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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40501 ***
+
+_The_ BLOWER _of_ BUBBLES
+
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR BEVERLEY BAXTER
+
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+NEW YORK
+1920
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+  TO
+  MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+It was one of Dumas' characters, I believe, who said: "I do not
+apologize--I explain." The purpose of this brief preface is to explain
+the many imperfections which of necessity appear in this volume.
+
+It was at a dance after Armistice, given by American officers in the
+Palace Hotel, London, that I met a young lady who had landed from New
+York two days previously.
+
+"My goodness!" she said, "they don't have any furnaces in their houses
+here; and I've been trying all day to buy some rubbers, and no one knew
+what I meant. My goodness! but they're backward over here."
+
+I looked at her face and recognized the joyful mania of the explorer.
+She was "discovering" England.
+
+Before the war, England was "discovered" fairly often--but during the
+war it became the passion of hundreds of thousands, Americans,
+Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Newfoundlanders, South
+Africans--we all brought our particular national viewpoint and centered
+it on the "tight little Island," nor were we backward about telling the
+English of their faults. Each one of us stated (or implied) that his
+own country was the special acreage of God, and that the Kaiser ought
+to be made to live in foggy London as a punishment.
+
+And for more than four years the Old Country listened patiently as the
+throngs of adventurers poured in from the world's outskirts. The
+stately homes of England were opened in their stately, hospitable way;
+English taxicab drivers insulted and robbed us just as cheerfully as
+they did their own countrymen; English girls proved the best of
+comrades; and the Englishman proper continued to be the world's
+greatest enigma.
+
+So, in claiming admittance to that vast throng that has already
+discovered England, I do so with a certain humility but a hope that,
+when my words are sifted, some little ore of truth may be discovered at
+the bottom.
+
+In three of the five stories of this collection, I have usurped the
+power of the Wizard of Oz, and have looked through three pairs of
+glasses. In "The Blower of Bubbles" an Englishman subjects his own
+country to analysis; in "Mr. Craighouse of New York, Satirist," the
+glasses used are American and the medium is a New Yorker; in "The Airy
+Prince" (the last and favorite child) a girl of sixteen from Picardy is
+transplanted by aeroplane for one full day in wartime London.
+
+In the remaining two stories I have endeavored to paint something of
+city life in Canada in the one, and in the other to do some little
+justice to that least understood type--the French Canadian.
+
+During an interesting but undistinguished career of nearly four years
+with the Canadian Forces, I realized that, although the army gives one
+plenty of food for thought, it sometimes fails to supply facilities for
+assimilation. _Par exemple_: "Mr. Craighouse of New York, Satirist,"
+was started in hospital at Abbéville, France, where my fellow-patients
+assumed me to be a lovelorn swain, writing a love-letter that never
+left off. Later, "Mr. Craighouse" developed a couple of thousand words
+in a charming home of Scotland. The last part of the story was finished
+at a table in the Turkish baths of the Royal Automobile Club, London,
+where the attendants were good enough to consider me eccentric, but
+apparently not violent.
+
+Under the robust companionship of several normal and talkative
+subalterns, "The Blower of Bubbles" was written in a hut at Seaford
+Camp during the month of November, 1918. As my stove was a consistent
+performer, nearly every evening a few choice souls gathered for cocoa
+and refreshments from home; and if their host persisted in writing at
+his improvised table it did not disturb their good-fellowship in the
+least, providing the author did not threaten to read his "stuff" aloud.
+
+It was in that hut in the mud of Seaford that, one November morning, a
+little before eleven o'clock, we heard the sound of ships' sirens in
+Newhaven Harbor some miles away; then a distant shouting, that grew in
+a great crescendo, as it rode across the downs on the throats of
+thousands of soldiers, and passed us in one great prolonged roar, "The
+Germans have signed!"
+
+We missed Armistice Day in London, but I like to think of the thirty
+Canadian officers, most of them veterans of many battles, gathered in
+the mess of that bleakest of camps, while one chap at the piano played
+the national anthems of the nations who had fought ... and in voices
+that were not too steady we echoed the toast: "To the Allies and
+America."
+
+And so "I do not apologize--I explain."
+
+In avoiding the "war-story" type, I have followed my own inclinations,
+and have taken rather the inconspicuous parts played by ordinary people
+who had never dreamed of being actors in the world's greatest drama. To
+avoid the background of war would be utterly impossible, for war has
+been a fever in our blood these last four years, and not in one or two
+generations will our veins be free of it.
+
+If it seems in these stories that there is a recurrent note on the
+necessity of artistic expression for the Old Country, the reason for it
+is that we came from the Dominions to a land we all knew, because
+English literature had made England our Mother-Country in the real
+sense of the word. It is the hope of many of us that the artists of
+Britain--whether they be writers, painters, or composers--will yet
+realize that the Empire looks to them, as well as to the knights of the
+air, to bridge the seas, and by their art make us feel as great a
+kinship in peace as we did in war. Dickens and Burns were more than
+writers; they were literature's ambassadors, and played no
+inconsiderable part in empire-building.
+
+Perhaps, as the study of ordinary people gripped by emotions which left
+no one ordinary, this volume of stories may be of some little interest.
+They filled many dull hours in the writing.... It would be a rich
+reward for the author if he could think that they do away with a few
+dull hours in the reading.
+
+ARTHUR BEVERLEY BAXTER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                PAGE
+
+  I. THE BLOWER OF BUBBLES                                1
+
+ II. PETITE SIMUNDE                                      97
+
+III. THE MAN WHO SCOFFED                                141
+
+ IV. THE AIRY PRINCE                                    191
+
+  V. MR. CRAIGHOUSE OF NEW YORK, SATIRIST               287
+
+
+
+
+_The_ BLOWER _of_ BUBBLES
+
+I
+
+
+Snow was falling in Sloane Square, quarreling with rain as it fell.
+Lamps were gleaming sulkily in Sloane Square, as though they resented
+being made to work on such a night, and had more than a notion to down
+tools and go out of business altogether. Motor-cars were passing
+through Sloane Square, with glaring lights, sliding and skidding like
+inebriated dragons; and the clattering hoofs of horses drawing vagabond
+cabs sounded annoyingly loud in the damp-charged air of Sloane Square.
+
+It was Christmas Eve in Sloane Square, and the match-woman, the vender
+of newspapers, and the impossible road-sweeper were all exacting the
+largesse of passers-by, who felt that the six-penny generosity of a
+single night atoned for a year's indifference to their lot. People were
+wishing each other a merry Christmas in Sloane Square, as they
+struggled along under ungainly parcels. The muffin-man was doing an
+enormous trade.
+
+And I looked from my window and prayed for Aladdin's Lamp or the Magic
+Carpet, that I might place a thousand miles between myself and Sloane
+Square.
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Enter the Slave of the Lamp," said I, and the door opened to admit--my
+landlady, Mrs. Mulvaney.
+
+"Will you be dining in?" she said. Her Irish accent hardly helped the
+illusion of the all-potent slave.
+
+"And why not?" I asked.
+
+"Ach, nothing, sor. I only thought----"
+
+"An unwomanly thing to do, Mrs. Mulvaney."
+
+"You're afther being a strange one, dining alone on Christmas Eve."
+
+"Then join me, Mrs. Mulvaney."
+
+I swear she blushed, and I felt more than a little envious of the
+nature which could convert such a vinegary attempt at condescension
+into a gallantry.
+
+"F'what would I be doing, taking dinner wid a child like you?"
+
+I was twenty-five, but Mrs. Mulvaney looked on all men as equally
+immature.
+
+"And have you not got no friends?" she went on, but I stopped her with
+a gesture.
+
+"Thank Heaven--no!" I said. "I am one of intellectuality's hermits. An
+educated man in London is like the bell-cow of the herd--a thing
+apart."
+
+"You're a great fool, I'm afther thinking."
+
+"The foolish always damn the wise," I answered, with an attempt at
+epigrammatic misquotation.
+
+Mrs. Mulvaney heaved a sigh. Its very forcefulness recalled the
+nautical meaning of the verb.
+
+"You'd be a sight happier outside," she said. "Holy Mary knows I
+wouldn't be driving you into the streets, but I'm worried you'd get
+cross wid yourself at home."
+
+To get rid of her, I put on my coat and went out. Perhaps she was
+right; things would have been intolerable at home. Home! Such a
+travesty of the word! The sickly lamplight of Sloane Square was
+preferable.
+
+"Merry Christmas, guv'nor!" said the road-sweeper.
+
+"Merry fiddlesticks!" I growled, and gave him sixpence. I tried to
+avoid the vender of newspapers, but he spotted my fur collar with the
+instinct of a mendicant, handing me a paper and his blessing.
+
+"'Appy Christmas, milord!" said he.
+
+I paid him a shilling for his diplomacy.
+
+Thinking to escape the match-woman, I altered my course, but with the
+intuition of her sex she contrived to put herself directly in my path.
+
+"It's a cauld nicht," she moaned in a rickety, quavering Scottish
+voice--"a cauld, wintry nicht. Ye'll be haein' a wee box o' matches,
+aw'm thinkin'!"
+
+I gave her twopence for them, and she shivered with cold as her skinny
+fingers clutched the coins. I can think of no excuse for my parsimony
+except the fact that I didn't need the wretched box--matches were not
+yet a luxury of the very exclusive.
+
+Yes--in all Sloane Square, on that damp and foggy Christmas Eve in the
+year 1913, I doubt if a more morose, self-satisfied, cynical human
+being plunged into the mists than I. I was unhappy, and reveled in my
+very unhappiness. If it had been in my power, I would have sent a cloud
+of gloom into every home and over every hearth in London. There was
+something splendid, something classical, in my melancholy; it was like
+Hamlet's, but greater than Hamlet's, for he knew the reason of his
+mood, while mine was born of an intangible superiority to my day!
+
+It is not easy, even now, to write of those days. The figure that
+crosses the screen of memory reminds me of Chevy Slyme--a debt-paying,
+respectable Chevy Slyme, forsooth!--but just as sulkily swaggering,
+just as superior, and not quite so human; for Chevy, at least, inspired
+the friendship of Mr. Tigg.
+
+
+II
+
+Unconsciously following the bus route, I emerged eventually on
+Piccadilly, and was jostled and ogled and blessed and cursed with the
+greatest heartiness. Somewhere near Bond Street I collided heavily with
+a young man who was trying to negotiate the crowd and at the same time
+lose nothing of the shop windows' display.
+
+"A thousand devils!" I muttered, recoiling from the impact.
+
+"A thousand pardons!" he said, raising his hat. The graceful lilt of
+his voice was peculiarly reminiscent; his smooth brow and silky fair
+hair were both familiar and elusive.
+
+"One moment----" He gazed into my face with a searching look, keeping
+his hat poised in the air as if the better to concentrate his thoughts.
+"Not the Pest?" he said.
+
+I nodded, and, if the truth be told, felt not a little pleased at the
+sound of the old _nom d'école_ earned when I was at Westminster.
+
+"And how," I said, "is the Blower of Bubbles?"
+
+For answer he replaced his hat at a rakish angle and shook my hand with
+both his for what seemed a full minute, the crowd parting
+good-naturedly like a wave encircling a rock.
+
+"My dear old Pest," he said, "we shall dine together."
+
+"I'm sorry, but----"
+
+"There is a perfectly vile restaurant half-a-mile from here, that has
+the best violinist and the worst cook in London."
+
+"My dear chap----"
+
+"Of all the luck! Think of my running into you on Christmas Eve!"
+
+And just then I noticed that we were no longer standing still, but
+proceeding up a side street, arm-in-arm, while his disengaged hand
+indicated the passing scene as if it were the most gorgeous bazaar of
+the Orient. He spoke with extraordinary rapidity, except in uttering
+certain words, when he would make a slurring pause, as a singer will
+let a note melt into a pianissimo, then race on again with renewed
+vigor. It was a fascinating trick of speech, and, added to the subtle
+inflections of his voice, never failed to startle one into the closest
+attention.
+
+I turned to him once with some remark on my lips, and noticed that his
+eyes were dancing with merriment.
+
+"What is it, Pest?" he cried. "Out with it!"
+
+I smiled gloomily; but still it was a smile.
+
+"Why," I said, "aren't the lamps in Sloane Square bright like these?"
+
+He didn't answer. Probably he knew the truth would have hurt.
+
+
+III
+
+What a hole to dine in on Christmas Eve! Such waiters--such
+guests--such food--such wine!
+
+I believe the proprietor owned three such establishments, each, in a
+triumph of irony, called "Arcadia." The very linen of the waiters
+drooped disconsolately, and the whole place reeked of cabbage and wet
+umbrellas. My spirits, which had risen momentarily from their classic
+depths, sank like the sands of an egg-timer.
+
+"My dear fellow," I said, "you can't mean to dine here?"
+
+An oily waiter ambled up to us and wrung his hands in a paroxysm of
+welcome.
+
+"Your tabil, Meester Norman," he said in some nondescript foreign
+dialect, "iss ready."
+
+Good heavens! The Blower of Bubbles had even ordered dinner in advance!
+With the feelings of an unwilling martyr, I followed my friend and his
+escort past tawdry millinery saleswomen, dining in state with their
+knights-errant of the haberdashery stores; by a table where a woman was
+gazing admiringly at a man with a face as expressionless as a pumpkin;
+through a lane of chattering, laughing, rasping denizens of the London
+that is neither West End nor East End--of people whose clothes, faces,
+and voices merged into a positive debauch of mediocrity.
+
+When we were seated and had ordered something from the waiter, I turned
+to Basil Norman for an explanation.
+
+"What is it?" I asked. "An affair with a seamstress, or are you just
+looking for 'copy'?"
+
+He laughed and lit a cigarette.
+
+"Pest," he said, "this is a caprice of mine, a tit-bit for my vanity.
+You would have chosen the 'Trocadero' or the 'Ritz,' with all the
+tyranny of Olympian and largessed waiters with whom it is impossible to
+attain the least pretence of equality. I prefer 'Arcadia,' where I am
+something of a patron saint, and am even consulted by the proprietor."
+
+"You play to humble audiences."
+
+"Quietly, Pest--the proprietor might hear you. He is a very Magog for
+dignity, I assure you, in spite of his asthma."
+
+"I gather, then, that you are a regular diner here?"
+
+"Hardly that. But I am a little more consistent than most of his
+patrons. To be candid"--he leaned towards me as if it were a secret of
+the first magnitude--"it's his cook."
+
+"His what?"
+
+"His cook. Really, I'm afraid he's hardly first class."
+
+"I am certain of it."
+
+"He would have made an admirable medieval Jesuit, but, as a matter of
+fact, I wonder Steinburg----"
+
+"The proprietor?"
+
+"Yes. I don't know why he keeps him on. He says the fellow has a couple
+of blind children, and if he were dismissed under a cloud he would have
+trouble in securing employment. But that's not business. The fellow's
+an ass, isn't he?"
+
+Whereupon his face beamed with delight, and his gray eyes twinkled like
+diamonds. My comment on the matter was stifled by the arrival of
+_hors-d'oeuvre_. I had no idea that one tray could hold such a variety
+of unpalatable things. At the table next to us a woman laughed
+boisterously, her shoulders, which were fat and formless, vibrating
+like blanc-mange.
+
+"Ah!" said Basil Norman; "Klotz has arrived."
+
+He indicated a low platform, where a dingy pianist, pimply of
+countenance and long of hair, was strumming the barbaric discords that
+always accompany the tuning of stringed instruments. A violinist, with
+his back towards us, was strangling his instrument into submission;
+while a cellist, possessed of enormous eyebrows and a superb immobility
+of pasty-facial expressionlessness, sat by his cello as though he had
+been lured there under false pretenses, and had no intention of taking
+any part in the proceedings--unless forced to do so by a writ of
+habeas-corpus. A fourth musician, who seemed all shirt and collar, blew
+fitfully into a flute, as if he realized it was an irrelevant thing,
+and was trying to rouse it to a sense of responsibility.
+
+"Which," I asked, "is Klotz?"
+
+As I spoke the violinist turned about and caught my host's eye. They
+both bowed--Norman cordially; the musician, I thought, with restraint.
+The fellow stood out as a man apart from his accomplices; his high
+forehead and dreamy eyes were those of an artist, though a receding
+chin robbed his face of strength. He was the type one sees so
+often--able to touch, but never grasp, the cup of success.
+
+"Klotz," said Norman, "is superb. He has the touch of the artist about
+him. His tone is not always good, and sometimes he scratches; but when
+he is at his best he does big things. So many people can perform at
+music--just as so many write at words--but Klotz plays with color. His
+art has all the charm of a day in April. He will caress a phrase
+according to his mood, like a mother crooning to her child. To know how
+to hesitate before a note in a melody, as a worshiper hesitates at the
+entrance to a shrine, is Art, and an Art that cannot be taught.
+
+"It is so with painters, writers, musicians--they must have that sense
+of color, that instinct that brings each subtle nuance of expression
+into being."
+
+I began to feel bored.
+
+Suddenly the orchestra became animated and burst into a waltz, one of
+those ageless, rhythmic compositions that might have been the very
+first or the very last waltz ever written. Supported by wailing strings
+and the irrelevant flute, the enjoyment of the diners took on fresh
+impetus. The lady with the shoulders became a vibrating obbligato. The
+pumpkin-faced man beamed fatuous delight, an electric light behind him
+giving the odd effect that he was illuminated inside like a Hallow-e'en
+figure. A girl, who might have been pretty if she hadn't rouged, took a
+puff from her toilet-case and powdered her nose. She felt that the
+evening was commencing. Over the whole scene my melancholy brooded as a
+ghostly presence. To me it seemed like the dominant seventh in a chord
+of surfeiting commonplaceness; once it was heard, the whole pitch of
+the evening would alter to another key.
+
+Fortunately the dominant seventh remained unheard.
+
+The waltz stopped, and we turned our undivided attention to dinner.
+
+"Klotz," said my host, pouring me a glass of wine, "should have made a
+mark, but----"
+
+"Damn Klotz!"
+
+"That has been done, Pest. The Bricklayers' Union, or something equally
+esthetic, took exception to him for one reason or another, and
+prevailed upon its sister-cabal to debar him from the big orchestras.
+To offend your Union, dear boy, is to accomplish the total eclipse of
+your future. Even genius to-day is subject to regulations. Klotz is in
+a worse position than a clerk with a Board School education trying to
+secure employment in a London bank."
+
+"Confound it!" I said, "there must be some spheres reserved for
+gentlemen."
+
+His twinkling eyes steadied, and a dreamy look crept into them. "Pest,"
+he murmured, "some day England is going to thank God for the
+gentlemen--who were educated at Board Schools. Listen!--the cellist is
+playing Saint-Saëns."
+
+Dinner--or the mess of foodstuffs dignified by the name--was almost
+finished when Klotz, the violinist, started one of the rare melodies
+which Wagner permitted himself--the Song to the Evening Star.
+
+It was being beautifully played--even I would have admitted that--but I
+could not account for the troubled look that crept into my companion's
+face, driving the gayety and the whimsicality from it as a cloud
+obscures the sunlight.
+
+"Klotz," he said anxiously, "is in great sorrow."
+
+"How the deuce," I muttered, with a feeling of creepiness stealing over
+me, "can you tell that? Do you read it in his face?"
+
+He shook his head. "Listen!" he said; "can't you hear it? Can't you
+feel the tears in it?"
+
+And in spite of myself I remained silent, held irresistibly by the
+double fascination of the German's artistry and the sense of mystery
+engendered by Norman. The last sob of the G string quivered to its
+finish. The crowd applauded perfunctorily, then applied themselves to
+the more essential things of life--food, wine and noise.
