Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/506

 much like the one Lucy had worn at the Bison Ball, and solaced only by the thought that, with Horta's aid, and Nick Allwood being considerate, she soon would be a princess.

Vermillion saw Lucy off at the train and for a wild moment as they kissed she determined not to go.

His voice had faltered after the toy whistle warned departure, and as Beman, on the step of the compartment, fussed.

"Don't stay away too long," Paul said,—but not "don't go," she thought mournfully. He wasn't sure about her, just as she never used to be sure. But she was sure now. But how could she tell him? She couldn't. He'd have to tell her, for himself to be sure. Now isn't this the craziest thing, to come to Paris and find out that if you are in love you feel like a mother and mistress at the same time for the man who makes you feel he is your father, brother, lover, and friend?

A sense of loss numbed Vermillion as she drew in her head and disappeared. What an idiot! He looked about him angrily. Everyone and everything was empty. What had happened to the essence that fooled people into believing Paris the ideal mistress? It was nothing but a grubby conglomeration rotting away in its filthy history. He went back to his room and opened the window to air out the torment of her perfume and, as the Seine's night vapors took its place, tried to get her back, at least on paper. But she eluded him because his desire for her and image of her beauty tightened his line in the fear that he might omit some nuance of her being. Scarcely a way to draw, being afraid to make a mistake! Or a way to live, for that matter. Rules for living for nitwits, and he was No. 1. Was it vanity of being merely another in her procession, or the doubts left by the acrid aftermath of Simone? Or was it fear of the responsibility of taking on another life when he couldn't even manage to support his own?

Restless in his room, he returned to the same restaurant for dinner and ordered the night before's identical menu.

"How are you, Vermillion?" an acquaintance hailed.

"Soft in the head." 494