He certainly did not feel he could return to Dublin to face Rowden’s curiosity, whetted by some likely communication from the Italian friend. The one thing that tempted was the chance to see Carey again, but even this did not preponderate till after a certain evening in Paris. He had gone alone to a performance of the Magic Flute; he did not as a rule care for operas, because he found their dramatic foolishness hard to take, but this was a superlative blend of music and spectacle that made everything else forgettable and therefore tolerable; he sat entranced, and later, strolling along a boulevard, suddenly realized that not to see Carey again, not to follow up their relationship, would be like avoiding Mozart because one had once been bored by Bizet. At a sidewalk café he stopped for a drink, the goggle-eyed American in Paris to all misleading appearance; for in truth he was lost in abstractions that soon became self-incredulous—how UNLIKELY that a seventeen-year-old Irish girl whom he had talked to for no more than a few hours could not only have occupied his mind since then, but could now reach out to touch the troubled parts of it! It occurred to him also, and as an afterthought, that no one before had so attracted him by sheerly feminine qualities—the lilt of her voice from the first word of that first encounter, her lips twisting when she smiled, even the piquantly all-wrong quality she had given to a small stage part (the director’s fault, not hers). But most of all, and never an afterthought, was the mystery she shared with all (and how few they were) who had it in them to make a finger-point of contact with life through art —a feminine, creative mystery, the secret nerve that could break down every withholding in himself, whether from man or woman.

He wrote again that night, telling her whimsically that Mussolini had refused to have anything to do with him, so he would soon have to return to America, his travel fellowship year being almost over; but he would like to see her again before that. He didn’t think he would revisit Dublin, but if by any chance she could travel part of the way—to Holyhead, perhaps, or Liverpool… of course he could well imagine there might be circumstances to prevent that, and he would fully understand, but still, if it were at all possible to arrange a rendezvous…

Even while he was writing he knew that part of him was counting on a negative answer or none at all, a rock-ribbed alibi for the rest of his life, so that he could always tell himself he had done his best, he had asked her anyway, it was fate and not he that had foreclosed. But at this the battle was joined again, the feeling in his bones against the arguments of his brain. Eventually he tore up the letter and wrote another, shorter and much more urgent; he told her he MUST see her again; he would come to Dublin if necessary and if she were still there, but if not, then somehow, somewhere, ANYWHERE…

By return came a note as short as his own. Legal matters, she said, had cropped up in connection with her stepfather’s small estate; there was a lawyer in London she had to visit almost immediately—wouldn’t London be as convenient for a meeting as Dublin?

More so, of course. He left Paris the next morning, having wired her to reach him at the Ellesmere Hotel, Euston Road. It was a cheap but respectable place, all he could afford, and he remembered it because during the war he had worked in an office of the U.S. Army just across from Euston Station. That part of London he knew as well as New York, or Reedsville, Iowa, and for the same reason: he had been lonely there.

* * * * *

The battle continued during his cross-Channel journey; first he was buoyant at the thought of seeing her so soon, then he half regretted having planned the meeting at all. As he entered the gloomy lobby of the Ellesmere Hotel he even hoped for some unavoidable hitch (but it would HAVE to be unavoidable)—perhaps his wire had never been delivered, perhaps her own London trip had been cancelled. Yet when, at the desk, he asked if there had been any enquiries for him and was told no, he felt acutely dismayed. The dismay increased during the next few hours; he couldn’t think what he would do with himself in London if she did not come; perhaps he ought to wire her in Dublin again. He unpacked in the comfortless third-floor bedroom; once the telephone rang, but it was the manager asking if he were a British subject —“I shouldn’t have bothered you, sir, but I noticed you gave an address in New York—we have to keep a record, you know, sir.” Paul had sprung to the instrument with such eagerness that he hardly knew how to reply through the deflation he felt; he stammered: “What’s that? Yes— I mean no—not British… American… By the way, I’m expecting a call —you’re sure there hasn’t been one so far?”

It came much later, about nine o’clock, and he had waited in the bedroom all the time, not caring to go out for dinner—having no appetite, he discovered, and as time passed, not even the inclination to read. He lay on the bed and wondered what was still happening to him—a new experience, and he had always thought he would welcome one, whatever it was; yes, he DID welcome it; all over the world there must be millions of young men concerned, as he was, about a girl; reassuring to find himself like so many others… or WAS he? Suppose someone were to offer him there and then a play to direct, a great play, wouldn’t that have power to preoccupy, to excite, to thrust everything else out of his mind? Wouldn’t it? Or would it? After her first words—“Paul, is that you?”—he knew the answer; by God yes, it’s I, it’s me, bring on the play, bring on a thousand plays, here I am, Paul Saffron, you haven’t heard of me yet, but you will, you WILL…

“Carey… Where are you?”

“I didn’t know when you’d arrive—I’ve only just got here myself —the train was late… Oh, darling, it’s so good to hear your voice again.”

“It IS? YOU feel like that too?… Carey, I… I’ve so many things to ask… Where’re you staying? How long will you be in London? I want to see a lot of you… I do hope you won’t be busy all the time…”

“As much as you want—it’ll be several days at least. I’m staying with an aunt at Putney.”

“PUTNEY?”

“That’s not far out. About an hour… Oh no, I’m not there yet—I’m at the station—Euston—I told you—I’ve only just arrived—”

“EUSTON?… Then what are we wasting time like this for? Just across the street! Listen, Carey—under the clock in the station hall… got that?… A couple of minutes…”

He hung up, raced down the stairs rather than ring for the crawling lift, and on his way across the lobby called out to the clerk in sheer exuberance: “Yes, I’m American—what do I have to do—register with the police or something?”

“No, sir—just for our records. Was that the call you were expecting?”

He snapped out a “You bet” that was lost in the segments of the revolving door.

Crossing the Euston Road (and it was drizzling with rain as it had been so many times before), he thought of Dante’s saying that the bitterest of all pangs was to remember happier days; put that in reverse and it was equally true, for there was actual relish now in thinking of the war year that he had spent so safely and drearily in London. Not that it had been London’s fault; he had liked the people and the city too, so far as it belonged to them in his mind and not to the associations of army life. That he had hated, utterly and absolutely, more probably than he would or could hate anything else in life. The little square where the hut had been was now just a square again, rain-drenched lawns covering so much drab and unrecorded experience; he could still call back the smell of that interior, its mixture of stale smoke, gas heaters, chewing gum, human sweat. Men had swarmed in continuously from the great near-by terminals—Euston, St. Paneras, King’s Cross; and it had been his job (the snob job, given him because of his better education, forsooth!) to handle the officers, telling them where they had been allotted rooms, what to see in London during a few days’ leave, the best shows, where to find the best women. (Much joking about that, especially from an angle neither flattering to him nor true about him—but what could he do, or say? So he had joined in the laughs, Pagliacci-style.) It was all so ‘cushy’, to use the overworked British adjective then current—‘cushy’ to sit out the war in London with a telephone in one hand and filing cabinets within reach of the other—practically a hotel clerk in uniform, humorously servile, falsely jocular. He and a dozen other clerks took turns at the job, day and night; they fed at a canteen and slept on army cots in a commandeered boarding-house in Southampton Row. They had varicose veins, weak hearts, hernias; he had his pituitary trouble. They were decent fellows, and he tried to conceal from them his passionate hope that when the war was over he would never see any of them again. Once or twice there were air raids, spicing the routine with excitement rather than danger—Zeppelins like silver cigars in the blue-black sky.