+
+Rousing myself from the reverie into which I had fallen, I turned to
+Norman, and found his chair vacated. I started. He had reached the
+platform, and was talking earnestly to the violinist. Half-contemptuous
+and half-interested, I watched the pantomime as they talked. Norman's
+hands were emphasizing some point, and every gesture was a pleasure to
+the eye; the musician was protesting, but with steadily abating
+determination. Then the scene came to a climax, and the German
+disappeared.
+
+Holding the violin in his arms, Basil Norman mounted the platform, the
+fingers of his left hand picking quiet, pizzicato notes from the
+strings.
+
+"My friends----" His voice traveled like sound on the ocean at
+twilight; the room subsided into silence, and diners craned their necks
+to see him. The woman with the shoulders brought them to a standstill,
+like an electric fan that had lost its current.
+
+"My friends"--what a charming voice the fellow had!--"I do not want to
+bring a note of sorrow into your happiness. You are here, like my
+companion and myself, for enjoyment; but Herr Klotz ... his wife is
+very ill; she is perhaps dying; and, my friends, it is very hard that
+he should play while his wife is dying ... on Christmas Eve ... in a
+strange country. You are English, and I know you are kind. I have sent
+him home, and I promised that I would take his place, as well as I can
+take the place of such an artist. For you who work so hard, it is not
+fair to spoil your happiness on this of all nights--but you will
+forgive me? Good!"
+
+And his face had a whimsical, tender look.
+
+A murmur of sympathy rose from the crowd, but died away as he raised
+the violin in his hands and brought from it a tone that breathed over
+them like a benediction. It was Gounod's "_Ave Maria_," and the
+pianist's fingers were mothering the keys as they had not done since
+his ambition evaporated like a cloud on a summer day.
+
+It was exquisite--haunting. It was a prayer to Mary, but a prayer sung
+in a field of daisies and violets. There was sorrow in it, but it was
+the grief of a girl over a shattered dream. It was mature artistry, yet
+was born of sunshine and throbbed with the primrose sweetness of youth.
+It touched one like the face of a beautiful child.
+
+Still caressing the violin, he repeated the "_Ave Maria_," whistling a
+unison. With almost any one else it would have been commonplace; with
+him it was a sound more pleasing than any flute, and only accentuated
+his sense of emancipation from the thrall of years. He played "_Still
+wie die Nacht_," "_Old King Wenceslaus_," "_Meditation_" from Thaïs,
+"_Intermezzo_" of Mascagni; and whatever he did, or however hackneyed
+the piece, he surrounded it with a joyousness that trembled on the
+brink of tears.
+
+I looked at my watch; it was nearly midnight, and the evening so
+dreaded was almost at a close. He had put down his violin with a
+gesture of finality, when the prolonged outburst of applause changed
+his decision, and, with another of those rare smiles, he took the
+instrument once more.
+
+    Maxwellton's braes are bonnie
+      Where early fa's the dew,
+    And it's there that Annie Laurie
+      Gi'ed me her promise true....
+
+The violin seemed to speak the words; and I'll swear there wasn't a
+woman in the place who wasn't recalling the sweet innocence of her
+first love. He had hardly finished, when the man with the face like a
+pumpkin jumped to his feet, and I rubbed my eyes.
+
+The fellow had changed. His face had expression. Confound it! there was
+something rather splendid about his features--a kindliness--a----
+
+"Young feller, m'lad," he was saying, "I knows I speaks for hevery one
+when I says we ain't 'eard music like that there since we was knee-'igh
+to a grass'opper, and I knows you won't take it hamiss if we was to
+pass the 'at and----"
+
+I held my breath. What would the Blower of Bubbles say?
+
+"You're a brick, sir!" His voice was a mellow contrast to the other's.
+"My friends, this gentleman has suggested that we pass the hat for our
+poor friend Klotz."
+
+"I didn't neither," protested the benefactor. "Leastways----"
+
+But the woman of the shoulders cut him short by placing two shillings
+beside him. It was tactful of her, a kindly thing to do, and again I
+was amazed. There was a womanly, motherly look about her as she turned
+away, and her eyes were radiant like stars in a mist.
+
+I think I gave ten bob--it must have been a considerable amount, for
+the girl who would have been pretty if she hadn't rouged looked
+straight into my eyes and said something that sounded like a blessing.
+I hope it was; she made me think of a little sister I once had.
+
+And then we were walking together again in the street, and the crowds
+were thinner than before. I cannot remember what we talked of, but I
+know I said to him, "Where did you learn to play like that?"
+
+And he answered, "My dear old boy, music must be loved, not learned."
+
+Then we were in Sloane Square, at my flat, and I was thanking him, or
+he was thanking me--I forget which; and he promised to call at noon
+next day to take me to Klotz's home.... And the lamps in Sloane Square
+seemed duller than before.
+
+Selfishness does not die in an hour, but the bachelor who looked from
+his window that night was a different man from the one who had spoken
+to Mrs. Mulvaney. He was thinking ... and much is accomplished in
+itself when a man is made to think.
+
+A distant clock struck one.
+
+
+IV
+
+I have never known any one to change so little with the cycle of years
+as Basil Norman. When he came to Westminster, at the age of twelve, he
+had an easy nonchalance, a delightful insouciance, that never left him.
+He went from form to form, trod the stone-flagged passages as others
+did; but the youth of seventeen that left Westminster bore the same
+smiling, detached personality as when he entered. The atmosphere of
+tradition interested but did not drug him; the Elizabethan pancake
+impressed him less than did a contemporary Edwardian soap-bubble.
+
+Conscientious form-masters recognized his extraordinary abilities, and
+gave him the benefit of well-worded and impressive homilies on
+achievement. Sometimes for effect they quoted Latin. Norman would
+counter with a "Greek remark." He never studied, but more than one
+scholar owed success to the eleventh-hour coaching of Basil Norman.
+Learning, like everything else, came to him as a needle to a magnet.
+
+With a curious air of detachment he watched the panorama of schoolboy
+life, noticing with a discerning eye the various strata upon which
+public-school morality is founded, assigning the relative importance of
+scholarship and cricket, and nodding knowingly as the process of
+standardization brought similarity of speech, accent, thought, and
+vocabulary to all his fellows.
+
+He was like a Puck who had never been really young, but who refused to
+become a day older.
+
+For a few weeks he played cricket, but without reverence. During a
+match he kept up (_sotto voce_, of course) a running commentary of
+philosophy which, according to our ethics, was vulgar. I shudder to
+think what he would have done if Westminster had adopted baseball.
+
+On one occasion the captain of the eleven took upon himself to point
+out to Basil Norman the error of his ways. The worthy demigod deplored
+Norman's habit of lying on the grass during practice and inventing
+couplets on the various members of the team. The captain also said
+that, providing he would take the game seriously, there was a future
+for him as a cricketer. Whereupon Norman, from his recumbent position,
+misquoted most of the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, unblushingly
+attributing Hamlet's indecision towards living to his doubts of himself
+as a cricketer. When he finished he rose to his feet, and our comments
+were frozen at the sight of his face.
+
+His cheeks had a ghastly pallor and his eyes were brilliant, but with a
+fixed, glaring intensity. And as we looked his expression changed--the
+color returned with a glow of warmth to his skin, and his eyes were
+gray and humorous. Being boys, we forgot about it as quickly as it had
+happened.
+
+The next Saturday we played Charterhouse, and though the score was
+heavily against us, Norman gave the finest exhibition of batting I have
+seen in public-school cricket, scoring a century and winning the match
+for us. He was frail but lithe, and with an air of aplomb batted the
+offerings of Charterhouse to all points of the compass. At the finish
+of the game we crowded around him, but he smiled a little wearily, and
+shook his head.
+
+"I am finished with cricket," he said.
+
+Bewilderment, then anathema, broke like a thunder-shower upon the head
+of Basil Norman. We pleaded; we argued; we threatened; then we used
+language which possessed the merit of forcefulness and frankness. We
+called him a swine, a rotter, a skunk, and an absolute cad. Some one
+ventured the opinion that he was a perfect stink, and we all stood
+about him like the Klu Klux Klan trying a negro malefactor.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said--and there was a delightful touch of irony in the
+word--"you have come to bury, not to praise, me; yet, unlike Cæsar, I
+am not ambitious."
+
+"Swine!" said Smith tertius (or was it quartus?).
+
+"In spite of the witty comment of me learned friend," said Norman,
+after the manner of the leading counsel of the day, "I have always held
+the opinion that life is a thing to be sipped, not drunk. I have played
+cricket--_veni, vidi_, I scored a century! I would not spoil me
+appetite, milords, by overgorging."
+
+"Your conduct," said Grubbs, the captain, "is rotten. It shows that you
+don't give a fig for the honor of the school. If you want to be a pig,
+you can wear the cap of one." (We all knew what he meant, and admired
+him frightfully for his venture into the quagmire of metaphor.) "We
+will send you to Coventry until you come to your senses."
+
+The culprit bowed airily.
+
+"You will lose much more by my silence than I by yours," he said--and
+it takes considerable courage to make such a statement to a tribunal of
+schoolboys.
+
+If Norman suffered from our aloofness, he took it with the same
+nonchalance as he had taken our plaudits. Oddly enough, he had no
+intimate friends, and all of us, partly out of resentment against his
+pose of onlooker, and more from the love of torture which links the
+schoolboy to the savage, performed our duty of silent punishment with a
+zeal which deserved a better inspiration. We forgot how he had made
+friends with the misfits whose square personalities were being drawn
+through the round hole of public-school life. Little chaps he had taken
+in hand on arrival when they wanted to weep for loneliness turned from
+him as if he held contagion. All the sensitive, shrinking ones about
+whom he had thrown his cloak of vivacity, and who were now grown bold
+and self-reliant, let him pass from the Little Dean's Yard to his house
+and through the ancient passages, a lonely debonair figure that always
+smiled.... And no one spoke to him. I, whom he had named "The Pest,"
+thus turning my naturally perverse sulkiness into a subject of jest and
+good-humor, took a special delight in watching the man who had been
+sentenced by his peers to solitude in the midst of a crowd.
+
+His peers?... Was it Smith tertius (or quartus) who used the word
+"swine"?
+
+Two weeks had passed, and we were to play Winchester a decisive match
+on our grounds, which, as land near the cathedral is rather difficult
+to obtain, are almost a mile from the school.
+
+The stage was set. Youthful scholars of ten and twelve walked in their
+gowns, their brows knit with thought, their eyes blinking from
+over-study. Little chaps struggled under the responsibility of silk
+toppers, and conversed solemnly on the deterioration of the tuck-shop;
+and the Olympian creature who was the head-boy of the school lounged
+outside the scoring-booth as if he were "fed up" with nectar, and would
+like some brown October ale for a change--a pose much favored by the
+best people in England. There was an excellent audience of the
+secondary sex, composed of proud mothers and apologetic sisters, whose
+presence was necessitating a sort of Jekyll and Hyde attitude on the
+part of their schoolboy relatives, who were endeavoring to be polite to
+their "people" and at the same time give the impression to their
+_confrères_ that the women were mere acquaintances--accidental dinner
+partners, as it were.
+
+No schoolboy of twelve likes to admit to a mother.
+
+Surrounding the field there is a high iron fence, through the railings
+of which, or on top, a motley collection of gamins cheer on their
+wealthier brethren of the silk hats. Naturally no notice is taken of
+these uninvited guests. It is quite all right for them to shout for
+Westminster if it gives them any pleasure, but what has a silk hat in
+common with a red kerchief and a slouch-cap?
+
+On the day of the match they seemed in larger numbers than usual, and
+the top of the fence was covered with urchins, who retained their
+position of vantage as though the law of gravitation were no concern of
+theirs, keeping up a shrill chorus as Winchester went out for a
+moderate score.
+
+With the odds all in our favor we went in to bat, Grubbs, the captain,
+and I leading off. The first ball was wide, but to feel the play of my
+muscles I took a perfunctory swing at it with my bat. The effect was
+extraordinary.... The crowd of Cockney youngsters raised a volume of
+sound as if my bat had been a baton and they a chorus.
+
+"Gow it, Pest!" "That's the style, Gloomy!" "Troy t' other hend,
+Bluntnose!" "Gee, he's got odd socks on!" "Nah then, Spiderlegs!" (The
+blunt nose and the legs I admit to, but the accusation of odd socks was
+pure malice.)
+
+The next ball, with no twist at all, bowled me clean, and I walked off
+the field to the tune of high-pitched shrieks of delight, and with a
+face that flushed a dark red. My place was taken by Smith tertius (or
+quartus), whose appearance caused an even greater furore than mine.
+
+"'Ooray for Bones!" greeted the lanky youth as he emerged--"'im as his
+the loife of the school!" (He was the most morose of boys.) "'I, Bones,
+'oo did you crib from this time, eh?" (A subtle allusion to an ancient
+offense which had almost earned him expulsion.)
+
+The first ball came for Smith with an inviting hop. He watched it--went
+to strike at it--changed his mind--reconsidered his decision, and swung
+at the air as the ball passed over the bails by an inch, a feat which
+seemed to gratify our enemies on the fence immensely.
+
+"Nah then, Bones, non o' that there contortionizing!" "'It the ball,
+Bones; don't miss it!"
+
+And he did--a miserable little pop into the air; the chap in the slips
+didn't have to move a foot to gather it in.
+
+Mr. Smith then added his proof that Shakespeare was right when he said
+in this world we have our exits and our entrances.
+
+The next six batters went out for a score of eleven, bowled clean by
+the most intimate volume of abusive chaff ever endured by a cricket
+team. Skeletons were not only being taken from their closets, but
+paraded brazenly before the eyes of the world. The secret history of
+Westminster was screamed from the fence-tops.
+
+It was after the loss of our eighth wicket that Grubbs and I, who had
+stolen round by the street, stalked and discovered their ringleader.
+
+"That's him," said the captain hoarsely--the situation was too tense to
+permit of the niceties of grammar. I followed the line of his accusing
+finger--and gasped. There was no mistaking those gray twinkling eyes,
+although they were almost hidden behind a huge bandage, presumably for
+mumps. He was dressed in a rough coster suit, with a villainous cap on
+one side of his head and a bandit's red kerchief about his neck.
+
+"It _is_ him," I said dramatically.
+
+"I thought so," said Grubbs, and cleared his throat. "Norman," he
+cried. "Kid--Norman."
+
+The young rascal, who was sitting on top of a post, more like a Puck
+than ever, swiveled about and solemnly winked one eye. "Do I understand
+that the ban of silence is lifted?" he said from behind the mumps
+bandage.
+
+Grubbs considered, and then made a tactful and instantaneous decision.
+(Small wonder that a few years later he was entrusted with a war
+mission to Washington, of the utmost delicacy.)
+
+"You've had your revenge," he said, "and the joke is on us. Call your
+mob off, will you?"
+
+"You're quite sure you wouldn't like us to encourage the remainder for
+a change?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"So be it, my captain."
+
+He blew a whistle through his fingers, and in a moment the fence was
+denuded of mortals like a tree smitten by an autumn gale. The Blower of
+Bubbles removed his bandage, and presented a stocky youth with three
+shillings.
+
+"Buy sweets for the crowd," he said, "and mind--play fair."
+
+"Right you har', guv'nor"; and the mob disappeared. And thus ended the
+riot of the slouch-cap against the silk hat. To-day, if you are passing
+the field during a match, you will see that the gamins are still there,
+but they shout only for Westminster.
+
+We were just turning away, when Basil Norman laid his hand on Grubbs's
+forearm, as a girl might do, and his eyes had a wistful look.
+
+"Before I change into more fitting garb," he said airily, then
+paused.... My breathing seemed to stop at the sight--his face had gone
+suddenly white, and his eyes were glazed.
+
+"Grubbs!" he cried, and his voice sounded hollow. "Don't you
+understand?... Oh, _you damned fool_, can't you see it's my heart?"
+
+
+V
+
+After Westminster I went to Cambridge, and succeeded in cultivating the
+Oxford manner, by which all Cambridge men are known. When I emerged
+from there I offered myself to the highest bidder (a sudden bankruptcy
+of my father having made an occupation essential).
+
+A London newspaper was the fortunate winner in the mad race for my
+services, though it would have been difficult for it to lose, as there
+was but one entry.
+
+I became a writer of power--not quite so much so as the gentleman
+to-day who wields his pen as he would a bludgeon, and succeeds in
+writing a powerful article each week; but still I was a writer of
+strength. I damned the present, doubted the future, and deplored the
+past. I became an honored member of the group of London writers whose
+entire genius is exhausted in criticism. I secured a bowing
+acquaintance with Bernard Shaw, and always spoke of H. G. Wells as Mr.
+Wells. It was obvious to me that to achieve literary success in England
+one must abuse England--but especially any one who tried to change her.
+
+Some of my _confrères_ sided with Bernard Shaw and attacked
+middle-class morality and patriotism. Mr. Arnold Bennett had a certain
+following, though we agreed that his Five Towns stories were not really
+critical, but merely observant. We did not know at the time that he had
+it in him to write _The Pretty Lady_, which was to be neither. For
+myself, I was drawn towards Mr. Wells, and hit at everything like a
+blindfolded pugilist.
+
+We agreed with Granville Barker that Irving had reduced the value of
+Shakespeare by over-staging; and we endorsed the opinion of a dramatic
+critic, known to the public as "Jingle," who said that Shakespeare's
+lines were often worthy of an Oxford undergraduate.
+
+For pastime we abused Lord Roberts as a monomaniac, and Winston
+Churchill as a kleptomaniac with a passion for stealing the thunder of
+others. We even argued that the Church had lost its grip, and wrote
+eloquently on the value of doubt. With admirable _esprit de corps_
+we refrained from attacking the public-school system, though we
+realized that one could always get a hearing by so doing.
+
+And every year those schools were turning out their thousands and the
+universities their hundreds; every year our number was strengthened by
+well-routined brains that took to destructive criticism like a German
+to barbarity.
+
+Somebody was writing our puerile dramas; some one was producing the
+trash which flooded our book-stalls; some brain was conceiving the
+tawdry stuff which was educating the millions in the cinemas.... But we
+thanked Heaven that we were not as other men. We were England's
+educated class. For the education of England fails to teach one that a
+country's art and literature are as vital to the nation as speech to
+the individual.
+
+I took a flat in Sloane Square and read Russian novels. Whenever I
+discovered a new Russian author, I quoted him as if I had known him all
+my life; it used to pain me to find how unrecognized he was by my
+fellows. I attended the opera only on Russian nights, and I became a
+devotee of the Russian dancers. I used to quote Russian in my paper,
+and brought down the curse of a hundred typesetters upon my head.
+
+I think every writer has his Russian period.
+
+Once or twice I heard of Basil Norman, though our paths did not cross.
+Some one claimed that Norman could have been a great violinist, if----
+Another told me that _Punch_ had published a delicate little sonnet of
+his that had the quality of tears about it. There was no question (he
+said), if---- An artist I met had painted one landscape that defied
+criticism--even ours--and I spoke of the exquisite coloring and detail
+of the foreground.
+
+"I could not have done that," he said, "but for Basil Norman, who
+brooded over me like an inspiration. The work is mine, but the
+conception his. If----"
+
+Yet the world did not know of his existence. He remained a detached
+personality, treading lightly where sorrow was, singing his song of the
+sunlight wherever ears had become dulled with discouragement. A
+fantastic, gentle, twinkling-eyed prince in a kingdom of butterflies
+and violets. Try as I would, I could not refrain from contrasting my
+life of literary vivisection with his primrose youth that seemed
+eternal, springing from a genuine joy in living, a youth that was as
+perfect as a melody of Chopin's.
