restaurant. I meant to explain, find out-what was I going to explain? that I did mean it or didn't? both-I wished we were friends-but we just made conversation, hardly looked at one another; it seemed to me that whatever I said would make it worse, for maybe te hadn't even remembered it next morning, or would rather not be reminded. And that was the only time we met except in a crowd. Well, one does a lot of fool things, and it's so long ago .•. He's probably got a girl over here; why not? ... I'd better hurry.

She had nothing to wear, after ten days in Paris. It was ridiculous, 'insane. The new styles were impos sible; just her luck. She would have to give away that purple flowered mistake. There was nothing for it but her old white one, washed to a rag. And the straw hat, all wilted by the sea-air. White looks cool and clean, at least.... My face, she mused before the mirror, is a wreck. Not the kind that wears well after thirty. From five to twenty-five there was hardly any differ... NEVER ASK THE END ence-that old photograph, all the family in a row, and me scowling in cross-barred muslin and a broken-necked carnation pinned to it, with mamma holding up my head . . . When I had any color it wasn't too bad, a moon face, but I was always pale. Alma)s features are modelled right on the bone; that's why she stays so young. I don't think I look as old as Pauline; but then I wouldn't think so. People don't see themselves; they don't want to. The lines around my eyes come out when I laugh. And under my chin-l wonder if they really can do anything-not that stretched, mummy effectI guess not .••I hate growing old. I hate it.

Death is nothing. I wasn't beautiful like Pauline, but sort of a cute snub-nosed brat. Since I've had some thing to eat my figure is better-it never was much and legs are so important-but if I put on any more I'll probably have a double chin; I simply can't endure it. Pauline was already dressed, in navy georgette, the type of gown that abounds at women's club receptions; she had no sense of her own style. She put on her hat and walked about restlessly. The telephone buzzed. "Yes, please ask Mr. Girard to come up." Hearing the click of the elevator grille, Marta ran out, knotting her sash hurriedly. She did want to meet him alone, though there was no reason. Only for a minute. Pauline would never have forgiven her for a solitary evening. Besides, it would be mean. You could always manage Pauline with a little patience, saying very well but wait and see, try it, then if you don't want to you needn't ...

NEVER ASK THE END 5 If she hadn't been like that, worn me down when I wanted to brood over my broken heart, I'd never have married Keith . • . I lost my head, went cuckoo sud denly ... Dusk had crept through the hall; perhaps it was that that made such a friendly atmosphere, through which they moved toward one another, making it natural and simple for him to put his arm around her, while she lifted her face spontaneously for his light kiss. "I'm so glad to see you," the words chimed as· they spoke at once. "Nonie said you'd got fat," she exclaimed, "but you haven't." Then she was sorry; she shouldn't have quoted NO,nie. It sounded catty. No, he was just perceptibly heavier; he walked like a tired man, but he had not thickened at the waist-line. Of middle 'height, with the smooth unrevealing features of the business man, there was nothing distinctive about him except that his eyes should have been dark, and they were not. His mouth was expressive in its reserve; the full lips closed firmly, sensual and sweet •.. She thought, he has a cold, isn't feeling very well ..• She made-the introduction with the brevity char acteristic of a nation without titles or labels, which has almost dropped the last perfunctory honorific, leaving everything to private judgment. Pauline Gardiner, Russell Girard, Marta Brown • • • As is, no commit tals ...

Pauline sat down with decision. She had always the air of a great lady, wherever she had got it. She be6 NEVER ASK THE END longed wonderfully with the traditional French in terior, the brocaded armchairs, tall windows, and heavy crimson damask curtains. I don't, thought Marta, slip ping on her rings and despairing over her hat; but where would I? ... No, they had not dined in the Bois; it would be heavenly. Pauline had almost per ished of the heat. "If I tell her again it's nothing to New York, she'll kill me. You tell her how much hotter it is in Italy." He had come up from Milan. He smiled, and refrained. "I'm ready," Marta an nounced, and sprung a friendly trap. "Now you are coming, Pauline? ... She was fussing about being gooseberry. " "Of course she is coming," Russ said in his kind, grave VOIce. "Try to stop me," Pauline said. Armenonville? They had been there for ices. "But we passed a place called l'Ermitage," Marta stumbled over the pronunciation, "that looked even better. More woodsy." Russ agreed. He didn't profess to know his way around Paris. "I get here only for a day or so at a time. ] wish we had our head office here instead of at Antwerp~" What was Antwerp like? He was vague, as if it meant nothing to him personally. The main factory was there, because it was a great port and skilled workmen available; a survival of the old Free Cities, "where the merchants were the kings."

