CHAPTER X

HUNTING APACHES

I was bathing Christine before the fire. Gabry and Esther came in. The two girls settled themselves in steamer chairs.

"We want to know if you will let us come and sleep in your dining-room to-night," asked Esther.

"Sure," I answered, "but, mercy me, the bed in there is a little bit of a narrow one...."

"That doesn't matter," said Gabry.

"No, indeed," agreed Esther. "We can cuddle up close and we shan't be in it very long."

The baby began to howl. I had been listening to the girls and the side of the tub had got hot.

"Poor little dear," said Esther. "Her mother forgot her and she began to parboil."

I had the baby safely on my lap now wrapped in towels. Emilie carried away the bath tub.

"What's going on to-night?" I asked.

"Well, it's a fling," said Esther. "You know how it is up at the Hostel. They are so fussy--you would think it was an old ladies' home. Two boys that came over in our ship have been studying forestry in some German school. They are here for the holidays. We got them to promise to take us with them to-night to see the town--café stuff, you know."

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To a cellar where they do the Apache dance."

"You don't want to see that," I suggested. "It isn't real. Just a plant to catch parties like you. Why Herbert and I saw that stunt done in a cinema the other night. There was a French couple back of us. They giggled over it. The man said, 'Wait a minute. The police are sure to come in after that party of Americans are comfortably settled with some drinks.'"

"You don't mean it," said Esther. "Don't take the edge off our spree."

"I'm not taking off edges. Only in the cinema the other night it was instructive the way the policemen came in. After they had driven out the most murderous dancing Apaches, the Americans thought it was too hot and fled. You ought to have seen the way fake Apaches and barmaids laughed at them afterwards. What is your plan for the night?"

"First to dinner in some spicy café, then the theatre. We're going to see _Chantecler_. Everybody's crazy about it."

"Excepting people who think it is silly," put in Gabry.

"Well, if it's silly to see actors dressed up in peacock feathers," cried Esther, "we'll have a good time. And there'll be supper somewhere afterwards."

"Going to make a regular night of it, aren't you?"

"That's just the point. Helen, you're a dear to be so sympathetic. Up at the student Hostel...."

"Did they object there to your going?"

"They don't know a thing about it. It would never do to tell them."

"Why?"

"They'd begin to preach," protested Esther. "A pack of school teachers anyway. That's why we want to spend the night here. We'll just explain, you understand, that we're going to spend the night with their dear lovely Mrs. Gibbons. And they'll never know a thing about the fun."

The girls were moving towards the door.

"The boys will come here to get us," called Esther. "We'll come down about half-past six. Herbert won't mind, will he?"

"We must move along now," said Gabry. "I have a singing lesson."

"And I have a fitting at the dressmaker's," added Esther. "Ta, ta, Helen."

I felt in my bones that I didn't quite know what to do about it and would wait until Herbert came home.

When Herbert returned from the Bibliothèque Nationale at noon, I told him about my visitors.

"Why on earth--" he began to comment.

"Oh, they are going to do the Grand Boulevards with a couple of young American fellows who are in Paris for a vacation," I said.

"What's the matter with those girls," exclaimed Herbert. "What's gotten into their heads? Do they think they can come here and start off on an expedition like that? If they were older, it would be different. If they're afraid to tell the Hostel people, it shows they know well enough it isn't just the thing for them to do."

"I thought so myself."

"Well, why didn't you right up and say it from the beginning?"

"Girls wouldn't take it from me. My game was to be absorbent and get the whole story. They're nearly as old as I am. I couldn't dictate to them. I don't know how to get out of it."

"I see," mused Herbert.

The girls came in about six o'clock to dress for dinner. They had their suitcases and some flowers, and Esther brought her light blue hat in a paper bundle. I had told them to telephone their boys to come to dinner with us before starting out for the theater. This was the only way I could think of to manage things so that Herbert could see them before they started away.