+
+"The happiest of Christmases, old Pest!"
+
+The subject of my thoughts was standing before me, and the bells were
+clamoring exultantly on the frosty air.
+
+I gripped his hand, and something in his eyes told me the truth.... He
+had come for me because I was lonely and needed him.
+
+And the message of the bells took on a new meaning.
+
+
+VI
+
+We walked into the brisk, vibrating sunshine of a glorious Christmas
+morning. He had taken my arm, and was chatting gayly on everything from
+"cabbages to kings." Sometimes his nostrils dilated, and he would look
+up as if he were actually drinking in the ozone of the air; and he
+seemed younger than ever, with a joyousness born of sheer intoxication
+with life. We walked for a mile, and all the time his mood was as happy
+and stimulating as the sunshine sparkling in the December air.
+
+Turning down a street, we passed a church from which the worshipers
+were emerging, and a mother with two sons on the brink of manhood held
+our attention for a moment. The lads had a gentleness of feature, an
+unconscious grace that sometimes is the attribute of adolescence, and
+their mother walked between them, proudly--they were her masterpieces.
+For some time Norman chatted amiably, but I could see that a pensive
+shadow was steadily creeping over the brilliancy of his spirits.
+
+"They tell me," he said in subdued tones, breaking suddenly from the
+topic in hand, "that both my parents hoped for a girl when I was born.
+And sometimes I have thought that there is a little of the feminine in
+my nature. I love the pretty things of life, and there are times when I
+have an unmistakable sense of intuition."
+
+I waited silently, but it was some moments before he resumed.
+
+"Somewhere ahead," he said dreamily, "in months or years to come, I see
+a vision of a woman in black, coming from church alone, and her head is
+bowed with grief----" He passed his hand over his brow with a weary,
+querulous movement, and shadows appeared beneath his eyes.
+"Where--where are the two sons? Not dead?"
+
+He smiled wistfully and replaced his hand in my arm.
+
+"The picture we saw just now," he said, "is my conception of
+England--the real England of noble mothers and noble sons. But
+something tells me that the woman in black is England too, mourning for
+her sons who will never--come back."
+
+With an effort he squared his shoulders and forced a laugh from his
+lips.
+
+"Pest!" he cried, "I should be burned as a witch. Heigho! it's a pretty
+go when one has to turn lugubrious on a Christmas morning. Cheer us up,
+Pest. Tell me about yourself--whom you are in love with, and your
+dreams for the days to come. Let's blow bubbles--shall we?--and see
+what fresh beauties we can find in this charming adventure called
+life!"
+
+And I laughed with him, exchanging philosophies light as air; but the
+chimes that rang out all about us had still another meaning. There was
+a warning in the pealing discords that broke on the quiet air; there
+was a requiem in the notes that lingered like an echo, then murmured
+ominously to silence.
+
+I shivered as though I had a chill, for something of Norman's spirit
+had seized me, and I felt that both the warning and the requiem
+were--for England.
+
+
+VII
+
+At the head of a stairway which one reached by going through a
+tobacconist's, Herr Klotz greeted us with guttural cordiality. We asked
+after his wife, and were told that she was a little better, though very
+weak, and had insisted upon seeing her guests before they left, if they
+would be so kind as to visit the sickroom.
+
+On the contents of an enormous hamper sent from "Arcadia" (and, I am
+certain, paid for by Norman) the German and the two of us lunched with
+all the bonhomie of bohemians. Basil Norman was in the best of spirits,
+so much so, in fact, that Klotz was constantly overcome with laughter,
+and on three occasions was forced to rush away to acquaint his wife
+"mit der amuzing veet of zee altogedderillustrious Herr Norman."
+
+By no means least in importance, Klotz's little son of about four years
+of age sat in a high chair and chuckled knowingly whenever he deemed
+the humor had reached a necessary climax.
+
+Though he was not unlike his father in the shape of his head, his chin
+did not recede, and one could only assume the mother had supplied the
+qualities lacking in the father. Never for a moment did the child lose
+interest in the proceedings; he followed throughout the facial
+expression and the play of conversation of his elders. His face
+interested me so intensely that I found myself glancing at him whenever
+his interest in the others gave me a chance; there was so much of
+promise and heredity about him.
+
+"And what," I said, during a momentary lull in the merriment, "is
+Master Siegfried to become?" We had learned his name a moment before.
+
+"Siegfried," said his father, "tell zee gentlemens vot you to be
+already intend."
+
+The little chap smiled, but without self-consciousness. "A
+conducthtor," he lisped, "like Herr Nikith."
+
+Klotz crossed his hands upon his ample waistcoat and beamed paternally.
+
+"Your baton bring," he said, "und der score _Tristan_."
+
+With profuse apologies for this display of juvenile precocity, the
+violinist hurried after the boy, and reëntered a moment later with his
+violin and a music-stand, which he proceeded to set up.
+
+Siegfried followed close on his heels with the full orchestral score of
+the last act of _Tristan and Isolde_, which almost obscured him from
+sight. Placing it on the stand, he retired in a dignified manner; and
+Herr Klotz, taking a chair, seated himself at the left of the stand,
+and proceeded to tune his fiddle to pitch, varying the proceedings with
+imitations of French-horns, vagrant clarionets, and irresponsible
+trombones in the mélange of discord which always precedes the entrance
+of the conductor. Norman, who had been enjoying the scene to the full,
+suddenly rose to his feet.
+
+"Herr Klotz," he said sternly, "I protest."
+
+The tuning ceased, and the violinist looked anxiously at his guest.
+"You do not like dis, zumtimes?" he faltered.
+
+"I object," cried Basil, "to being left out.--Herr Siegfried!" He
+raised his voice. "Herr Siegfried!"
+
+The little chap walked solemnly in, a baton in his hand. "Yeth?" he
+said.
+
+"_Mein Herr_, my friend and myself desire to join your orchestra."
+
+The youthful conductor considered, ruminatingly. "You blay goot?" he
+said.
+
+"Wonderfully. I was comb-and-tissue-paper-player in the Cascade Steam
+Laundry Orchestra, and my friend----"
+
+"He ith goot alzo?"
+
+"Pest, speak for yourself."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. "Far be it from me to brag," I said, rather
+lamely, "but I was first violinist to His Majesty the King of
+Diddle-doodledums."
+
+"Ah, yes," cried Norman; "and you were dismissed because of your
+unfortunate habit of playing an octave flat." He leaned over and put
+his lips to Siegfried's ear. "Let him play the drums," he said in a
+stage whisper.
+
+Amidst roars of delight from the older Klotz, the youngster left the
+room, and returned in a minute's time, carrying an immense tin dishpan
+and a broken broom-handle, which musical impedimenta he entrusted to my
+tender mercies, and then sedately stalked from the scene once more.
+With mixed emotions I carried my pan and stick over to the extreme
+right, and placed a chair beneath the spot where the stage-box would
+be, calmly surveying the assumed audience with that look of waggish
+melancholy one associates with gentlemen of the drums. Norman, whom
+Klotz had armed with the combined ingredients of his instrument, placed
+a chair halfway between the conductor's stand and myself, and together
+we joined Herr Klotz in a two-minutes' orgy of discordant preparation.
+With a desire to increase the variety of my percussion effects, I
+conscripted an extra chair into service, placed it back towards me, and
+prepared to use my cane as an auxiliary drumstick.
+
+By common consent we achieved a moment's unanimity of silence, which
+was seized by Herr Siegfried as the auspicious moment for his entrance.
+Without the least loss of dignity he clambered onto his chair, as we
+applauded, perfunctorily, by hammering our alleged music-stands with
+non-existent bows; and, turning to the audience, he bowed with the
+restraint of genius--a feat of condescension which appeared to delight
+the throng hugely, for he was constrained to turn about and acknowledge
+their plaudits a second time before they would allow him to proceed.
+
+As drummer I assumed an air of morose boredom.
+
+The noise of the audience having subsided, the conductor opened his
+score and nodded to his _Concertmeister_, Herr Klotz, who carefully
+found the required place in the orchestration.
+
+"Blay der 'Liebestod' music," said he in his most professional manner
+to us. We nodded knowingly, and found the required part in the last act
+of our scores, after turning over a vast number of visionary pages.
+
+"Do we begin at the beginning?" asked Norman.
+
+"Yes," I answered, "and leave off at the end." After which sally I
+laughed immoderately, and began to understand the instinct which causes
+a humorist to enjoy his own wit more than any other's.
+
+A rap on the stand brought my mirth to a close. Both arms were extended
+in the air--a last look at both sides of the orchestra (there must have
+been a hundred of us)--the left hand slowly poised to indicate
+"piano"--the right hand gently raised--and then the strings were
+brought into action. I had intended, as another excellent jest, to give
+a tremendous crash on the pan at the start, so as to bring down the
+leader's wrath, but something in the little chap's attitude stopped me.
+This was not play to him--it was real; and, to my amazement, it seemed
+no less vivid to my fellow-burlesquers. Herr Klotz was playing the
+chromatic development of the opening as if it had been Covent Garden
+and the real Nikisch conducting. The Blower of Bubbles was giving one
+more proof of his amazing versatility. In some manner he was imitating
+a cello, and he _knew_ the music. Where he had learned it one could
+only conjecture--but when did he learn anything?
+
+Silently I watched the serio-comic development. The boy was conducting
+remarkably, with unerring artistry, sustaining the exact Wagnerian
+_tempi_, and, with little exaggeration, indicating the crescendo
+and diminuendo which colors all the great master's composition. How
+much of it he knew or whether he was following his father's violin I
+could not make out, but his earnestness fascinated me; and suddenly his
+eyes turned towards mine. I gripped the broom-handle--but no, it was
+merely a warning that my time was imminent. I think my breath came
+short as I waited. Then his eyes sought mine once more, and inclining
+towards me, his baton called for the drums. It was _I_ he was
+conducting, and no one else! And I vibrated the broom-handle against
+the dish-pan, only to stop instantaneously as his baton moved to
+subtler instruments. He never failed to warn me with that preliminary
+glance, and when the magic wand followed I gave him all I had. The
+little beggar was a hypnotist.
+
+Towards the climax I could have sworn the whole orchestra was there.
+Klotz was playing superbly, and Norman was roaming from one instrument
+to the other with a remarkable combination of accuracy and imitative
+versatility. As for me, I supplied dynamic effects that would have
+satisfied even the great Beethoven, who once asked for guns.
+
+Then it was over.
+
+Herr Siegfried bowed twice to the audience, indicated his entire
+orchestra with an all-embracing wave of the baton, and ended by
+solemnly shaking hands with his father, who stood up to accept the
+honor. After that, with a self-conscious wriggle, he became the boy
+once more, and removed his spell from us. With roars of delight we
+gathered about him, making a circle by joining hands, and dancing
+extempore, we sang a chorus consisting of constant repetitions of
+"Hilee-hilo! Hilee-hilo!" That may not be the correct spelling, but
+then we were singing, not writing it--which is one advantage music has
+over literature.
+
+Before we went, Herr Klotz took us into the room where his wife lay
+ill, and by her eyes--for she was too weak to speak--she thanked us for
+our part in making the day a festival one for their lonely little
+household. With an instinctive gentleness that a woman might have
+shown, Norman spoke of the things she wanted to hear about: how her
+husband had been missed at the restaurant, of the desire of every one
+to make a little present to them, of the great future that lay before
+their son, and of the genius of Herr Klotz that would some day be
+recognized. With the cheeriest of good-byes, he lightly touched her
+shoulder with his hand and said he knew she would soon be well again.
+
+He lied. In half of what he said he lied. He was blowing bubbles that
+the woman stricken with fever might see in them some little
+compensation for her life of drudgery.
+
+With the guttural good wishes of Herr Klotz still in our ears (we had
+pledged eternal friendship in three foaming mugs of beer), we sought
+the street, to find that dusk was settling over the city. For some
+moments neither spoke, but feeling that perhaps I had descended too
+abruptly from my pedestal, I cleared my throat and ventured on a
+remark.
+
+"A decent fellow," I said patronizingly, and felt my dignity
+reasserting myself; but Norman failed to hear me. He was lost in some
+memory. Now that I look back, I wonder was it the picture of the sick
+woman he saw or his vision of the mother with her two sons; or, with
+his gift of intuition, could he see, less than a year ahead, Klotz, in
+a German soldier's uniform, marching through Belgium with an army of
+lust and rapine, gorged like gluttonous, venomous beasts?
+
+I wonder.
+
+
+VIII
+
+It was from an aunt of mine that I first heard of Norman's attachment
+to Lilias Oxley.
+
+Whenever I received a letter from my relative, I had first to realize
+that its mission was to educate, not to entertain. She was a woman of
+strong ideas, and, as my mother died very early in my life, she seldom
+lost an opportunity of impressing a moral--like the Queen in _Alice
+in Wonderland_. In her correspondence, and to a large extent in her
+conversation, my aunt was given to dashes, underlines, and
+exclamation-marks. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that she was a
+single woman.
+
+I received the letter two months after Christmas; it was dated from the
+Beacon at Hindhead.
+
+    "MY DEAR NEPHEW,--You will find mentholated crystals--carried in a
+    small bottle--a splendid preventive against the present epidemic of
+    cold in the head! Sniff a little every night before going to bed.
+
+    "When are you going to marry? For goodness' sake, marry a _dark_
+    girl when you do. Our family is growing positively colorless!
+
+    "Your friend, Mr. Norman, is visiting the Oxleys down here. It
+    seems young Oxley is trying to write a play with some ideas in it,
+    and Norman thinks he can help him! Who in the world wants to see a
+    play with _their_ ideas! It's a pity you couldn't teach him to do
+    something useful--Norman, I mean.--Young Oxley is going into the
+    Church! Why doesn't he go to Canada! I mean _Norman_.
+
+    "Do you remember little Lilias Oxley? She had pneumonia last year,
+    though I _warned_ her mother about flannel soaked in goose-oil and
+    turpentine! She always looked like a hothouse flower, and now she
+    is simply _frail_. Of course, she's pretty and has eyes that always
+    makes fools of the men--not that _that_ signifies! Everybody says
+    she's artistic, but all I ever hear her play is by some newfangled
+    foreigner named Debussy, and it's all discord. She's only nineteen
+    and looks sixteen.
+
+    "Of course, young Norman comes along, and instead of picking out
+    some healthy _buxom_ girl, he falls in love with this bit of tinsel
+    china! It's criminal, and should not be _allowed_. What kind of
+    children will they have, if any! He calls her his
+    _Beatrice_--Heaven knows why!
+
+    "They are together _constantly_. I would write to the _Times_ about
+    it if I thought that Lord Northfellow would publish it. We should
+    have a Minister of _Eugenics_! Surely Winston Churchill would be
+    better employed at that than trying to build up a huge navy we'll
+    never need! By the way, I see he's taken to writing _novels_ now!
+
+    "Do talk to young Norman! Tell him your uncle is doing very well
+    with pigs in Canada; and why not induce your friend to go _there_,
+    and get some _common-sense_, because every Canadian I meet has a
+    head on his shoulders? It must be the climate!
+
+    "I am going to stay here for a month, and then visit my cousin in
+    Scotland. She has six children. Whatever induced her to marry a
+    minister? He has no money and no _prospects_--except more children,
+    I suppose!
+
+    "Does that Mulvaney woman see that your room is kept aired? When
+    you write you should have the window open and a cap on your head.
+
+    "I hope you will never write books! It is quite a _distinction_
+    nowadays not to.
+
+    "Where did you go for Christmas?--Your loving aunt,
+
+    "HANNAH.
+
+    "Feby. 8/1914."
+
+The only way I can account for my aunt's love of exclamation-marks was
+her delight at seeing a sentence round to a good finish. I have known
+authors to be so overcome with the dramatic significance of their work
+that they put them in as a sort of public recognition thereof.
+
+_En passant_.... I wonder why my aunt never wrote a serial story
+for one of the London dailies.
+
+
+IX
+
+War.
+
+Our world of artificiality lay like a cracked eggshell. As drowning
+men, we clutched at everything that seemed stable ... to find nothing
+that was not made of perishable stuff. Our pens that had criticized so
+long mocked us as we gazed at the pages which seemed to reject our
+thoughts before we gave them life. A few of us turned into special war
+writers and comforted the nation with statistics. We showed that
+Germany was beaten--it was a mathematical truth that could be proved.
+While we demonstrated our immense superiority to the enemy in figures,
+a little British Army was fighting against odds of six to one.
+
+And the Fates stood by with poised shears, ready to cut the thread of
+Britain's destiny.
+
+It is not pleasant to recall the arraignment of the year 1914. The Boer
+War had shown our weakness to every nation but ourselves; our educated
+men had graduated into the world using their abilities as
+obstructionists. We had discouraged everything that had the very odor
+of progress.
+
+Yet--we muddled through. Men still use that word as if it were
+something creditable instead of hideous. We won, because, behind the
+Britain that muddled and obstructed, there was the Britain of noble
+mothers and noble sons.
+
+And into the first winter our orgy of statistics went on, like an
+endless Babylonian feast ... while the British fleet--which we should
+never need--strained and plunged in the icy gales of the North Sea,
+grimly, silently, saving the world for Civilization.
+
+Great days. Fateful days. Terrible days.
+
+One Friday night early in December I received a note from Norman,
+asking me to meet him for dinner at "Arcadia." I had not seen him for
+six months, but his debonair charm was as potent as ever, and we
+chatted of the past like friends who had not met for years. As if by
+mutual consent, we avoided the present until I noticed that the
+orchestra was different.
+
+"Where is Klotz?" I asked suddenly.
+
+"Gone."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the war. He was a German reservist and got away."
+
+"And his wife?"
+
+"She is confined to her bed all the time, but fortunately there is an
+excellent woman looking after her and young Siegfried. By the way, what
+a conductor he'll make some day!"
+
+By the subterfuge I knew who was paying for the woman, though his
+income was always slender. Stimulated by a British-born orchestra that
+played with a respectability beyond question, we pursued bubbles of
+conversation for half-an-hour, saying many clever things and arriving
+at no conclusions; but both of us knew that, behind the badinage, there
+was the consciousness of war gripping our brains like a fever.
+
+"What do you think," I said at last, "of the question of enlisting?" It
+would have been a mockery to deny the fever any longer.
+
+"Why should I enlist?" His smile was so disarming that I regretted my
+move at once.
+
+"Don't misunderstand me," I said hastily. "You are not needed, and you
+never will be. Besides----" My voice trailed off into the insincere
+platitudes that always come to the lips when conscience is to be
+drugged.
+
+He lit a cigarette. "Pest," he said, "most men are participants in
+life; a few, like myself, are onlookers. It was my choice when I was a
+mere youngster--wisely or not, I do not know--but the pose has become
+reality now. I am a jester at the court of the world, a wordy fellow
+with a touch of melancholy in his humor, watching and commenting on the
+real things of life. Before there was a war I blew bubbles, and now I
+am fit for nothing else. Have a cigarette?"
+
+"Thanks."
+
+He passed his hand across his brow with the same weariness I had
+noticed before.
+
+"To gaze on life," he went on after a pause, "and not to live it,
+spares one many sorrows. Even love, which comes to most men as an
+overwhelming passion, stole into my life like a perfume of Cashmere.