As their taxi shot through the dusty dazzle of the Champs Elysees they shielded their eyes against the NEVER ASK THE END 7 sunset and were grateful to reach the urban greenery of the Bois. Among the trees of l'Ermitage the lights were already lit, blanching t~e undersides of the leaves. The crunch of gravel under her thin sandals gave Marta a sense of the impermanence of pleasure. It touched some memory, she couldn't think exactly what. . . . She speculated, could she have champagne? If Russ could afford it ..• He suggested it himself. They were in the mood to be amused. At an adjoin ing table a man entertained ladies of his party with satiric pantomime. He dabbed with an imaginary lip stick, surveyed himself in a nonexistent mirror, patted his hair, laid on invisible rouge and powdered his nose intently. "He overlooked a bet." Marta extracted her van ity case, an elegant trifle in green enamel with a gold monogram. "1 must keep it in employment; it's a present; I never had one before." So many things she never had, she was half afraid of luxuries. Many things she would never have; it was too late. A doll with real hair-as a little girl, she had ached for one. She hadn't prayed; she knew better. And she never asked; she understood how it would hurt her mother not to be able to give it; they were really poor. When she left home at not quite eighteen, to go to work, all her possessions were packed in one meagre canvas telescope bag, and room enough. . . . Replacing the minuscule powder puff, she licked her finger tip and swept it across her lashes, for the benefit of the mimic.

8 NEVER ASK THE END They abandoned themselves to a giggling fit.. ((Look at that woman with the miserable dog on her lap, feed ing it from her own plate," Pauline remarked. "Give me one more glass of champagne and I'll go over and abolish it." "She will, if we don't restrain her," said Marta. "Wauld you believe she had never tasted wine till we got on the boat? I made her drink one glass; before it was half finished she said: 'Let's order another bot tIe.'" Not but that Pauline had reason for abstinence, Marta reflected. Her husband was a periodical dipso maniac, drank himself to death. Pauline laughed. What one could survive-that wasn't the worst. She mustn't think about the children. George's death was a relief, though she wished he had lived five years longer. He was making money, after a heartbreaking stretch of anxious poverty. Everybody was broke out there, during the war; he had plenty of ability. And he had been decent about his will, leaving what there was to her without conditions. While he was alive he was wearingly jealous. It was George's money that was giving her this evening. There was just enough, so what she earned allowed a margin of ease. "Can you imagine," she said, "when we were liv ing in Carberry-one of those horrible prairie towns George hid a case of champagne in the woodshed, and it froze. Thirty below zero. Every last bottle burst.

And I didn't Care. I could weep to think of it." He used to hide stuff allover the place; a silly performNEVER ASK THK END 9 anee, she was bound to find it. Sometimes she threw it away, more often she left it alone disgustedly. He'd get more, and it cost money. "We'll make up for it now." Russ signalled the waiter. The two women looked at each other. They didn't want to exploit him. Pauline thought, why should he buy champagne for me, a total stranger he never saw before and never will again-no, I hope we'll see him again, I hope he likes me. Marta thought: Russ used to be rather hard up, and this place is quite expensive; the bill will be millions of francs. I can't figure it in my head; but it was he who suggested the Bois. Another time, we'll be more careful, not let him in for it. Russ said: "I'm entitled to a party. Yesterday they made me chief technical director for all Europe." ('Oh!" They regarded him with the unenvious ad miration of women for a man's success. "Isn't that gorgeous? You run the whole show?"

"Only the engineering side. Not the financing, the general management." They exclaimed again, delighted for the moment as if it were their own good fortune. ((And to think that I knew you when you were only a poor boy," Marta said. "It's funny-I never knew exactly what your job was, except the name of your company; but you must be an electrical engineer." "'I must be; I took a year's course. I'd heard you could get a job as soon as you graduated) at twelve 10 N EVE R ASK THE END dollars a week. That was a lot of money. Better than helping Saturday afternoons in the grocery store. Or driving a team of mules with a construction gang; I tried that once in the holidays. The mules didn't like me either." They all remembered, astonished not by their beginnings but by the fact that they were here, together. "Certainly, it's a vast sum," Marta agreed. "I got twenty dollars a. month, as a waitress. But ~ before that, when 1 was seventeen, I was working on the railroad, too. Cooked for ten days for a gang of section hands, and lost ten pounds' weight. I was visit ing the wife of the section boss, and she broke her arm falling down .the cellar steps with a lemon pie. She gave me four dollars and fifty cents, the first money I ever had. So this is Paris! Did you go out as a trouble-shooter, spurs and all?"

"Yes. When I'm tired I dream I have them on yet." Dreams were queer; little bits of the past com ing back to claim you. "And when young men ask how you rose in the world, you say, by climbing a telegraph pole," Pauline commented. "1 must tell my son about it. He wor ships success." •••An orchestra began to discourse jazz.. In the open air, the tune was sweetly sad. ,cOh, I should like to dance," said Marta. "Do you dance as much as you used to?" "N0, I've about given it up." "Given up dancing?" She was shocked. He had been the best dancer in the old crowd. He said nothing.

