Free Martha in Paris by Margery Sharp Page B

didn’t seem to be interested, left Madame too thankful to take offence, and she spontaneously offered a second helping of coeurs à la crème .—Poor Angèle fared worse. “Did he appreciate my little remembrance?” asked Angèle eagerly. “I’m sorry, I lost it,” said Martha, with equal cheerfulness. “Just as well!” cried Madame Dubois. “Did I not warn you, Angèle, against being forward?” Angèle flushed. Yet even to have attempted to be forward—and foiled, too, but by another’s carelessness!—was an achievement, to so frustrate a vestal, and she also helped to finish up the coeurs à la crème with unusual appetite.
    Pleasurably Martha settled back into her big, bare room. Even the bathroom didn’t seem so bad: certainly preferable, despite flaking enamel and inadequate water-supply, to that in the rue d’Antibes and all that went with it …
    Martha had in fact returned to Paris firmly resolved to have nothing more to do with Eric Taylor whatsoever. Involvement with him took up too much energy. When she recalled how sluggish she’d been, at the studio, three mornings running, Martha (after the break at Richmond) could only marvel at, and chide herself for, her flippancy. It was with extreme distaste that she apprehended even the one further interview probably necessary, to give Eric the brush-off.
    â€œWhen do you see him again?” whispered Angèle—invading Martha’s room that same night.
    â€œI hope soon,” said Martha grimly.
    â€œHas it seemed so long?—Ah, but how fortunate you are!” sighed Angèle. “And he too!” added Angèle loyally. “And he too!”
    2
    Martha’s period of apprehension in fact lasted not much more than twenty-four hours. As the first day of the new term ended, there stood Eric waiting for her outside the studio.
    He got in first. After but one glad cry of greeting—
    â€œMartha, I’ve got to talk to you,” said Eric.
    His tones were at once tender and masterful—or so they sounded to Eric; to Martha they sounded bossy. Observing a half-empty ’bus nearing her stop, her immediate impulse was to catch it. But the opportunity, to get things over, was too good to miss: she stood pat.
    â€œNot here,” said Eric. “We’ll go to our seat.”
    It was a bare five minutes’ walk to the Tuileries; again, Martha accepted. She herself thought those very five minutes amply sufficient to make her intentions plain in; and indeed hoped to do so. But Eric, his hand under her elbow, hurried her on at too fast a pace for more than the slightest exchange, such as asking if she’d had a nice Christmas in Birmingham. “All right,” said Martha, briefly surprised—before she remembered the lie she’d told. “Ours was pretty flat too,” said Eric, “without you there. Even if I hadn’t felt so ghastly—” “Did you eat too much?” asked Martha. “No!” said Eric, rather loudly. “Look, Martha, there’s our seat!—and with no one on it!”
    They sat; opposite the trompe l’oeil statue of Tragedy and Comedy.
    3
    It was slightly unfortunate that the next bench should be similarly occupied by a couple—or rather, that the woman’s fashionable high-crowned hat, as the man bent towards her, formed the exact apex of a triangle that flowed down through his shoulders to a base suggested by four extraordinarily well-placed feet. Also the lines of the bench afforded the necessary parallels … Martha couldn’t help trying to memorize, and so missed Eric’s first few sentences altogether.
    â€œSo you see what a brute I’ve felt,” Eric (evidently) continued, “ever since I realized how you must be worrying. No wonder you made Mother come to the ’bus-stop with us, to punish me! But you do know—don’t you,