+When I was twelve years of age and living on the south coast, I used to
+pass a little dream-girl of seven years or so. The purity of her face
+stayed with me like a melody a mother sings to her child. Then she was
+ill, and for three weeks I never saw her. Finally she came one day in a
+chair, and her beauty was the most exquisite thing I had ever seen. It
+made me think that the God who gave us this beautiful world sometimes
+cherishes a soul as sweet as hers and keeps it in a body that is frail,
+so that through life He can watch it like a flower, tenderly,
+lovingly;... and when He wants it back again He has but to whisper,
+and, like a violet bending to a summer breeze, it hears and obeys.... I
+have sometimes thought that even tears shed for such a one have in them
+the quality of dew, and serve to keep the memory green and pleasant.
+
+"The next day I brought her a rose. Though we had never spoken, she
+took it, and gave me her face to kiss.... I lost my mother when I was
+very young, but this dream-girl's kiss supplied that inspiration for
+the ideal that a child takes from its mother. I could not have been
+impure after that--I could not have been unkind. The next day she was
+gone, and I never saw her again until I went to Surrey to visit young
+Oxley. She was his sister."
+
+"And you found?"
+
+"That the dream-child had become a woman--the charm of Spring had
+softened to the witchery of Summer."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and relit his cigarette, which had gone out.
+
+"That, my dear Pest, is how love came to me."
+
+I frowned in an endeavor to pierce his apparently superficial dismissal
+of the subject.
+
+"Don't you intend to marry her?" I said.
+
+"Marry her?" He laughed, but there was little mirth in the sound. "Does
+a jester marry?" His eyes hardened, and there was a new ring to his
+voice. "Who am I to take a wife? A _poseur_, a _flâneur_, in a world of
+men, I stand discredited beside the poorest workman whose toil brings
+in a pittance for his wife and kiddies. England is calling for men--for
+men, I say." He brought his fist with a crash on the table. "What can I
+offer her--my parlor accomplishments? My minstrel's mummery that
+shudders at the sight of a sword? Can I blow bubbles in a world where
+hearts are breaking?"
+
+There were tears in his voice, but his eyes were flashing furiously.
+
+"Hexcuse me." A man had stepped up to us, wearing the armlet of a
+recruit. His face was oddly familiar, but I could not recall it until a
+light was switched on just behind him, and I recognized the
+pumpkin-faced man of Christmas Eve.
+
+"I just thought of 'ow I'd like for to tell you as I've been took for
+the Army O.K."
+
+We shook his hand and wished him the best of luck.
+
+"Funny thing, sir, as 'ow the 'ole bloomin' time I was planning to sign
+hup I was a-thinkin' of you and that there fiddle. 'You wouldn't like
+to meet 'im,' I kind o' sez to myself, 'and you not in the harmy, you
+wouldn't,' I sez."
+
+"Instead of which," smiled Norman, all trace of his intensity gone, "I
+am the one who is the slacker."
+
+"But didn't I see you in the line the day we was going for to join
+hup?"
+
+Norman laughed. "I was probably a hundred miles away," he said. "Pest,
+have I a double?"
+
+The recruit scratched his head. "I could 'a sworn hit was you," he
+said, and launched into a graphic description of drill and the
+absurdities thereof, a recital which appeared to have no prospect of an
+ending until we were interrupted by the restaurant proprietor, who took
+Norman to one side for a consultation concerning the medieval cook.
+
+I felt a hand on my arm and turned to see our friend of the pumpkin
+face making secret and terrifying signs for me to lend him my ear.
+
+"'E's a-'iding something," he whispered hoarsely. "I ain't been a
+chandlery merchant hall my life, wot does most o' 'is business hon
+tick, without hit learning me to remember faces. Hit _were_ 'im.
+'E was turned down for a bad 'eart!"
+
+Whereupon he made a semi-mystic sign with his thumb and forefinger to
+indicate that the whole affair was a secret between gentlemen.
+
+That night, in bed, the sensitive, delicate features of Basil Norman
+remained in my memory. I had surprised his secret which he would admit
+to no one; not to the girl he loved; not to himself. It was the same
+spirit that had made him defy the whole of Westminster. We had called
+him Puck and the Blower of Bubbles, and he himself had said he was
+lighter than air.... But Basil Norman's life had been one endless
+battle with an indomitable soul that refused to yield to the body.
+
+I could not sleep well that night.
+
+
+X
+
+I did not meet Basil Norman for nearly four years. I joined the
+Artists' Rifles early in 1915, fought for eleven months, and was given
+a commission. After a short time in England I went out in all the glory
+of a Sam Browne and one star, but in a few months I was wounded in the
+chest, which earned me Blighty and a surfeit of Aunt Hannah, who still
+contended that had we only concentrated on an _army_ instead of a
+_navy_----
+
+As I write, it all seems a blurred memory of colorless monotony, mud,
+fatigue, death, and grim humor. In January, 1918, after a term of duty
+as musketry instructor, I returned to France, and fought through the
+horrible spring battles until, with cruel coincidence, I was wounded
+again in the same place, and once more came to England with a bullet in
+my chest--a bullet they dared not extract. In September I was
+discharged.
+
+One morning in November I sat by the fire in my den at Sloane Square. I
+had resumed the tenancy of the rooms, and Mrs. Mulvaney looked upon me
+as being even less mature than before, warning me about goloshes when
+it was wet, and umbrellas when it wasn't, but appeared likely to be.
+
+How long I sat there I do not know, but memory began to weave its
+spell, driving my surroundings into a dim obscurity and bringing back
+incidents of the past with vivid clarity. I gripped my head with both
+hands, and, for the hundredth time, sought the truth that lay buried in
+the holocaust of the nations.... My wound hurt again, and a dizziness
+crept over me like a fog that rises from the sea and enshrouds the
+land.
+
+Futile.... Futile....
+
+Had some one spoken? The words sounded distinctly.... I could have
+sworn I heard them.
+
+Was the whole war a dream, or was it real? Once more I was in Sloane
+Square; there was my desk with its litter of papers, my pipe-rack, my
+books.... Had I ever left them? Could it be true that I had led men
+against machine-gun fire--and that I had killed? Were those boys who
+died beside me, smiling like children in their sleep, really dead? Was
+it all some hideous fantasy of an unhealthy brain--a gigantic charade
+invented by the greatest buffoon of all time?
+
+Futile.... Futile.... Futile.
+
+I cursed, and pressed my brow with my hands. It was a fight for sanity,
+as so many men have fought in the solitude of their rooms since the
+hell of Flanders.
+
+Like a panorama the events of the war crossed my mind, and yet those
+that stood out most clearly were the unimportant things that came as
+mere incidents during the unfolding of the world's destiny. The senior
+chaplain's dog, which was shot by an A.P.M. and mourned by a whole
+division ... the new arrival who thought he was a special charge of the
+Lord's, and who persisted in looking over the top during the day--we
+buried him next morning ... the night that the female impersonator from
+a divisional concert-party lured the colonel into amorous confession
+... the little chap who got no mail at Christmas, and said he hadn't
+received a letter for two years ... one after the other these human
+trivialities coursed through my brain, forcing the vaster issues aside.
+
+From no apparent cause, the strain of reminiscence turned toward Basil
+Norman. I had seen him somewhere, but whether in London or in the
+country my poor tired brain seemed unable to determine. And then, with
+no regard for relevancy, I was with my battalion once more, marching
+with the Australians to hold a strategical point that one of our
+brigades had saved from the disaster of March. Who was it said that the
+Australians lacked discipline? Look at them grinning like youngsters at
+a game, with the odds against any coming out alive! Discipline? Hell!
+
+We rested at a cross-roads and smoked; one of our Tommies was singing
+the refrain of a song that urged the country to call up all his
+relations, even his father and his mother, but "for Gawd's sake" not to
+take him. The sublime incongruity of it was so thoroughly British that
+we laughed and called for a repetition. A few minutes later the
+Australians passed us, going forward, and there was a reckless air of
+bravado about them that boded ill for the Hun.
+
+We waited an hour, two hours--perhaps more.
+
+By Jove! Coming around the bend in the road was the brigade that had
+held the line. Good work, you chaps! Well done! Bravo! That's it, you
+fellows; give them a cheer! Beneath the mud and the dust and the
+beards, they were livid with fatigue; the skin beneath their eyes had
+dropped, and their jaws hung impotently, like those of idiots. There
+wasn't a sound from their ranks as, too weary to lift them, they
+dragged their feet through the dust of the road. They had held their
+position for fifty-six hours, attacked incessantly from three sides by
+overwhelming numbers. Damned good, you fellows; damned good!
+
+Still buffeted by imagination, my memory of the scene seemed to fade;
+yet one impression lingered that was both livid and blurred. It was
+when that brigade, or what was left of it, had almost passed, and we
+were tightening up the straps of our kits, that I caught a glimpse of
+his face, or that of a man who could have passed as his twin. The
+soldier beside him was limping painfully and leaning on him heavily in
+an endeavor to keep up, and beneath the grimy pallor of that face I
+could see the old wistful, whimsical smile.... I tried to cry out, but
+something stuck in my throat, and next moment we were falling in.
+
+It was Basil Norman, and the lame soldier beside him was the man with a
+face like a pumpkin. Either that or my brain had become the plaything
+of fancy.
+
+Again my memory became a blank, and for a few minutes everything seemed
+obscured. Some one was shouting! It was taken up by another, then by
+many--the whole air was filled with noise.... I heard a woman's voice.
+Good God! Had the Germans broken through?... "_Steady, men--get your
+aim first._"... The shouting grew in intensity, and I pressed my
+brow with my hands until the marks stood out like wounds. With a cry as
+of an animal in pain, I rose to my feet and shook the shadows from my
+eyes. There was my room--the smoldering fire--my chair ... but the
+shouting--it was louder than before.
+
+Feeling my reason tottering, I crossed to the window and threw it open.
+People were running, and crying some word as they ran; one woman wept
+openly, and no one heeded her; a taxi passed crowded to the roof with
+hatless, gesticulating enthusiasts. Was the whole world mad? From every
+direction came the noise of deep-throated shouting, swelling into a
+vast _Te Deum_ of sound. A soldier with one foot leaned against a
+lamp-post and rested his muscles from their labor with the crutches.
+
+"Hello!" I cried. The khaki seemed to restore my grip on things. "I
+say--hello!"
+
+He turned round and hobbled over to my window. "Wot's the trouble?" he
+said.
+
+"This shouting," I cried; "these people running like rabbits. What does
+it all mean?"
+
+"Wot! don't you know?" He smacked his lips in appreciation of the
+surprise he had in store for me. "Why, Fritz 'as took the count, 'e
+'as."
+
+"Then,----" Confound it; what made my lips quiver so? "Then--it's
+peace?... You mean ... it's peace?"
+
+He nodded half-a-dozen times. "The war," he said, feeling the
+importance of his declaration, "is napoo. Kaiser Bill 'as 'opped the
+twig, and the hold firm of 'im and Gott is for sale, with the goodwill
+thrown in, I _don't_ think."
+
+I leaned out of the window, and we grasped hands.
+
+Futile.... Futile.... Futile.
+
+No--by Heaven, no! Not while we remember our dead; not while the spirit
+of comradeship still lives in the breasts of those who went out there;
+never, if the Britain of the future is worthy of her knights of the
+greatest crusade of all, and of the mothers who gave that which had
+sprung from their very heart-beats.
+
+"_Out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a
+child or a star there is pain._"
+
+Half-mad with joy, I rushed into the street and urged my hospitality on
+the mutilated soldier, who came into my den and took a seat by the
+fire, while I fetched a decanter and cigars that we might make the
+occasion a jovial one. As I came into the room I noticed that he was
+examining me curiously.
+
+"Hexcuse me," he said, "but if I may make so bold--wasn't you 'is pal?"
+
+"Good heavens!" I cried, a light bursting upon me. "You're the man with
+a face like a--like a----" I suppose I blushed.
+
+"Don't 'esitate," he grinned. "Many a time over there 'e told me you
+called me Pumpkin-Fice,' and, beggin' your pardon, sir, I likes it a
+sight better than 'Pest.'"
+
+"Then--it was Norman I saw in March?"
+
+"Ay." He sipped his glass meditatively. "'E lied about 'is 'eart, and
+was took O.K. late in 'fifteen. 'E was a ranker like the rest of us,
+but 'e was a proper gentleman, 'e was--that is, not just like we
+hunderstands the word in Hengland, but a _real_ gentleman. 'E never
+preached and 'e never whined, but them two heyes just kept twinklin',
+and whenever hany of us was a bit windy, 'e 'd sort of buck us hup by
+that there smile 'e 'ad. I ain't much on langwidge, not 'avin' no
+eddication to speak of, or I'd hexplain better; but when little Sawyers
+got 'is from a sniper, and 'e knew 'is ticket was punched for to go
+West, the sergeant says, 'Fetch the padre,' but Sawyers 'e says, 'No,
+it's Bubbles I want.'... I ain't much on religion neither, and I've
+done a 'eap o' filthy swearin', which I guess is all down agin me in
+the book; but wherever Bubbles is goin' is good enough for me, whether
+it's brimstin and blazes or hangels playin' 'arps."
+
+"Tell me"--I dreaded the answer to the question--"where is he now?"
+
+"'E's took a cottage hover in the Hisle o' Wight," he said, clearing
+his throat and speaking slowly, "and 'e's married to the sweetest
+creetur I ever saw houtside a book. Blime! after I gets hout o'
+'ospital, me not 'avin' any hold woman of my own, 'e finds me hout and
+sends a letter sayin' to go there for my convalessings, which likewise
+I did. That's 'is haddress on the top of that there letter."
+
+I took the paper from his hand, but kept my eyes on his face; he was
+keeping something from me. "Tell me the truth about him," I said, and
+waited.
+
+He shifted uneasily in his chair. "'E got a blighty near 'is 'eart," he
+said, making a supreme effort, "and 'e'll never get hup from 'is chair
+no more."
+
+
+XI
+
+The packet for the Isle of Wight threaded its way through the traffic
+of incoming vessels, and ran by a cruiser that had just come from the
+bloodless Trafalgar of German shame, where the second navy of the world
+surrendered without a fight.
+
+A man next to me grunted. "It's all right for us to crow," he said;
+"but Germany was beaten, and she did the right thing."
+
+I looked at him--he was quite sincere. His hair was unduly long, and he
+carried a manuscript case--probably one of the statistical writers
+still going strong.
+
+"In your wildest flights of imagination," I said, "even if the combined
+fleets of the world were against him, could you picture Beatty leading
+the British Navy out to surrender?"
+
+"Supposing he were ordered?"
+
+As if in answer to his question, our course took us by the hull of the
+_Victory_, straining at her moorings in the November wind.
+
+"In that case," I said, "Beatty would have had two blind eyes."
+
+Which was the sum total of our conversation until we landed at Ryde,
+when our paths diverged, never, I hope, to meet again. Probably, over
+the week-end, he was polishing up some powerful articles on the
+absurdity of Reconstruction.
+
+By the time the train had reached the little station of St. Louis, just
+beyond Ventnor, the wind had blown away any clouds, and the sun was
+shining radiantly. As I emerged from my carriage I felt a throb of
+exhilaration shoot through my veins, but depart as quickly as it had
+come, when I realized how near was the tragedy which I had soon to
+witness. I heard my name spoken, and, turning, saw a ruddy-faced,
+storm-blown fellow of fifty odd years, whose whole bearing smacked of
+nor'-westers and mizzen-tops. When I admitted to my name, he seized my
+bag without a word, and started down the road with the swaying motion
+peculiar to mariners.
+
+We had hardly gone any distance, when he stopped at a gate which proved
+to be the back entrance to a garden, and following him through it, I
+was led along a path which was strewn with leaves in all the wealth of
+autumnal coloring, while through the trees there was the deep blue of
+the sea, flecked with crests of foam. We had gone about fifty yards
+when we came upon a cottage, in front of which, on a promontory, was a
+neatly trimmed lawn, guarded by six trees that stood like sentinels.
+The lower branches had been cut to give a better view, and their
+appearance lent a quaintly tropical look to the place, as if they were
+palms. In front of the house, fields sloped gradually to the edge of
+the cliff, which overlooked the sea beneath.
+
+"My dear old Pest!"
+
+Against the background of trees I had failed to notice him sitting in
+an invalid's chair. In three strides I was by his side, his hands in
+mine ... but no words came to my faltering lips. For a moment the gray
+of his eyes softened to a look of understanding; then the old smile,
+just as charming as ever, irradiated his face.
+
+"This is an event," he said, "to be entered in the log.--Sindbad!"
+
+The ex-seaman who had acted as my guide pulled at his forelock.
+
+"Ay, ay, cap'n!"
+
+"Take this gentleman's things to the guestroom upstairs."
+
+"The cabin to starboard? Werry good, cap'n."
+
+Heavens! such a voice! There were fog, gale, piracy, rum, and combat in
+it.
+
+"Sindbad," said Norman, in answer to my look, "is one of my
+indiscretions--like 'Arcadia.' He turned up here one day with such a
+tale of the sea as would have shamed Robert Louis Stevenson at his
+best. So far as I can discover, he has been in every naval fight since
+Aboukir Bay. He's a bit hazy on the Jutland scrap, but hints darkly at
+the possibility of an invasion by Spain. He is convinced that the
+_Armada_ is only hiding and waiting its time."
+
+In spite of myself, I laughed.
+
+"As he refused to go, I decided to employ him as a man-of-all-work,
+and, as he appeared to have forgotten his own name, I gave him that of
+'Sindbad,' which pleased him as much as me. As a result of my engaging
+him, the lawn you stand on is the quarter-deck which he never fails to
+salute. As nearly as I can discover, we are sailing a perpetual
+voyage--you see by this view that the illusion is possible--and we're
+living in the imminent danger and hope of an attack by the Spanish. By
+the way, old man, would you rather go upstairs and clean up? Are you
+cold sitting there? Sometimes, being so comfortable myself, I forget
+all about my guests."
+
+I protested, sincerely, that I was quite contented where I was.
+
+"Good!" he smiled. "Now tell me all about London.... I see you were hit
+twice. From more than a dozen sources I've heard how splendid you were
+in France."
+
+His voice was so bright, with its old, happy mannerism of rapidity of
+words, with the occasional slurring rallentando, and his gaiety so
+infectious, that, under his influence, I felt the clouds about my brain
+lifting--not only those caused by grief for his helpless condition, but
+those born of my own black moods which drove sleep from my eyes for
+nights at a time. I had come determined to be cheerful and to bring
+encouragement to the invalid, but already I was drinking in the elixir
+of his spirit and feeling my arteries throb with a kind of ecstasy. His
+charm was more potent than before.
+
+For a few minutes we chatted about France and the old Westminster boys
+who had won renown. We talked of many things, and laughed to find that
+we were still boys.
+
+"By the way," he said, during a momentary lull in the stream of
+reminiscence, "I must apologize for my wife. She is doing some
+necessary shopping in Ventnor, but will be back by the next train."
+
+"I heard you were married," I said, but got no further. Delicacy
+forbade my asking him how his dream of love had become a reality. He
+must have read the question in my eyes, however, for he offered me his
+cigarettes, which, with him, was always a prelude to a change in the
+tone of conversation.
+
+"I did not write to her after I went to France," he said quietly,
+"because ... well, I've spoken to you before of my sense of
+intuition--and I knew that mine would be a heavy price to pay. It was
+not fair to fasten her with a life none too robust at its best, because
+of a love-fantasy between two children. When I was hit, and they broke
+the news to me that--that this was to be my luck, the one thing that
+comforted me was the thought that she was free and would not have to
+share my captivity. By-the-by, Pest, isn't the sea fascinating? It is
+never the same for two days together."