NEV,ER ASK THE END 11 "YQu've hardly touched your champagne," she ob servedout of her bewilderment. ((The doctor tells me I have high blood pressure or something." He was through; the doctor didn't need to tell him that. If he could hold out two years though it didn't matter. When you're tired, nothing matters, except to be let sleep. Waking in the morn ing is the hard part of the day. Once you are up, habit keeps you going. He'd had his 'Warningsix ye'ars ago, .before he went to China, when the insurance company refused him. He had lasted the six years, maybe he could last two more. Then he would have his pension, and a little over--enough. There was a time when it would have made all the difference. Harriet and he might have made a go of it. Maybe not; still he could have given her what she wanted, cleared his own pride. He supposed she had as much right to her ambition as he to his, but you couldn't make a marriage out of two ambitions. This went on in the back of his mind, and being accustomed, didn't spoil the evening. Comfort able to talk to friends again. So many people bored him.

Harriet never did. . . • Pauline was fun, and Brownie as unexpected as she'd always been.. Pauline called her Marta. "You don't live in New York!" he said toPau line. ""'irou and Brownie knew each other out West?" "I've never seen New York. I live in Seattle. Marta and I came off the prairie." She wouldn't call her Brownie. She couldn't. That name still gave a little twist to her nerves. It belonged to K~ith. The 12 N EVE R ASK THE END diamond doublet on Marta's left hand made· a point of light ... "Do you remember, though, it seemed as if we'd always known each other?" she said to Marta. Yes, and nothing had really estranged them, thought Marta; not even Keith, nor George, who wouldn't let Pauline write to her; nor fifteen years of separation. It was strange ... And I've done all the things she wanted to do, and nothing 1 wanted to do myself. "Oh, we should have begged, borrowed or stolen the money and come to Paris then," she sighed. "To think that all this was going on without us! I wish I had dragged you away. How we hated the prairie!" But Pauline was always afraid. Fear is her weakness, Marta thought. And impatience is mine. I break myself try ing to break through. But that's over . . . Pauline said: "I can't bear to think of it. And there's another woman with a dog!" They were helpless with laugh ing. The past too was absurd.

"Would you like to try this on,e-step?" Russ offered politely. Marta stood up. Russ used to be able to dance with anybody. In those days she was too tired. Now he was as tired as she had been; she became aware of it as soon as they were on the floor. He was still easy and sure; but the ardor and vitality were gone. She remembered him catching her hands, pulling her up from the sofa to dance with him. She had wanted to say, no, hold me, let me rest.... He ought to take a long holiday. She said: "I'm sorry; I can't get this tune; it's too tricky for me."

N EVE R ASK THE END 13 The glasses were empty. "No, good heavens," Marta declined, "I've had too much now." Would they like to go on to a cabaret? "We tried Montmartre last night. It was crowded and noisy." Russ was of the same opinion. "I don't like those places much. When Nonie was here I went with her to Montparnasse, the Dome and the Rotonde." "Mobs of queer people, sitting around under those frightful arc-lights, looking at a tom-up street-car track. I'd as soon sit out on the sidewalk on Eighth Avenue, where they're digging the new subway. Nonie is good-natured, and she likes oddity, variety. Could we -could we drive around the Bois on the way home?" The addition, embarrassingly visible in hundred franc notes, still bothered her. "You've got to work tomor row; we haven't." "I'm taking the eleven o'clock train." They were heartbroken to learn that he had come in the night before and called them up-while they were on Mont martre. And that there wouldn't be another evening in the Bois, with the swans glimmering white on the black water and the cool smell of the underwood flow ing in the cab window. In the darkness Russ leaned sidewise and kissed Marta gently, only once. Pauline didn't see. He said: "If you and Pauline are going to England next week, couldn't you come by way of Antwerp? There's a night boat to Harwich. I have to go to London myself,Saturday 1 think, and I'll take you over. Maybe I can't get away till Monday, but 14 N EVE R ASK THE END you might stop over Sunday, though there's nothing much in Antwerp."

"You'll be there," said 'Pauline. She thought, I'm so glad he called me Pauline; now I <:an call him Russ. "Do you mind if I hold your hand, Russ?" Marta laughed. She was quite aware that Pauline had been holding his hand for some minutes. "1 don't mind very much," Russ conceded, amused by his position. He had a. habit of laughing to himself, as children do in. school, hunching his shoulders and lowering his chin. All his mannerisms were inconspicuous, repressed, as if he had been under years of tutelage. "You will come to Antwerp?" "won't we jllst!" "You could stay in my apartment; there is an extra room." They wouldn't impose on him. All right for us, Marta thought, but to have vis~tors for breakfast when you're busy, hurrying to work, is the last camel . • . Besides, he was only being hospitable, didn't mean it ... He did though; lie let it drop, but when they got there, he'd meet them . . .

It was stupid to ask him to come up to their suite for a few minutes at the hotel. But there was no harm in it, and the concierge'ssurly interposition was as in sulting as a slap in the face. Russ said goodnight at once, without comment. Pauline was white with rage. In the elevator, she muttered sincerely:e'l could have killed the wretch." Short of that, there was nothing to be done. Served me right, Marta thought. That's N EVE R ASK THE END IS the second time-idiot. She pouted her lower lip, a gesture of contempt, habitual to her when she caught herself in a lapse of taste or tact. They didn't tip the night concierge when they went away a week later. And they never mentioned the incident again. It was one of those humiliations which are intolerable because so trivial.