Esther put on the pretty bright blue dress she had bought at the model shop to go with the light blue hat. She placed the hat, still in its paper cover, on the top of the wardrobe in the dining-room. Gabry played with Scrappie, sitting on the floor beside her, where she was tied in her papa's steamer chair. Esther perched herself on the stool in the kitchen and watched me frying sausages. Herbert came in after a bit and wheeled right around from the front door into the kitchen. He didn't have to walk. It wasn't far enough.

"Hello, Esther, what are you up to?" said Herbert.

"Hello, Herb."

"Come on in the other room. I want to talk to you," said Herbert.

He closed the door and I heard them talking hard.

"Gee!" said Gabry. "Esther sounds mad, doesn't she?"

"Herbert's telling her what he thinks of the party," I said.

"He doesn't want us to go, does he?" said Gabry.

"Oh, he's not breaking up the party. Not a bit of it. He only says that seeing nobody of your crowd knows French and seeing that your mother made us promise to look after you, he wants to know what café and theatre you're going to."

Just as a rather mad-looking Esther and a smiling Herbert appeared, there was a ring at the bell, and in came the boys, two rosy-cheeked American youngsters. They came into the kitchen to talk to me a moment, and then Herbert took them into the dining-room to explain things. I heard him talking with them, nice American chaps they were, not looking for trouble a bit. Not the type out for the booze, just bright youngsters who were going on the boulevards out of curiosity.

We lighted up the candles in the bedroom-study. Herbert put some new ones in the candlesticks on the piano and we soon got things going. One of the boys was taken into the bedroom-study to play a tune on the piano, and soon Esther cheered up with a face more or less of an April one.

"Hello, boys," said Herbert. "The girls have been telling us--Mrs. Gibbons and I want you to have dinner with us here first so we can talk over the party."

"Sure," said John. "We have tickets for _Chantecler_."

We sat down and tackled _coquilles Saint-Jacques_.

"You don't want to get in any trouble over this game," Herbert went on. "Not speaking French and all that...."

"That's so, too," said Joe.

"_Chantecler_ is fine and dandy," said Herbert. "If you want supper afterwards, here's the address of a nice little café."

"Sunday school picnic," moaned Esther.

"Esther's inconsolable. She thinks I'm spoiling the fun. But these boys don't want to get into a doubtful little hole. You don't know what you're doing, Esther," said Herbert.

"I'm as old as your wife, so there."

"You fellows do not want to spend a terrible lot of money. I know you don't. Esther is mad as a hornet at me because I am going to squelch her idea of going to Montmartre or Les Halles for a hot old time. I don't want to seem a poor sport, but you know some of those cafés are fakes, others are what I shall not mention, and there is a third category of really dangerous ones. The entire business is carried on to catch and mulct tourists. If you happen to drift into the fake places, nothing more serious would happen than getting stuck good and hard. You would simply have to pay the waiter whatever was on the bill. If you were considerably older and knew how to speak French, the slumming might prove interesting--for one evening. But for you the game is not worth the candle. I don't mind your going for a jaunt along the boulevards, and I can tell you some of the cafés that are all right. But as for Les Halles--that doesn't go."

The boys were sensible. They fell in with our suggestions without discussion. After dinner the four went off to their show. Next morning I heard Esther telling Scrappie all about it.

"The W.C.T.U. wasn't in it, baby. _Chantecler_ was written to please kids of your age. There was nobody in that Y.M.C.A. café your daddy sent us to. My blue hat was the most conspicuous object in the place. We didn't see a thing. No _types_, no wickedness, no models, more than we ordinarily see around the Quarter."

Gabry's eyeglasses were shaking on her nose.

"Tell her what Monsieur Sempé said," urged Gabry.

"Yes, baby," said Esther, who was laughing in spite of herself now. "Our mama boys wanted to be polite in the American way last night. They brought us here and didn't want to leave us until they saw us inside your saintly doors. But Monsieur Sempé stopped them down at the street door. He simply yelled at the boys, '_Ça ne se fait pas à Paris, Messieurs_.'

"No," concluded Esther, "from start to finish, baby, there was nothing about our party that would have hurt your lily-white soul."