+
+He was still a Puck, lightening his moods whenever they threatened to
+hurt the listener with their intensity.
+
+"Pest," he said, after a pause, "she came to me.... When everything was
+dark, and I was groping blindly for some hand that would start me just
+a--a little on my path, she came--out of the mists. I urged her to
+leave me. I argued that she was not fair--and for answer she kissed
+me.... Pest, it was a moment of such exquisite happiness, a happiness
+so poignant, that I wish I could have died then. I was never so fit for
+heaven."
+
+The figure of Sindbad appeared from the house, tugged at its forelock,
+and disappeared into the garden to trim some shrubs.
+
+"How did you happen to come here?" I asked.
+
+"I had always looked on the island," he said, smiling, "as the only
+spot in England where a twentieth-century Robinson Crusoe could find a
+sanctuary from the world, and, by the courtesy of the gentleman who
+owned the place, I was able to purchase it at a ridiculously low price.
+As a matter of fact, he was offered twice the amount quoted to me, but
+refused because I was a disabled Tommy. We came here strangers, but
+really the kindness of every one is so great that the ordeal is turning
+into a privilege. You have no idea, Pest, how extraordinarily
+sympathetic and courteous these people are."
+
+"I suppose, though," I said softly, "that it is rather--lonely."
+
+"Lonely?" he laughed. "Bless your heart, old boy! talk about a French
+savant and his _salon_--this place is a positive Mecca for all the
+distinguished pilgrims on the island. For instance, there is the editor
+of the _Tribune_--a man who thinks editorially and talks colossally.
+He claims that any one who has read Boswell's _Life of Johnson_,
+Cervantes' _Don Quixote_, and Carlyle's _French Revolution_ is
+educated. He never reads anything else, but keeps on reading these
+three in an endless cycle. We have perfectly stupendous arguments that
+never get anywhere, but utterly exhaust both of us. Then there's the
+station-master. How many passengers boarded the train here when you
+were coming off?"
+
+"Four, I think."
+
+"Ah, yes; this is Saturday--a busy day. Some trains we don't get any,
+and others just one or two; but in anticipation of a rush at some
+future date, he's invented a scheme of getting tickets out of a drawer,
+stamped and all complete, by merely pressing a button. I assure you
+it's going to revolutionize the booking systems of the world--we've
+been working on it for weeks, but so far all we've got is the button.
+The plans are prodigious, though. And the Tommies! Gor blime, Pest!
+there's a convalescent home just down the road, and it's a queer day
+that at least two of the beggars don't come up for a 'jaw' about old
+times. You talk about your officers' messes and brass hats; why, it's
+real life in the ranks. I tell you, Pest, I would rather be the man
+that coined the word 'Cheerio' than the greatest general the world has
+seen."
+
+A merchant-ship, still wearing its strange motley of camouflage, sailed
+past only a couple of miles from shore.
+
+"Look!" whispered Norman, and pointed down the garden.
+
+Sindbad was crouched behind some bushes, surveying the vessel through a
+dilapidated telescope. After a careful scrutiny, he resumed his labors,
+shaking his head and muttering darkly to himself.
+
+Norman chuckled hilariously. "He's on the look-out for Spaniards," he
+said.
+
+"What a villainous telescope!"
+
+"Isn't it? He always has it by him, though. I'll swear you can't see
+half-a-mile with the blessed thing."
+
+A huge black hound appeared from the direction of the conservatory,
+and, after the canine manner, expressed his wriggliest delight at the
+sight of Norman, ending by sitting solemnly beside the chair and laying
+one paw on the invalid's knee.
+
+"Good-afternoon, Mr. Jones," said Norman.
+
+The dog thumped the ground four times with his tail, and emitted a yawn
+like the sound of a train emerging from a tunnel.
+
+"Mr. Jones," said I, "changes from cordiality to ennui with rather
+startling rapidity."
+
+The hound acknowledged his name by a solitary thump, and then groaned
+with the air of a Stiggins contemplating the wickedness of a Weller.
+
+"What breed is he?" I asked.
+
+"Dog--just dog. He is, if I may say so, the battle-ground of his
+ancestors. Every breed but that of bull can be traced in him, and each
+has its moment of ascendancy. Mr. Jones possesses a most remarkable
+hereditary system."
+
+The subject of our conversation became suddenly tense. A bird had
+hopped on to the quarter-deck, and was pecking at the ground in a
+manner that would infuriate any self-respecting dog.
+
+Gathering up his loins, Mr. Jones stalked the intruder to within four
+yards, and then fell in a heap on the spot--where the bird had been.
+After surveying the landscape with a puzzled air, as if to indicate to
+us that foul work was afloat, he walked to the end of the lawn and
+gazed thoughtfully at the sea. Having thoroughly demonstrated his
+indifference as to whether he ever caught a bird or not, he yawned
+terrifically, and left the scene for the comfort of the kitchen.
+
+
+XII
+
+And so, partly with banter, but with many moments that were tense with
+feeling, we talked while the afternoon wore on. Norman was in the midst
+of some anecdote of either Sindbad or Mr. Jones, when he paused, and a
+look of delighted anticipation lit his countenance.
+
+"That's the whistle," he said. "The train's right on time to-day." He
+sighed happily, as a lover about to meet his sweetheart after a long
+absence.
+
+"Sindbad," he cried, "pipe all hands to tea. Tell Mrs. M'Gillicuddy
+we'll have it in the music-room."
+
+Telescope under his arm, the worthy buccaneer--for I am convinced he
+sailed under Captain Kidd--shuffled into the house, and the noise of
+the train could be distinctly heard as it emptied its crowd of one or
+two at the little station.
+
+"I shall go and open the gate," I said, but he stopped me.
+
+"He is with her, Pest."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Wait.... I have kept a surprise for you."
+
+A minute later I saw his wife at the end of the path as she waved to
+him. She came through the leafy garden with a grace of movement that
+made the scene a delicate, colorful picture, and even before she had
+reached us I could see that her beauty was as exquisite, as perfect, as
+an orchid's. All sacrificed to an invalid....
+
+With the tenderest of smiles in her eyes, which were blue as the sky,
+she advanced towards us and kissed him; and I, who detest things
+sentimental as I would the plague, thought it was the loveliest tribute
+I had ever seen. Before he could speak, she turned and gave me both her
+hands.
+
+"I won't apologize," she said, and her voice was as sweet as a brook's,
+"because I know you both enjoyed your talk of old times the better for
+my absence."
+
+"It was a wonderful afternoon," I said, "but it would have been doubly
+so with you here."
+
+And then I, the Pest, the cynic, the modernist, stooped and kissed her
+hand. It seemed the natural thing to do, and she accepted it with the
+understanding heart that Nature had given her.
+
+"But, Lilias, where is the lad?"
+
+"Oh," she laughed gaily, "the station-master kept him a moment to show
+him an entirely new button he had thought of. But here he is now."
+
+Coming up the path, carrying a couple of parcels, was a boy of,
+perhaps, ten years of age. His hair was golden and curly, and his eyes
+had a dreamy look that contrasted strangely with the strength of his
+chin. He had the poise and the appearance of a thoughtful, well-bred
+youth; but there was something, I could not say what, that told me he
+was not English.
+
+He touched his cap to me as he came on the lawn and smiled cordially to
+Basil.
+
+"Do you remember the gentleman?" asked Norman.
+
+The boy shook his head and unconsciously moved nearer to the woman, who
+placed her hand on his shoulder.
+
+"You shouldn't forget each other," laughed Norman, "for once he played
+the drums under your baton."
+
+A few minutes later we went in for tea, the boy and Mrs. Norman going
+first. I waited while Sindbad prepared to move the invalid, and then
+turned to him for an explanation.
+
+"Klotz was killed," said Norman swiftly, "and his wife died a month
+later, after she heard of his death. We have adopted Siegfried as our
+ward."
+
+
+XIII
+
+That night a storm came up from the sea, and the house rattled and
+shook in the clutch of a November gale. The trees that looked like
+palms swayed and bent before the wind, and the many-colored leaves in
+the garden fled like refugees before an attack, and covered the ground
+with their quivering bodies.
+
+We were gathered in the music-room, the cosy warmth from a fire of logs
+making pleasant contrast to the snarling wind outside. The evening had
+been a memorable one. The woman whose beauty was so delicate had
+charmed us with her voice, her playing; charmed us without effort or
+knowing how.
+
+From a lounge, Norman's vivacity, which always had in it the quality of
+sympathy, illuminated everything that happened. When she sang a little
+extract of the eighteenth century, "_Bergère Légère_," it was he
+who knew that it had been a favorite of Marie Antoinette's. When she
+played the love theme which Puccini gives the strings in the first act
+of _Madame Butterfly_, it was Norman who, by a dozen deftly chosen
+words, created the atmosphere of Japan and brought before us the cruel
+tenderness of Pinkerton's love for Cho Cho San. After Siegfried had
+played MacDowell's conception of "Mid-ocean," Norman recalled in a
+moment the genius of America's greatest composer, the genius that had
+finally crossed the thin barrier to insanity. From that we talked of
+the sea, while the wind howled outside, and I spoke of the many moods
+of blue that colored it in a single day, and, without giving the effect
+of quotation or of monologue, he brought his artistry into play with
+three lines of Keats's sonnet "Blue."
+
+Whenever any of us spoke, his sensitive rhythmic intellectuality seemed
+to hover about us, acknowledging thought where it struggled to the
+surface, adding some subtle touch of color when our efforts seemed too
+drab. Under its influence we talked our best, we thought our best, we
+were our best.
+
+At nine o'clock Siegfried rose to go to bed, and advanced to shake
+hands with me.
+
+"Well," I said, "and do you still intend to be a conductor?"
+
+He smiled a little self-consciously.
+
+"There is much to learn," he said, "and--I do not want to leave my
+home."
+
+Norman lit a cigarette--his old mannerism when emotions were taut.
+
+"Parents," he said, "and quasi-parents like us, march straight towards
+loneliness. Our greatest concern is to have our children ready to leave
+us as soon as they hear the call of the world, knowing that such a
+moment will be the proudest and the saddest of our lives."
+
+"Good-night," said Siegfried to me. "Goodnight, Uncle Bubbles." He
+turned wistfully to Mrs. Norman, who smiled and linked her arm in his.
+
+"Won't you come along?" she said to me. "Siegfried is very proud of his
+room, and would like you to see it." It was her way of hiding her
+knowledge that the little chap was frightened by the storm. So we saw
+him safely in bed, and admired his books, and wished him pleasant
+dreams. We had just left his room and were about to descend the stairs,
+when we paused as the sound of rain beating against the house came to
+our ears. We hurried about for a few moments seeing that all windows
+were closed, and were going to rejoin Norman, when I stopped her.
+
+"Mrs. Norman," I said haltingly, "it is never easy for an Englishman to
+express the emotion he feels, but may I tell you how touched I am by
+your devotion to your husband? Without you, his life would
+be--unbearable."
+
+She did not smile or protest, but her eyes looked straight into mine.
+
+"To live day by day," she said slowly, her fingers playing with a
+necklace that hung about her full white throat, "near a soul like
+Basil's, to commune with a brain like his ... to feel the inspiration
+of his nature that is so in tune with the beauty of the world, is a
+happiness few women can experience. If it were not too cruel, I could
+feel thankful for his wound that has given him so completely to me."
+
+I stood by her on the creaking stairs as the rain swept in torrents
+against the house, and her murmuring tones mingled with the sounds of
+the storm.
+
+"Perhaps you cannot understand," she said gently, "but loving Basil as
+I do, and having him dependent on me, is a selfish happiness that only
+a woman could really know."
+
+And out of the night a truth came to me that, though it never, never
+could be mine, the most precious thing in this world is a woman's
+heart.
+
+
+XIV
+
+It was eleven o'clock, and Basil Norman and I were alone. The storm had
+subsided, and, through the sound of the rain, we could hear the waves
+breaking against the shore.
+
+"I do not want Siegfried to go to school yet," he was saying; "he is so
+full of promise and latent genius that I dread the risk of having it
+all standardized into what we call a public-school man. I am coaching
+him in languages and the three R's, but more than anything else I want
+him to form his own conception of the scheme of the universe, so that
+when he takes his position among the world's musicians--as I am
+confident he will--he'll have the echo of what he interprets in his own
+breast. Music is so vast, yet musicians, as a class, are people of
+little depth."
+
+"Has the lad a chance in England with his German name?"
+
+"Yes. England must realize that genius has no nationality."
+
+"What was Siegfried like when you took him first?"
+
+"He was arrogant, sullen, and in his child's brain was the knowledge
+that his father had fought against us. To make him forget his unhappy
+past, and partly to satisfy a caprice of my own, I--well, you would say
+I blew bubbles. We invented a little city of make-believe. From the
+hill at the back of the house you can look down on all these houses,
+and at dusk, when the mist rises from the sea and the windows begin to
+glow with light, it is quaint enough for a study by Rackham. In our
+little City of Bubbles there dwelt such celebrities as Aladdin, Jack
+the Giant Killer, Midshipman Easy, Peter Pan, poor Wilde's Happy
+Prince, and Heaven knows how many more. They were very real to
+Siegfried and me, and Lilias used to have many a laugh over the
+troubles of our little family. But I had not counted on Sindbad; he was
+filling Siegfried with stories of buried treasure and men forced to
+walk the plank (all of them absolutely authenticated by the narrator),
+and the lurking Prussian began to appear. He stole down to Ventnor and
+bought books on the war ... he began to glory in the stand Germany was
+making. So I was not surprised when, one day, he suggested that we
+should play soldiers.
+
+"Pest, you should have been there. Siegfried was Napoleon, and I was
+Hindendorff, his chief of Staff. Sindbad was given command of a naval
+brigade, and was also in charge of a large fleet lying in hiding to
+cope with the Spaniard, should he emerge. In addition to these modest
+duties, he had to wheel my chair. Lilias came along as a composite
+representative of all the women's services. Napoleon's plans were that
+we should attack the City of Bubbles, which was being defended by a
+heavy force on the fringe of the hill. I omitted to mention our flying
+cavalry in the person of Mr. Jones; but owing to a misunderstanding of
+our objective he waged separate war on birds all afternoon, inflicting
+no casualties, but covering an immense area of ground. We began the
+attack about half-a-mile back; but when Napoleon ordered Sindbad's
+naval brigade into action, we were unable to find him, until Mr. Jones
+discovered him behind a rock, scrutinizing a passing merchantman
+through the inevitable telescope. After some persuasion, we induced
+Sindbad to attack, but half-way to his objective he remembered that he
+had left his pipe in the kitchen, to which he repaired, leaving his
+troops in the air, as we used to say in France, and taking away the
+mobility which, as Chief of Staff, I needed urgently. There is no
+question that Sindbad possesses imagination, but it is an unreliable
+one.
+
+"To make the story short, we won by a brilliant ruse of Napoleon's, who
+got word to the enemy that the tuck-shops in Ventnor were being
+evacuated, which was as effective as his famous "_Sauve qui peut_"
+at Waterloo, for they fled ignominiously, and we captured the city,
+after inflicting heavy casualties."
+
+I looked at him and waited. Behind the nonsense I could see some
+serious thought was lurking, but what I could not conjecture.
+
+"The next day," he resumed, "Siegfried was tired, and asked me to tell
+how Peter Pan frustrated the pirates. 'Peter is dead,' said I.
+Siegfried suppressed a sob, and asked when he died. 'He was killed in
+our attack,' I said. After a long pause, he mentioned the probability
+of Mr. Midshipman Easy being at home. 'He is dead,' said I. Again his
+question, and again my answer: 'He was killed in our attack.' He went
+out; but on going to bed that night he asked if Cinderella was really
+very pretty. 'Not now,' I said, 'for she is lying dead.' Does it seem
+ludicrous, Pest? That night he cried himself to sleep, and it is not
+easy to listen to a youngster's sobs when you know that a word from you
+will do away with them. For two long dreary weeks our City of Bubbles
+was a City of the Dead.... Then I suggested that we play soldiers again
+and make another attack. After all, Pest, it isn't every Tommy gets a
+chance of being Chief of Staff. I wish you could have seen his face. It
+was as though I had struck him with a whip, and he left me without a
+word. That afternoon the Wizard of Oz visited our city and brought them
+all back to life. That was some months ago, and our little dream-world
+is only a serio-humorous memory for Siegfried and me now. But during
+that night he cried himself to sleep I think the Prussian in him died."
+
+For several minutes we listened to the rain.
+
+"The greatest of the Arts," said Norman, very slowly, "is life. I don't
+think our writers, our painters, our men who dream in bronze realize
+that. If they did, it would not be said that the English are the least
+artistic people in the world; for you and I know that is not true.
+Scott going to his death in the Antarctic snow was a great artist. The
+sailor standing to one side when the last boat is filled, and those six
+Tommies at Grieswald in Germany, holding their ground against a row of
+bayonets and taking a sentence of two years' imprisonment rather than
+aid the Hun in making munitions--are they not artists? Where we fail as
+a race is in our authors, composers, painters, who divorce themselves
+from the real spirit of England and wonder that the products of their
+brains quicken no pulse and stir no imagination. Our educationists, our
+leaders in every movement allied with culture, have too often striven
+to choke the imaginativeness and blind the eyes of our youth to the
+beauty of life, which is one of its greatest truths. One has but to
+read the despairing lines written by bereaved mothers for their sons
+who have fallen, to feel the sorrow of England crying for expression;
+instead of which, our triumph, our courage, our artistry are mute and
+inarticulate."
+
+The rain had ceased, and the wind was moaning over the sea as if it had
+been balked of its prey.
+
+"Mark my words, Pest," he said dreamily, "as a nation we shall have no
+self-expression until our artists take for their model the greatest of
+all Arts--_Life_."
+
+His eyes were fixed on the smouldering coals, and over his face there
+was a mystic veil--a thing not of this world but born of the undying
+spirit. It was like a mist that settles on a river in the hour between
+sunset and night.
+
+"Basil," I cried; and the sound of my own voice startled me. I do not
+know what words were surging to my lips, for he turned to me and the
+smile of compassion in his eyes held me silent.
+
+Something choked in my throat.... I felt that I wanted to struggle to
+my feet and stand at the salute. For the face that looked into mine was
+that of a CONQUEROR.
+
+A burning ember fell from the grate and lay on the tiled surface of the
+hearth.
+
+
+
+
+PETITE SIMUNDE
+
+
+I
+
+Three hundred miles north of Toronto, the Cobalt mining country
+surrenders its daily toll of silver to the world. In that region there
+is mostly rock. Where woods exist, the trees are gaunt and defiant, as
+though resentful of the approach of man; in winter they stand like
+white-shrouded ghosts, and the wind howls dismally through them until
+in the little settlements across Lake Timiskaming men draw closer to
+the fire, and women croon comfort to frightened children, yet
+half-believe, themselves, the Indian legend that another soul is on its
+way to the Great Unknown.
+
+Five miles north of Cobalt the town of Haileybury straggles down a hill
+to the lake, on the other side of which can be seen the blue shores of
+Pontiac, Quebec, where lies the sleepy little hamlet known as Ville
+Marie, possessed of its church, its wayside public-house, "Les
+Voyageurs," and a few vagabond frame buildings. The ring of the
+blacksmith's anvil can be heard throughout the day, for there is little
+else to drown the noise. But when the lumber-jacks come in from the
+woods, or the river-runners from their convoys of logs, there is always
+the sound of a noisy chorus from "Les Voyageurs," led (in the times we
+write of) by Pierre Generaud, who knows that singing a constant
+fortissimo stimulates thirst in participants and auditors alike. On
+Sunday there is the sound of the organ, and the villagers walk about in
+ill-fitting garments of respectability: a simple God-fearing community,
+knowing no world but their own, and finding their joy of life in mere
+existence.
+
+It was gathering dusk, one summer evening in the year 1914, when the
+figure of a young officer wended its way towards "Les Voyageurs."
+
+He had crossed from Haileybury on the afternoon boat, causing not a
+little comment by the uniform he wore. All in the mining country knew
+him as "Dug" Campbell, manager of the Curran Like Mine--they were
+hardly prepared for the sudden transition from his usual costume of
+riding-breeches, brown shirt, and lumberman's boots, to the trappings
+of a British officer. He was a young man of big stature, with broad,
+restless shoulders that seemed to chafe under the bondage of a tunic,
+and he had a long, loose-limbed stride oddly at variance with the usual
+conception of military bearing. His eyes were light blue, his hair an
+unruly brown that flirted with red--and his name was Campbell. Such men
+do not wait for the second call when there is war.
+
+Wherever civilization is forcing her right of way, wherever she is
+fighting for her existence, the descendants of Scotland will be found.
+When a new railroad struggles over unnamed rivers and through untrodden
+forests, somewhere ahead there is always a son or a grandson of old
+Scotia, whose eyes are a humorous blue and whose hair has more than a
+tinge of red. There is no part of the world to which the Scot is a
+stranger, but he rises to his best in a new country where waterfalls
+must be harnessed to give power; where great rocks must be blasted from
+age-old foundations; where rebellious nature in her primeval state must
+be taught that the world was made for man.
+
+On that August evening in that most fateful of years, the figure of
+Captain Douglas Campbell, tall and somewhat rugged, like one of the
+northern trees, might have served as a sculptor's model for the spirit
+of Scotland confirming and strengthening the purpose of young Canada.
+
+Rich in tradition as she is, what glory of her past can Scotland have
+that is greater than this--that, strong in the manhood which seems to
+spring from the soil of her country, she sent her sons to every corner
+of the world; and when the shadow of war fell upon her--they came back!
+Sons, grandsons, those to whom their Scottish blood was little more
+than a family legend, _they came back_.
+
+Scotland needs no other monument than those three words.
+
+
+II
+
+Nearing "Les Voyageurs" the young officer paused at a sudden burst of
+sound that came from the inn. In place of the usual chorus, one voice,
+a slovenly but powerful one, was bellowing forth a ribald song,
+remarkable only for its noisy coarseness. Reaching the hostelry,
+Campbell hammered at the door, which was opened by mine host himself.
+
+"Ah!" he gesticulated eloquently, "Monsieur Cam-pell?" (Pierre
+Generaud, like all French-Canadians, invariably reversed his accents on
+English words.) "For why you come, eh?"
+
+"My dear Generaud, must I give reason for visiting the famous 'Les
+Voyageurs'?"
+
+"Ah! By gosh, no!" He beamed welcome in every pore--then struck an
+attitude of despair. "You come, is it not, as an officier, perhaps
+no--yes?"
+
+"Correct. I want to speak just for a minute to the men inside."
+
+"Oh, _mais non_!" The good host's gesture was a masterpiece, even
+among a race of gesticulators. "Not to-night, monsieur."
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"By Gar! Who you theenk is inside now? Listen--she sing!"
+
+Campbell was too well acquainted with the universal French-Canadian use
+of the feminine pronoun to express any surprise when "she" proved to be
+the possessor of the aforesaid raucous, bass voice, which had broken
+into some song anent the passion of a sailor for a Portuguese young
+lady of great charm but doubtful modesty.
+
+"Who is our friend?" asked the officer.
+
+"What--you know not? She is the terrible Des Rosiers!"
+
+"Well, I don't like Mr. Des Rosiers's voice."
+
+"You nevair hear her name, monsieur? Sometime she is called 'Jacque
+Noir.' _Mon Dieu!_--she sleep with _le diable_."
+
+The landlord's eyes grew wide with horror; his shoulders contracted
+until they touched his ears.
+
+"Look here, my friend," said Campbell, with a tinge of impatience,
+"Jacque Noir or Jacque Rouge or Jacque Blanc is not going to keep me
+out here."
+
+"But, monsieur, once she _keel_ a man."
+
+"My dear fellow----"
+
+"One winter, a man has insult Des Rosiers, and--_voilà!_ Jacque Noir
+_burn_ her house--_keel_ her family--_murdair_ her"----
+
+With a laugh, the newly created officer thrust the little man aside and
+entered the sacred precincts of "Les Voyageurs." A big, dirty, bearded
+fellow of about thirty years of age was leaning against the counter,
+waving a mug and bellowing a song. He looked formidable enough, but
+hardly justified the diabolical qualities attributed to him by Pierre
+Generaud. In spite of his unshaven face with its bloodshot, inebriated
+eyes, there was something not unpleasing about the fellow, and when his
+lips parted they disclosed teeth that were gleaming white.
+
+A group of villagers sat in open-mouthed admiration beneath the singer,
+for Des Rosiers's reputation had gathered velocity like a snowball
+rolling down the side of a hill, gaining in size every time it came
+into contact with the drifts of rumor, until it had become almost a
+legend of wickedness. His audience felt a timid pride in the event. It
+was as if his Satanic Majesty himself had condescended to appear from
+below and sing comic songs for their benefit.
+
+On the entrance of the officer, the song ceased, and all eyes were
+turned to the new-comer.
+
+"_Holà_," said Des Rosiers, with extraordinary resonance. "You drink by
+me, _eh bien_?"
+
+"No, thanks. I must only stay a minute."
+
+"You no drink?" roared the lumber-jack, whose hospitality was not
+unlike the forcefulness of the muscular Christian in "Androcles and the
+Lion." "You drink, or, by Gar, I brak your neck."
+
+A hum of admiration rose from the villagers. They bore no possible
+malice towards the officer, but it was gratifying to find Jacque Noir
+living up to his reputation.
+
+"_Messieurs_," said Campbell, ignoring the gentleman in question,
+"there is a war. _La belle France_ fights for her life, and Canada
+must help. She needs you--and you--and you."
+
+With their meager knowledge of English, he was forced to a simplicity
+of language that depended almost entirely on the personal appeal for
+effect. "Come with me to the war. We pay you one dollar ten a day, and
+your wife and _garçons_ get money too."
+
+Mr. Des Rosiers laughed, scornfully and sonorously. "I laugh," he
+said. "You theenk we go to war, and you English, by Gar, no leave
+Canada, but steal all we leave behind. The French-Canadian--he go; the
+English-Canadian, _non_." He roared a vile oath, and laid his hand on
+Campbell's shoulder. "I brak your neck," he said comfortingly.
+
+In a moment Campbell's tunic was off and he was facing Jacque Noir.
+"You are a liar, Des Rosiers," he said. "You are the greatest liar and
+the worst singer in the province of Quebec."
+
+The Frenchman tore the red kerchief from his neck and hurled the mug to
+the floor, where it broke into a hundred pieces. "By gosh, me!" he
+bellowed in a voice that would have terrified a bull. "I _keel_ you!"
+
+He advanced in windmill fashion, but his opponent, who had been one of
+the best boxers of his year at Toronto 'Varsity, stopped him with a
+blow known technically as a "straight left to the jaw." Des Rosiers
+paused to collect his thoughts. He was wondering whether to kick with
+one foot or with both, when something happened, and oblivion settled
+over him like the curtain on the last act of a melodrama. Campbell had
+stepped forward, and, putting his shoulder behind it, had delivered a
+blow on the lower part of the jaw with force enough to fell an ox. For
+Des Rosiers the rest was silence.
+
+Concluding his recruiting speech to the dazed villagers, Campbell put
+on his tunic and strode down the street.... But the fall of Mr.
+Pecksniff in the eyes of Tom Pinch was not more complete than the
+collapse of their idol, Jacque Noir, in the eyes of the inhabitants of
+Ville Marie.
+
+
+III
+
+A sky that was hung with stars looked down upon the shimmering
+roof-tops of Haileybury. The streets were deserted except in the main
+thoroughfare, where a group of men were seated in an irregular line,
+their pipes glowing in the darkness. They had been there since dusk.
+
+Midnight passed, and the shadowy line was longer as each hour struck.
+Men with heavy packs; men with the mud of the northern wilderness still
+on their boots; men who had walked for sixty miles; men whose beardless
+chins bespoke the schoolboys of a year before; men whose faces would
+have looked coarse and cruel in any light but that of the stars; one by
+one or in pairs they came. For each there was a yell of welcome, a
+ribald jest or two--then silence once more, and the glowing pipes. The
+first glimmering streaks of dawn showed the queue in all its
+picturesque grotesqueness. The man in front was leaning against a frame
+store that bore the placard "Recruiting Office."
+
+Some three thousand miles away, a Hohenzollern Emperor had said that
+the British Empire would crumble into disintegration at the first sound
+of war. And through the forests of the north and over weary trails men
+were staggering on, mile after mile, fearful of one thing only--that
+they might be too late to answer the call which had come, from across
+the Atlantic, speeding over forests, cities, prairies, lakes, and
+mountains until echo answered from the shores of the Pacific Coast.
+
+The early boat from Ville Marie discharged its half-dozen passengers. A
+powerfully built French-Canadian strode up the hill and stopped at the
+crowd of men. With a worried contraction of his heavy eyebrows he
+surveyed the formidable length of the line.
+
+"Godam!" said he.
+
+Heedless of the jests and the comments of the mob, he went slowly down
+the line, carefully scrutinizing each man, until he stopped at a
+half-breed Indian. For a moment only they argued in French, then he
+produced a roll of dollar notes in one hand, and brandished the other
+hand threateningly in the half-breed's face. The combined arguments
+proved too much; when the enrollment of recruits took place, number
+eighteen was Jacque Des Rosiers, sworn to serve His Majesty the King
+for the duration of the war and six months afterwards--in witness
+whereof he had drawn an inky cross after his name.
+
+It would be difficult to give the exact motive for his action. He
+probably had never heard of Belgium, but--well, take horns and tail
+from the devil, and what is left?
+
+Three weeks later the company of amateur soldiers were warned to
+proceed to the concentration camp. Willing, but puzzled by the
+infliction of army discipline, they had struggled past the first
+pitfalls of recruitship. For the sake of Captain Douglas Campbell,
+their "boss," they had suppressed their grumbling and submitted to the
+rites and ceremonies of military routine, arguing that, inexplicable as
+it was, it had some connection, however remote, with the ultimate goal
+of warfare. The afternoon before their departure Campbell spoke to them
+for exactly five minutes. His hair looked redder and his eyes seemed
+bluer than before. His powerfully built shoulders and the rhythm of his
+muscles lent a grace to his entire body, despite its ruggedness.
+
+"Look here, you fellows," he said, "you signed up to fight--so did I.
+We will fight, too, but Kitchener can't use us until we're ready. You
+wonder what all this drill is about. Well, here's my idea about it.
+There isn't a coward in this crowd; there isn't a man who wouldn't go
+down a shaft after a pal, even if the chances were a hundred to one
+against his coming back. But you're not ready for the front. You've got
+the heart, but your bodies must have training and discipline. Watch me
+with this cigarette. In flicking the ash I burn my finger; the next
+time I want to touch the ash, my finger avoids it by a quarter of an
+inch. I laugh and try again. You all know what I mean. I am not afraid
+of the cigarette, but my finger is. If you've ever been kicked in the
+leg by a horse, the next time that horse kicks, which of your legs is
+drawn back first? In some strange way your body has instincts of its
+own, and though you might have a heart like a bull, your muscles and
+nerves--your body--might fail you when you needed them most. As I
+understand the army system, it is to train you to obey, not only
+mentally but physically. Eight months from now we may be lying
+half-dead with the enemy's guns playing hell all around us. We may want
+to quit, we may be 'all in,' but, if the order comes to advance, we'll
+go forward, because our bodies will be disciplined to obey.
+
+"Be patient then, men, and just grin when things go wrong. I would
+gladly have gone with you in the ranks, and there are lots of you chaps
+better able to lead than I, but a commission was given to me, and I'm
+out to do my best with the finest company of men in the Canadian
+Expeditionary Force. I'm learning all the time--as you are. You will
+have bad times, and so shall I; but let's help each other to laugh and
+make the best of it, for, after all, we're just great big children
+playing a mighty big game.... And when we reach France we'll show them
+all that the old Cobalt gang is afraid of nothing in this world or the
+next."
+
+They cheered--and the man who shouted loudest was Jacque Des
+Rosiers.... And somewhere in the speech _esprit de corps_ had been
+born.
+
+
+IV
+
+Four winters passed by.
+
+France lay in the warmth of a late spring evening, like a stricken deer
+that has thrown off its pursuers momentarily, but is bleeding from a
+hundred wounds. Month after month she had endured the invader, and the
+cycle of years, instead of freeing her had only deepened her agony.
+What had she left? The next attack would see Arras and her remaining
+coalfields gone, the Channel ports captured, and then ... Paris?...
+Paris?
+
+Unperturbed, however, by any such thoughts, Petite Simunde--no one
+thought of her by any other name--was driving four cows home from
+pasture. The setting sun shed a kindly hue on her gingham garment that
+was neither a frock nor an apron, yet served as both. Nor was the
+mellowing sunlight unkind to her face, for the racial sallowness of her
+cheeks, accentuated by too constant exposure to the elements, was
+softened and shaded into a gentle brown. Her shoes, which were far too
+large, were in the final stages of disrepair. About the brow her hair
+was braided with a simplicity that was by no means devoid of charm. Her
+eyes--but there she was really French. Simunde had never been farther
+from the village of Le Curois than the neighboring town of Avesnes Le
+Comte (unless one counts the momentous occasion, a year after her
+birth, when she was taken to Arras for exhibition before an esteemed
+and wealthy relative, who was so little impressed that he bequeathed
+his entire estate, consisting of eight thousand francs, to a
+manufacturer of tombstones); but a French woman does not acquire
+coquetry--she is born with it. Even in church Simunde would cast such
+languishing yet mischievous eyes upon the curé himself, that the poor
+little man, who had never liked Latin at any time, used to stammer and
+mumble his orisons like an over-conscientious penitent at confessional.
+
+When her two brothers went to war Simunde, who was then sixteen,
+assumed their tasks in addition to her own, in all of which she had the
+able direction of "madame" her mother. Between them they performed a
+day's work that would have exhausted two husky laborers. As is the
+custom in most of northern France, their home was not on the farm, but
+in the village, for one of the first essentials of existence to a
+Frenchman is companionship. On the outskirts of Le Curois, just on the
+hill, there was a great château, beautifully, gloomily aloof; but in
+the one street of the village itself, pigs, cows, hens and their
+offspring wallowed in mud and accumulated filth.
+
+It is difficult to know which is the more striking: the French
+peasant's stoicism in the presence of war, or his indifference to dirt.
+
+On this particular evening in May of 1918 Simunde was frankly
+regretting the absence of men. Not that she had ever been in love or
+known the rapture of wandering in the moonlight with a man (France is
+almost the only civilized country remaining that has not relegated
+chaperons to the realm of fiction); but she wanted to use her eyes on
+something more susceptible than a cow or a curé. It was spring, and she
+felt pretty, and when a woman is conscious of her own charm she seldom
+wishes to prove miserly with it.
+
+She had just run across the road to convince a cow of its loss of the
+sense of direction when she heard the neighing of a horse. Glancing
+behind her, she looked directly into the eyes of a mounted British
+officer, whereupon that gentleman brought his steed to a standstill.
+
+"_Bon soir, mademoiselle_," he said.
+
+"_Bon soir, monsieur_," she answered demurely. Her eyes were lowered
+shyly, and her fingers played over the stick she was carrying, like a
+flute-player caressing his instrument. The officer bowed slightly and
+tried to recall his French vocabulary, though it must be admitted he
+was never loquacious in any tongue when conversing with a daughter of
+Eve. As for her, since it is a woman's _rôle_, she waited. Would he
+speak again or would he pass on, leaving the memory of yet one more
+meeting with a gentleman of adventure--one more roadside drama in which
+the dialogue consisted only of an exchange of salutations. Most men who
+have returned from France will recall for years to come how, a few
+kilometres back from Hell, they often caught a glimpse of two dark eyes
+and a tender smile. Just that and--
+
+"_Bon soir, mademoiselle._"
+
+"_Bon soir, monsieur._"
+
+Commonplace, perhaps, in the telling, but in France it was the
+commonplace that became romance.
+
+A smile crept into the officer's eyes, which were blue and kindly,
+though they had a glint in them--something like metal--a look that a
+mother always noticed first when her son returned from the line.
+
+"_Où est le village?_" he ventured.
+
+"Le Curois?"
+
+"_Oui!_ Le Curois."
+
+"_Mais, monsieur_"--her eyes widened and her hands indicated the
+village dwellings--"_c'est ici Le Curois_!"
+
+He breathed deeply and ventured again.
+
+"_Connaissez-vous un billet pour dix officiers?_"
+
+He felt rather pleased with the sentence; it was true he had intended
+to get accommodation for eleven officers, but it was moderately
+accurate for a foreign tongue.
+
+For answer Simunde led him, preceded by the four cows, to her domicile
+as "Madame," like all French housewives had received billeting
+instructions in the first year of the war. In conjunction with her
+neighbors on either side, she speedily arranged accommodation for
+eleven officers in their cottages, and for the officers' _domestiques_
+in the barns.
+
+One hour later the guests of war, their battalion having come out for a
+rest, were dining comfortably in the home of Petite Simunde, while a
+sow, attended by ten small pigs, snorted approvingly outside the door.
+
+Less than an hour afterwards Private Des Rosiers, acting as temporary
+batman to Major Douglas Campbell, was sitting on a chair in the
+farm-yard, in the glittering moonlight, regaling Simunde and her mother
+with grossly exaggerated stories of the mining country of Cobalt. He
+told them of his misdeeds, not in humility, but with much
+_braggadocio_, and his auditors listened, lost in gesticulatory
+admiration. Simunde was thrilled from her ill-shod feet to her braided
+brow. Jacque Des Rosiers was the first really wicked man she had met,
+and, woman-like, she was fascinated; also he had nice teeth and
+flashing eyes.
+
+The picture of a young officer on horseback whose brown hair was almost
+red and whose humorous blue eyes had a glint in them like metal, faded
+as completely from her mind as the memory of the sunset that had thrown
+its spell upon them.
+
+Unromantic?... _Que voulez-vous? C'est la guerre!_
+
+
+V
+
+Two weeks passed, during which period the placid fields about Le Curois
+resounded to the shouts of Canadian troops rehearsing open warfare (for
+rumor had it that the hour was almost at hand when Foch was to release
+the forces of retribution). For pastime, the troops played baseball and
+held field-days of many and varied sports. Whatever they did, they
+shouted lustily and continuously while doing it, for they had mastered
+one elemental truth--that nothing can be accomplished without
+intensity.
+
+Des Rosiers explained baseball to Simunde, who enjoyed the description
+without allowing it to interfere with her innumerable domestic and
+agricultural duties. It was quite true that Jacque Noir had never
+played the game or even mastered its rudiments, but he had the
+narrator's instinct that rises above mere accuracy of detail.
+
+Every evening he accompanied Simunde to the pasture-land, and together
+they guided the patient cows homeward. When darkness set in and
+Simunde's tasks were finished for the day, he sat with her in the
+farm-yard and told lurid tales of northern Canada--to all of which
+"madame," whose tasks were never finished, lent a delighted and
+adjoining ear.
+
+He pictured to Simunde the snow--how it filled the rivers till they ran
+no more; how it covered the great pine-trees until, as far as eye could
+see, there was nothing but white; and he told of the wind that was
+never still. And she listened, as only a Frenchwoman can listen, with
+every emotion he called forth registering in her face, as clouds racing
+across the sun will throw their shadows on the ground.
+
+Just before the battalion was to return to the line, the second in
+command, Major Douglas Campbell, was called to Divisional Headquarters
+for a prolonged conference. As a result Des Rosiers was returned to his
+company for duty, though he contrived to spend every free hour with the
+little belle of Le Curois. As the time for parting approached with
+cruel celerity, he talked less and took to long spells of moody
+silence. His heart had been melted as completely as the snow in his
+Northland is thawed by the sun in spring. As for her, the little
+artifices of gesture and the ceaseless coquetry of the eyes became less
+noticeable. For the first time in her life she felt the anguish of a
+woman's tears; Petite Simunde's guileless and innocent heart had been
+won by Jacque Des Rosiers, the bad man of Northern Quebec.
+
+In a tempest of passionate ardor, but with becoming deference, he
+addressed his suit to the mother, who promised consideration that night
+and her answer on the morrow.
+
+It was hardly twilight when he wandered back along the main road
+towards the fields where his battalion was bivouacked. Full of the
+picture of the little woman who had bewitched him, he failed to notice
+the approach of an exceedingly smart young staff-officer, ablaze in a
+glory of red and brass. With unseeing eyes, Des Rosiers looked directly
+at the young gentleman, but failed to make any sign. The officer, fresh
+from a staff course in England, stopped him with a sharp command.
+
+"Just a moment, my man. Don't you know enough to salute?"
+
+Des Rosiers awoke from his dream, came to attention, and saluted very
+badly.
+
+"I no see you, sair," he said.
+
+"Don't lie to me," snapped Brass Hat (who wasn't a bad chap on the
+whole); "of course you saw me. Damn it, you looked right at me. It's
+fellows like you who give the corps a bad name."
+
+He was wrong there. It was the presence of several thousand men like
+Des Rosiers that had given the Canadian Corps a wonderful name--but let
+that pass, as Jack Point would have said.
+
+The element of tragedy seldom enters the lists of life with a fanfare
+of trumpets. It steals in unobtrusively, like a poor relation. It comes
+in the garb of the commonplace, or masked in triviality or gaiety. One
+is unaware of its presence until it throws off concealment and points
+its yellow fingers at the throat of its victims. What dramatist would
+have read tragedy into the absurd tableau presented by a slouchy
+French-Canadian soldier and a youthful staff-officer? Yet, as
+inexorable as Fate, it was approaching Jacque Des Rosiers, and only a
+few yards away, hiding its skeleton's grin behind the mundane
+countenance of Sergeant Smith, returning to the battalion after a day's
+work in the orderly room.
+
+The officer, who had just made a move to resume his walk, noticed the
+sergeant, and called him over.
+
+"You are from the same battalion as this chap?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Report him to his company commander for failing to salute an officer.
+Impress upon him that I would not have made this complaint, but your
+man looked directly at me, and--well, discipline must be maintained,
+especially out here."
+
+Whereupon, feeling that he had rendered unto Cæsar the things that were
+Cæsar's, the youthful captain sauntered on to the château, occupied by
+Divisional Headquarters, and dined with extra zest. And if it be
+thought that this narrative treats him unkindly, let it be written
+that, three months later, he was badly wounded while performing a very
+gallant action. He was a professional soldier, somewhat lacking in
+psychology; that was all.
+
+A little later Private Des Rosiers was arraigned before his company
+commander, a gentleman who was neither a soldier nor a psychologist.
+The heinous crime of passing an officer without acknowledgment was laid
+to the charge of the battle-worn and love-lorn villain from Quebec.
+
+"What have you got to say for yourself?"
+
+Des Rosiers said it. The officer shook his head.
+
+"It's not good enough," he said. "You French-Canadians seem to think
+there's one law for yourselves and another for everybody else. You
+throw all your comrades down by deliberately insulting an officer--a
+staff-officer, who reports it to the G.O.C., and there you are. We're
+known as a bad battalion just because of a few slackers like you. Put
+him on the horse line picket for two nights, and confine him to camp
+during the day."
+
+The prisoner started. "Sair," he said, "I can no be here to-morrow
+night. _C'est impossible._"
+
+"Oh, is it emposeeble?" answered the officer, who prided himself on a
+gift of neat retort. Des Rosiers's eyes protruded to their utmost.
+
+"By Gar!" he cried, "and nex' morning we go back to the line _encore_,
+yes?"
+
+"Well? Have you any objections? If so, I am sure the divisional
+commander would appreciate hearing them."
+
+"Ah, but _monsieur l'officier_"--his hands were stretched forth in
+an agony of appeal--"Petite Simunde, she wait for me. I promise to
+come--I no come--it is terrible!"
+
+The judge in khaki laughed.
+
+"I am fed up with the stories of you French-Canadians and your village
+sweethearts--and, confound it, stop waving your hands about!"
+
+"Standt'attenshun!" bellowed the sergeant-major.
+
+"Consider yourself lucky to get off so lightly, my man.--That will do,
+sergeant-major."
+
+"Escor' a'prisoner--ri tuh--qui' mawch.--Lef' ri', lef' ri', lef'
+ri--Pawty, ha't.--Report to horse line N.C.O. right away.--Escor',
+dees-mi!"
+
+Rather late for mess, by reason of holding orderly room at an unusual
+hour, the company commander sat down to dinner with a glow of virtue in
+his bosom. He had been a lawyer-politician in a small Ontario town, and
+it pleased him to find that he had not lost the art of Buzfuzian
+browbeating.
+
+And through it all the Fates had woven a thread of tragedy about the
+life of Jacque Noir, using in their scheme of things a
+non-psychological staff-officer, a non-military and non-psychological
+company commander, and a sergeant whose name was Smith.
+
+"There is humor in all things," said Jack Point. Gilbert would have
+been equally correct if he had substituted the word "tragedy."
+
+Before sundown of the next day the prisoner was reported absent, and
+when the battalion marched away for the line Jacque Des Rosiers was not
+with it.
+
+
+VI
+
+Four days had passed before the second-in-command rejoined his unit in
+the trenches. Campbell had been held at Divisional Headquarters, and
+now for the first time learned of Des Rosiers's desertion. With a
+stiffening of the jaw and an ugly contraction of his shoulders, he
+quickly interrogated tragedy's mummers--a sergeant named Smith and a
+politician-lawyer company commander. To the former he said nothing; the
+man had done his obvious duty. To the company commander he gave a
+careful hearing; then, in short staccato sentences that had an odd
+resemblance to a machine-gun in action, subjected him to brief
+questioning.
+
+"What is Des Rosiers's conduct-sheet like?"
+
+"Pretty bad, sir."
+
+"What were his crimes?"
+
+"Oh, the usual things--dirty on C.O.'s inspection, equipment missing,
+late for parades, and generally slovenly. If he hadn't had such a poor
+sheet, he would have been decorated."
+
+"In other words, his crimes are rest-billet ones. Is that correct?"
+
+"Well--yes, sir."
+
+"But in the line he earned a decoration?"
+
+"Yes--at Vimy, he----"
+
+"Have you known him to lie?"
+
+"Well, you know what these French-Canadians are like."
+
+"You understand what I mean. Have you ever known him to lie when put on
+his honor?"
+
+"Er--no."
+
+"When he told you that he had to see this girl, did you find out if he
+was speaking the truth?"
+
+"No, sir, I----"
+
+"Did you look for him at this girl's place when you were coming away?"
+
+"I sent a picket through the village."
+
+The blue in Campbell's eyes became unpleasantly light. "I had Des
+Rosiers in my company at Ypres when the Hun sent over his first
+gas--you were addressing meetings in Canada at the time--and I know him
+for a brave chap, as faithful as a dog. It's men like you with a sense
+of vision no better than a mud-puddle that are making the
+French-Canadian question another Irish one. They are like children,
+easily swayed and true as steel to those they trust; but as long as you
+and your kind make a political cat's-paw out of them, alternately
+yelling 'Kamerad' and 'Traitor,' according to the political exigencies
+of the moment, so long will Canada be without the sympathy and the
+enriching of a wonderfully virile race."
+
+The junior officer's face flushed. "I acted according to the evidence,"
+he persisted hotly.
+
+"Damn the evidence!" said Campbell furiously. "Play the man, not the
+charge-sheet. Does Des Rosiers strike you as a chap who would
+deliberately insult a staff-officer? When he is caught he will be shot.
+It can't be helped--discipline must be maintained; but I tell you,
+when, every few days I read in the adjutant-general's orders that
+Private So-and-So, charged with desertion in the presence of the enemy,
+was apprehended in a certain village, tried by court-martial, and
+sentenced to be shot, sentence duly carried out at 4:15 A.M. on such
+and such a date--you know the ghastly rhythm of the thing as well as I
+do--I never read one of these announcements without having a bad ten
+minutes afterwards. I don't question the decision of the court--a
+deserter must pay the penalty--but, mark my words, behind every one of
+these offences there is the unseen part played by some officer or
+N.C.O. who punished at the wrong time or failed to punish at the right.
+There are far too many machine-made routine-fed chaps in the army, with
+stars on their cuffs, who don't know that there are times when the grip
+of a hand on a Tommy's shoulder, and a few words as man to man, free of
+any cursed condescension, are worth all the conduct-sheets in
+existence."
+
+"You are making a mountain out of a mole-hill, sir. I consider you are
+very unfair to me."
+
+"You do, eh?... What about your unfairness to Des Rosiers and his
+little French girl, when he faces a firing-squad in the early morning?"
+
+With an angry gesture, Campbell left the dugout and hurried to
+Battalion Headquarters. For twenty minutes he and the colonel, a
+gentleman and a soldier, quietly but firmly discussed the case of
+desertion.
+
+"I agree with everything you say, Campbell," said the older man, "and I
+will strongly recommend mercy to the court; but I am commanding a unit
+made up of many personalities, and must think of the example to all."
+
+"Very good, sir. By the way, colonel, I know where Des Rosiers is."
+
+"You do? Then send word to the A.P.M."
+
+"Excuse me, sir; may I go and bring him myself? I ask this as a very
+great favor."
+
+The colonel pondered for a moment. "When will you be back?" he said.
+
+"Before 'Stand to' in the morning."
+
+"Right--but, Campbell, my boy."
+
+"Sir."
+
+"Whatever you have in mind, remember that your duty and mine is to
+think of the example to the battalion."
+
+The blue in Campbell's eyes deepened; then, with an imperious gesture
+of the head, like that of a horse that hears the sound of galloping
+hoofs a mile away, he saluted.
+
+"I shall not forget what you say, sir."
+
+"Thank you, Douglas."
+
+With a restless impatience for delay, Campbell left the dug-out and
+climbed from the trench to open land. Heedless of a machine-gun that
+spat at him from the enemy lines, he hurried on until he reached the
+brigade transport lines, where he secured a motor-car.
+
+"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.
+
+"Le Curois," said the major; "and drop me just before you come to the
+village."
+
+
+VII
+
+In the scorching heat of a summer afternoon, Petite Simunde was washing
+some linen outside her cottage home. The silence, like the heat, was
+oppressive, and seemed more so by contrast with the noise of the troops
+who had been there a week before. An apple falling from a tree to the
+ground; the restless pounding of a horse's hoof in its stall; the
+distant hum of an aeroplane; the rumble of guns, faint but
+ominous--these and the sighs of the little woman at her task, were the
+only sounds that broke the stillness of the air.
+
+She heard footsteps, and her heart, more than her eyes, told her that
+the man she dreaded had come. Her face blanched, and she caught her
+breath with a spasm of pain.
+
+"Simunde"--Campbell's voice was gentle but firm--"where is Jacque?"
+
+She continued her work without looking up.
+
+"Simunde"--again the quiet monotone--"where is Jacque?"
+
+She shook her head. "No compree" she faltered, falling into the jargon
+of war.
+
+"Simunde!" There was an inflection in his voice, an almost
+imperceptible note of severity, that set her heart throbbing with fear.
+This was a new person to her, this calm, stern, blue-eyed man who
+showed no excitement, no anger, only a quiet, kindly severity that gave
+her no chance for subterfuge. She hated him for his calmness--because
+he was English--because he was unfair. If he had only shouted or
+gesticulated--but this brown-haired giant! To oppose him was like
+trying to stem the incoming tide.
+
+She looked up suddenly, and her dripping hands were clenched in a fever
+of supplication. Madly she pleaded for her lover, as a woman will plead
+only for the man she loves or for her child. Tears ran down her cheeks,
+and her voice was choked with sobs.
+
+Patiently he listened, gathering from the anguish more than from her
+words the story he had already guessed. In a climax of grief, she
+groped for him with her hands and would have cried on his breast. But
+he made no move; only his eyes were very grave and tender.
+
+"Simunde," he reiterated in English, "where is Jacque?"
+
+With a shrill cry of rage, she stamped her foot on the ground. This
+great iceberg of a man was a devil! He had come for her lover. He would
+take Jacque away to be shot. With an involuntary instinct of dismay,
+she glanced at the barn some little distance away; then, fearful that
+he had read her meaning, she forced a smile with her lips.
+
+Without a word, he put her gently aside and started for the barn. He
+had gone ten steps before she moved, when he heard her hurried
+breathing and her hands were on his arm.
+
+"_Monsieur_" she cried--"_monsieur le major_--Jacque--Jacque _keel_
+you!" She spoke in broken English, remembering one of Des Rosiers's
+stories of his misdeeds. Releasing her fingers, he reached the barn in
+a few short paces. Opening the door, he cautiously entered and tried to
+accustom himself to the semi-darkness--and saw the barrel of a rifle in
+the loft slowly aligning itself in his direction.
+
+"Des Rosiers!" His voice rang out like a pistol-shot. "It is I--your
+officer!"
+
+There was no sound for almost a full minute, then the rifle was
+withdrawn, and the unshaved, disheveled French-Canadian stood before
+him.
+
+"Why you come?" he said brokenly. "I can no shoot my officier. Why you
+come, eh?"
+
+"Because you will go back with me, Des Rosiers."
+
+The deserter's eyes filled with tears. "By Gar!" he said, "it is not,
+what you say, play fair. I say I shoot who come, and Jacque Des
+Rosiers, he is no afraid. But you--my boss--_mais non_! Maybe I go
+back with you and maybe they shoot me, yes?"
+
+"You have deserted, and the punishment is--well, you know as well as I.
+If you come with me now there is a small chance of mercy."
+
+The man's eyes flashed. "I no ask for mercy," he cried. "I, Jacque Des
+Rosiers want mercy? Pouf! I laugh. They tell me I no see Simunde again,
+when I do nottings wrong. _Très bien_--I say sometings about it too. I
+go, I stay--_mêm' chose_; I am shot. Good! I stay with Simunde."
+
+Campbell took a step forward, and there was metal in his voice as well
+as in his eyes. His hand fell on the other's shoulder and gripped it
+like a vice. "You will come back with me," he said, and again there was
+a strange similarity to a machine-gun; "not that you may receive mercy,
+but because you are a coward, and must face your punishment for
+desertion in the presence of the enemy."
+
+Des Rosiers's face darkened.
+
+"Now, at this minute," went on Campbell, "the battalion, your battalion
+and mine, is in the line. Because you were not there, another man is in
+your place, perhaps at sentry duty. He may be dead by now--and why?
+Because he did his duty, and took the place of a man who was afraid."
+
+The French-Canadian's breath was hot with fury. He clenched his fists,
+and great veins stood out on his forehead. "By gosh, me!" he yelled;
+"who say Jacque Noir, she is afraid?"
+
+With apparent calm, but his muscles poised for action, the officer
+looked squarely at him. "I say you are a coward," he answered. "You
+were afraid to go to the line with your comrades. You are afraid now to
+face your punishment."
+
+He noticed that Jacque was crouching for a spring. With a shrug of his
+shoulders, he produced a cigarette-case and put a cigarette into his
+mouth.
+
+"Well?" he said.
+
+It was the second time he had beaten Des Rosiers. The poor fellow
+paused, then fell at his feet and exhausted his passion in a sobbing
+explanation that would have been ludicrous but for the sincerity of
+anguish behind it.
+
+A few minutes later they went together from the barn. Simunde was
+standing by her door. From the interior of the house the lamentations
+of "madame" could be heard. With a simplicity that strangely ennobled
+the rough fellow, Des Rosiers stopped and spoke to Simunde in French,
+then kissed her on the lips with a reverence that was more moving than
+the deepest passion. Without a word, he entered the motor-car and
+stared fixedly ahead at the road which climbed by the château. With a
+half-sob, Simunde turned to the officer. She said nothing, but her
+tears spoke a language that needed no words. The metal in his eyes
+melted into a deep compassionate blue; and Petite Simunde's troubled
+little heart thanked God for the great, broad-shouldered man with the
+hair that was almost red.
+
+
+VIII
+
+The two men slept in a deserted hut that night, but an hour before
+daybreak they were wending their way through the communication-trenches
+to the front line. It was half-an-hour before "Stand to" when the major
+and his unkempt companion reached the last dark trench where sentries
+were straining their eyes at the blackness of No Man's Land. A junior
+officer stepped up to the major and reported, quietly, the situation
+during the night.
+
+"They've got a machine-gun post," he said at the end, "somewhere over
+by those three trees. Can you see them, sir? They got five of our chaps
+last night and two the night before."
+
+"Humph! They tried for me too, yesterday afternoon. Can't the guns do
+anything?"
+
+"They've tried, sir, but the rise in the ground seems to protect them
+from anything except a direct hit."
+
+Even in the darkness the young lieutenant could notice the sudden look
+of decision which flashed into Campbell's eyes.
+
+"Give me an A form," he said tersely.
+
+The lieutenant handed him a message-pad on which he wrote a few words.
+
+"See that the colonel gets this," he said, "and pass word along to the
+other companies that Private Des Rosiers and I are going to get that
+machine-gun post; so if we come back don't give us too hot a reception
+from your sentries.--Sergeant, some bombs.--And let Des Rosiers have
+that revolver, old chap. My batman will give you one of mine.
+Right--thanks."
+
+"But, sir"--the young officer was vastly troubled--"it's not up to you.
+I'll go, major. Honestly, I want to----"
+
+"Thanks, old man; but this is a bigger job than it looks. Not that you
+couldn't do it as well or better, but--well, I've set my heart on
+going, that's all."
+
+He glanced at Des Rosiers, and noticed that his face was grim and set.
+
+"But, my officier, it is not fair," began the French-Canadian; "it----"
+
+"Not fair?" There was a rasping sound in the major's voice.
+
+"For me, _mais oui_, but for you, _non_. Please--I do my bes'--I go
+alone."
+
+Without a word, the second-in-command put out his hand and grasped that
+of the deserter; and Des Rosiers felt that death for the other would be
+easy. Truly, as Campbell had said, war is a great big game, and men are
+like children.
+
+Three minutes later two figures were crawling like panthers towards the
+German lines.
+
+
+IX
+
+The colonel of the battalion took the message from the runner's hand.
+It contained seven words:
+
+    "_As an example to the battalion._
+
+    "CAMPBELL."
+
+"What's that noise?"
+
+"Sounds like Mills bombs," said the adjutant.
+
+"And revolvers," muttered the colonel, and swore softly to himself with
+a lip that quivered strangely.
+
+
+X
+
+If ever you go to the Cobalt country, do not fail to take the boat to
+Ville Marie, on the blue shores of Pontiac.
+
+There is an excellent hostelry at Ville Marie called "Les Voyageurs,"
+where a little lady, known as Petite Simunde, has worked wonders in
+making it the cosiest, snuggest, neatest little place that ever warmed
+the heart of a lumberjack or a mining-prospector. At night her husband
+leads the singing with a mighty voice that shakes the rafters; for did
+not the former proprietor, Pierre Generaud, say that singing encouraged
+thirst?
+
+At times, when Madame Des Rosiers is away for a day, Jacque Noir will
+regale his old friends with tales of his past life, stories that differ
+with every telling, and seem to indicate that the narrator himself is
+beginning to doubt their accuracy. At these times, too, he has been
+known to sing of a sailor who loved a Portuguese maid; but at the first
+sound of his wife's footsteps outside Monsieur Des Rosiers is the model
+husband, a _rôle_, to be frank, which suits him quite well.
+
+When the snow is very thick on the ground, and the wind howls
+mournfully over the lake, Jacque Noir talks of France and the weary
+years of war. He will point with pride to his artificial foot, and then
+to his decoration, and slowly tell how two men went out into the dark
+after a machine-gun post.
+
+And when the guests are gone and the fire is low, when the wind is
+moaning quietly, while the snow falls thick--thick--thick--they speak
+to each other of the officer who will never come back; of the one whose
+hair was brown, almost like red; whose blue eyes were stern, and yet so
+kind.
+
+Hand-in-hand they sit close together, and the only sounds are those of
+the crackling logs and the wind that is never still.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN WHO SCOFFED
+
+
+I
+
+Dennis Montague of Toronto emerged from his bath, glowing and
+talkative. A luxurious deep-blue dressing-gown was wrapped about his
+form, its color accentuating the gray-blue of his eyes. His valet stood
+beside his bed, on which there reposed a set of garments suitable for a
+gentleman bent on spending an evening out.
+
+"Ah, Sylvester! That's right. We poor devils must look as well as the
+abominable fashions will permit. Did you ever wonder why the men of
+to-day are so commonplace? It is the clothes they wear."
+
+Mr. Sylvester took the dressing-gown and hung it in the closet.
+
+"For instance, my dear fellow, to-night I am in a devilishly brilliant
+mood; almost any moment now I might say something clever. If I had my
+way, I should dress in scarlet, like a toreador, and when I spoke, my
+sentences would have something of the dart about them.... Such would be
+the fusion of temperament and costume. Instead of which--by the way,
+mix me a cocktail--I am forced to put on this hideous shirt and a
+swallow-tailed monstrosity that gives one the appearance of a reformed
+chimney-sweep. A greater man than either of us, Sylvester, said that
+the world was all a stage. Then why the deuce don't we dress for our
+parts?"
+
+"'Ere's your cocktail, sir."
+
+"Good--excellent. What's the time?"
+
+"Gone past seven-thirty, sir."
+
+"By Jove! I shall be late. I am always late, my dear chap; it partly
+accounts for my extraordinary popularity. A hostess is so relieved to
+see me by the time I turn up that for years afterwards she associates
+my face with pleasant sensations. Any mail, Sylvester?"
+
+His servant crossed to the table, on which there reposed four letters.
+"These came in this afternoon, sir."
+
+"Read them to me while I dress."
+
+"Read them, Mr. Montague?" The valet's face was a study of respectful
+expostulation.
+
+"Is the idea so preposterous, my dear fellow? I believe most people
+write letters with the idea of having them read."
+
+The decorous Sylvester sighed, and broke the seal of the first letter.
+"I would beg to remind you," he read, "that your account----"
+
+Montague made a deprecatory gesture. "How polite these trades-people
+are!" he said. "I shall expect one some day to enclose forget-me-nots.
+The next letter?"
+
+Sylvester solemnly opened a diminutive envelope. "Mrs. W. De-Ponsy
+Harris requests the pleasure----"
+
+"Another request! What is it--a tea or a dance?"
+
+"A dinner, sir."
+
+"Good! I shall go. Mrs. Harris is the worst hostess in the city, but
+she keeps the best cook. Proceed."
+
+The worthy Sylvester took from the table a delicately scented letter
+that breathed its delightful suggestion of romance to his grateful
+nostrils, whereupon he promptly blushed a deep, unlovely, tomato-like
+red. "It starts," said he, "'My Dearest Love----'"
+
+His master glanced at him. "Don't blush," he said. "The _grande
+passion_ is nothing to be ashamed of." He carefully adjusted his tie.
+"What is the young lady's name?"
+
+"Myrtle, sir."
+
+"Ah, yes; poor little Myrtle! What a pity a woman clings to a romance
+that is dead. There is something morbid in women that makes them do it.
+It is like embracing a corpse."
+
+"Shall I read it, sir?"
+
+"No, no; don't bother. I know what is in it. On the third page she
+declares she hates me, and on the fifth she denies it. Myrtle runs so
+deucedly to form."
+
+A look of relief crossed the rotund countenance of Mr. Sylvester as he
+took up the last letter. "It's from a society for educating the poor,
+sir."
+
+"Tear it up. What we need is a society for educating the rich."
+Completely dressed, Montague turned round and struck an attitude. "It
+is my intention some day," he said with mock airiness, "to found a
+_Conservatoire Universelle_, where philanthropists will be taught
+charity, ministers of the gospel gain humility, musicians learn to
+feel, and newspaper writers take up the elements of language. Heavens!
+such scope as I should have! Stick your head out of the window and see
+if a taxi is waiting."
+
+Sylvester raised the window and surveyed the street below. "It's there,
+sir," he said, drawing his head in.
+
+"Then I shall leave you. Mrs. Le Roy is giving a dinner-party this
+evening, and she invariably has guests who listen charmingly.
+Good-night, Sylvester."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+When he was gone, William Sylvester scratched his thinly covered head.
+He then shrugged his shoulders, and followed this action by pouring out
+a glass of sherry. He took a sip. "'Eavens!" he said aloud; "'ow 'e do
+talk!"
+
+
+II
+
+Montague leaned back in the taxicab and, enjoying that sense of
+contentment almost invariably engendered by a smooth-running vehicle,
+allowed his mind to browse in the meadows of memory.
+
+It was a process which gave him considerable pleasure, for he was a man
+who respected his own accomplishments--though given to satirical
+comment on those of others. Satisfaction with his past had bred in him
+a contentment with the present.... And he never doubted the future; for
+was not to-morrow merely to-day carried on?
+
+There were many reasons tending towards his peace of mind. One: that he
+was twenty-eight years of age. At such a period in a man's life he
+meets older men on a footing of equality, and younger men with
+patronage. Women of all ages admire him, and their husbands ask him to
+lunch at their clubs. There is no age more gratifying to the vanity.
+
+The man of twenty-eight is an Ambassador of Youth meeting the
+Plenipotentiaries of Age as an equal.
+
+Unfortunately for Dennis Montague, he allowed his own excellent opinion
+of himself to deepen with the admiration of others until it completely
+outstripped all rivals. At twenty-six he had his first great love
+affair--with himself. At twenty-eight it had ripened into a sort of
+reverence. Occasionally he flirted with women, but such incidents were
+mere inconstancies, peccadillos, which never seriously threatened his
+own overwhelming _affaire d'amour_.
+
+Born in Ottawa, Dennis was the son of an ambitious mother and a
+high-placed Government official. Educated for the law, he had applied a
+dexterous intellect to that noble and musty study, and had succeeded in
+having himself called to the Bar when he was twenty-three. Up to that
+time he had known no other civilization than that found in the capital
+of his native land, where a peer of the realm, graciously appointed by
+the Imperial Government to act as interpreter between the Mother
+Country and the Dominion of Canada, regularly spends his appointed term
+at the Government House, thereby stimulating Ottawa's social activities
+to fever-heat. It even produces a philosophy of its own among the
+capital's tuft-hunters. For, even if _this_ governor-general doesn't
+ask us to dinner, there's always a chance that the _next_ one will.
+
+Montague became a noted figure in Ottawa's younger social set, and,
+though he expressed contempt for all such things, found a certain
+gratification in seeing his name appear constantly in the social
+columns of the city's press. It was a soothing sensation to read the
+chronicle of his adolescent activities.... Few people can resist a glow
+of pleasure on seeing in the morning paper that they were where they
+were the previous evening.
+
+Even in the remotest rural districts of America the weekly journal
+records that "Hank Wilson went over to Hiram Johnston's farm at Hen's
+Creek to see his new barn. Hiram Johnston is one of the most
+enterprising farmers that we got."
+
+But--there is something solid about that barn.
+
+After the legal profession had opened its portals to Montague he moved
+to Toronto, accepting a junior partnership in a firm of some standing.
+To his amazement, he found that in Toronto the _entrée_ into the best
+circles--and he could not exist in any other--was more difficult than
+in Ottawa. Though both cities had that reverence for wealth which is
+universal, Toronto's large population made a sudden and successful
+_début_ far from easy. There were so many sets--those who yachted,
+danced, and golfed; those who danced and golfed; and those who merely
+golfed. Montague decided that the last class was too fatiguing.
+
+Then there were those extraordinary people who practiced the arts in an
+amiable way. There is probably no city in the world where there exists
+more comfortable talent than in Toronto. For a time music was the
+occupation of musicians, but society embraced it, to the benefit of
+them both, with the result that musical homes abound.
+
+This worried Montague. The younger set in Ottawa knew no such
+phenomena.
+
+Looking farther afield, he next caught a glimpse of the University
+family, an after-growth of the larger life of Toronto 'Varsity. But he
+avoided that. His mind was dexterous, but needed lesser minds beside it
+to give it the sparkle of contrast.
+
+In desperation he turned to the purely _nouveaux riches_, only to
+find that they had made entangling alliances with all the other
+fraternities.
+
+There was only one well untapped--the Canadian Militia; but his mind
+rejected that at once. He had always agreed with Disraeli that
+soldiering was fit only for fools in peace-time and for barbarians in
+times of war.
+
+He joined the Royal Canadian Yacht Club.
+
+His dinner-parties on the verandas of that beautiful place caused him
+to be noticed. A friend of his introduced him to one of the society
+reporters. He invited her to a dinner, and sent her home in a
+limousine.
+
+Toronto wavered. He was certainly good-looking, and had not the "_C'est
+entendu_" column of one of the largest dailies recorded that "Mr.
+Dennis Montague's dinner-parties at the Yacht Club have a----" followed
+by several French words that were most impressive?
+
+With the genius of a great general, he saw that the gates were
+unlocked. Now for some stroke to thrust them open! For two months he
+cogitated, and then one day it came to him with a flash, as ideas
+occasionally present themselves to authors.
+
+He engaged Mr. Sylvester as a valet. Toronto society surrendered
+unconditionally.
+
+It was not so much that Sylvester was a valet, but that he had a nice
+appreciation of effect. Sometimes, when his master was playing tennis
+on the lawns of the Yacht Club, the unobtrusive servant would be seen
+patiently waiting outside the wire-screen, with a letter, or a
+suit-case, or some verbal question concerning domestic economy.
+Montague appeared annoyed and raised his salary.
+
+But triumph is satisfying only if it leads to further victories; and
+Dennis began to cast about for some _rôle_ which would distinguish
+him from his fellows. The death of his father handed on to him a yearly
+income which made his position secure; but he was not satisfied. It was
+then that he learned to scoff.
+
+It was an experiment at first, but an immediately successful one. His
+brain, always keen and linked to a facile vocabulary, became focused on
+the unlovely task of ridiculing life; and as he was ever careful not to
+satirize the set with whom he was dining, his popularity became
+tremendous. By a process of catalogue culture he was able to talk on a
+variety of subjects; his method being that if one heard the waltz from
+_La Bohème_, one was entitled to discuss Puccini. One of Brangwyn's
+earlier efforts in a friend's house was sufficient basis for him to
+pose as a judge of etchings. He read part of one book by a myriad of
+writers, then discarding their works, held forth on the authors
+themselves.
+
+With young men of observant and creative minds there are two paths
+which, early in life's journey, offer puzzling deviation. To follow one
+(and to youth it seems the less attractive), a man must bend his
+faculties to the discovering and the interpreting of the beauty of
+life; the other leads to the annihilation of everything that is genuine
+and that can be used as a target for cynicism. Montague chose the
+second path, and spared nothing but himself.
+
+Even when the war gripped the city, and one by one the little gods of
+puny social life crashed impotently to destruction, he continued his
+glittering way unperturbed. The war was young, and the 1st Canadian
+Division was merely holding the line somewhere near a place called
+Ypres.... The market for superficiality was still brisk.
+
+The taxi came to a stop outside a lovely home in Chestnut Park, and,
+paying the driver, Montague mounted the steps and rang the bell.
+
+"I wonder," he mused, "who the deuce I shall have as a dinner partner?"
+
+
+III
+
+After his usual apologies for tardiness, Montague led Mrs. Le Roy in to
+dinner, and like the seasoned campaigner he had become, glanced at the
+guests for conversational adversaries. His host and hostess were noisy
+and given to platitudes; there was a soft-voiced American from the
+South who seemed only anxious to be attentive and courteous to the
+woman next him; on the other side there was a young woman who was so
+consistently effusive that she was the most invited-out guest in
+Toronto--but never had a love affair; beside her was a young subaltern
+in an obviously new uniform. Montague had a vague idea that he had seen
+that well-groomed uninspired face in some bank. And he was right. Less
+than six months back the bank manager had written to the General Office
+about this youth--"He's a decent enough fellow, but lacking in
+initiative."
+
+Just beyond the subaltern Montague saw the finely chiseled features of
+Vera Dalton, and for some reason unknown to himself his color mounted
+as their eyes met. He had known her in Ottawa, though she had
+steadfastly avoided his friends, and later, when her parents had come
+to Toronto, he had seen her at odd intervals. He liked to think of her
+as an old friend, though there was something about her that made his
+flippancy difficult in her presence; but beyond their occasional
+meetings at certain houses, neither one had made any attempt to develop
+the friendship.
+
+She was fair without being blond, and avoiding the riotous climax of
+color so tempting to fair women, she dressed in subtle shades, with
+colors suggested rather than displayed. Her face had a poise and a
+composure that had nothing in common with placidity; and she was
+feminine without being helpless or making a constant sex appeal. She
+had always interested Montague, and even though their conversations had
+consisted of neatly worded nothings, her memory had a habit of
+lingering with him in a way that disturbed his self-admiration. Two
+things he felt about her--one, that she disliked him; the other, that
+he held some power over her.
+
+He removed his eyes from hers, and, glancing for a moment at the
+remaining guests, who sat like a jury with Mr. Le Roy at the end as
+foreman, he drained his glass and leaped into the conversational ring
+with a vivacious effrontery that was startling. Naturally of high
+spirits and easily stimulated by applause, he juggled phrase and
+quotation, tossed words into the air, and, as though he were a
+conjurer, watched them link together into ideas. He held his listeners
+in wonder and challenged them all on subjects ranging from New Thought
+to the latest scandal. Once the American held him with a witty retort,
+but Montague feinted with an epigram and stabbed him with a paradox. On
+one occasion the newly created subaltern, stirred by wine and a certain
+courage derived from his khaki, threw a truism into the arena in the
+hope that it would trip the talker, but Montague, catching it on the
+point of his wit, twirled it about, and hurled it at its source,
+laughing as the discomfited young officer retired behind the barriers
+of self-conscious silence.
+
+His hearers applauded by look and word, and Mrs. Le Roy whispered to
+her servant to keep Montague's glass full.... She was delighted.... She
+had never seen him glitter so.
+
+And Montague noted the applause, emptying his glass again and again;
+but it was neither wine nor the incense of flattery that had stirred
+his pulse to such energy.... In that glance from Vera's eyes he had
+read a truth. His power, whatever it was, had mastered her dislike, and
+he knew that in the evening before him she would bend in his arms as
+the bow yields to the strength of the archer.
+
+
+IV
+
+After dinner they danced. Mrs. Le Roy was not a gifted hostess, but she
+acted on the principle that food, wine and music--provided the food and
+the wine were high-class, and the music was not--would make any evening
+a success. Few of her guests disagreed with her; their feet and their
+tongues were light, and they danced and talked without self-consciousness
+or mental effort.
+
+Twice Montague had danced with the girl, but it amused him to leave
+her each time with some mocking pleasantry, the only answer to the
+smoldering question of her eyes. It was nearly midnight when he led
+her, almost without asking, into the deserted recess of the Le Roy's
+conservatory, and, beckoning her to a settee, sat down beside her. With
+her hands clasped on her lap she gazed fixedly at the shadowy garden
+showing outside.
+
+Montague looked at her, and his eyes grew bright as they noted her
+poise, tempered by fear of him. He leaned over and rested his hand on
+hers.
+
+"Please don't," she said quietly, making no effort to withdraw her own.
+
+"Women always say 'don't,'" he said. "I suppose they enjoy a sort of
+preliminary _tête-à-tête_ with conscience before committing an
+indiscretion."
+
+"But I mean it, Dennis."
+
+"All women mean it, my dear Vera."
+
+Her color deepened, and she tried to release her hands from his, but
+his grip tightened until it hurt. She made no further attempt, and he
+moved still closer to her.
+
+"Please let me go," she said, keeping her eyes steadily from him.
+
+"You are inartistic."
+
+"But I ask you--and you are a gentleman." Something of the dislike that
+he had always known she felt for him crept into her voice and left a
+nice tinge of irony.
+
+"I have a valet and three addresses," he said, "and only pay my tailor
+once a year.... In most countries that gives one the standing of a
+gentleman."
+
+She bit her lip and glanced quickly at him. His pulses, already stirred
+by wine and the intrigue of a midnight amour, leaped into a fever at
+the glimpse of burning eyes and lips that slightly trembled. He placed
+his hand on her shoulder and drew her face towards his.
+
+"Why," she said hesitatingly--"why do you want to kiss me?"
+
+Montague smiled. "The eternal question, Vera. It has trapped more men
+into proposals than all the wiles of a generation of fond mothers."
+
+"But you don't love me," she said, her hands pressed against the lapels
+of his jacket in self-defense.
+
+"On such a night as this," he said, "who could help but love you?"
+
+"Dennis, please let me go--I mean it--I shall call for help."
+
+His brow contracted with a sudden frown. "You come here," he said, "at
+midnight--into a deserted conservatory ... with me. Then, because I do
+what you knew from the start I would do, you suddenly decide to play
+'Little Miss Prude from the Convent.'"
+
+"I--I should not have come. I did not want to, Dennis."
+
+His lips curved into a smile. "Then why did you?"
+
+Her eyes pleaded with him not to prolong the scene, but he was mad with
+the joy of seeing this sensitive woman, who had so long kept him at a
+distance, caught in the meshes of his fascination, and he held her in
+his arms, confident of his power to sway her at his will.
+
+"I fought against it, Dennis," she said quickly. "But--I had to come.
+Oh, why force me to say such a thing. Can you not see how unfair you
+are?"
+
+She struggled to her feet, but he stood before her, barring the way to
+the door.
+
+His breath came faster. This was a charming surrender! It had
+gracefulness, novelty, charm.... Only, something in her eyes warned him
+to come no closer.
+
+"I have admitted, Dennis Montague," she said breathlessly, "that I came
+here because you fascinated me. It's true; you have always fascinated
+me. But I tell you that down in my heart I loathe you, detest you, for
+the coward that you are." Montague drew back as though fired upon by a
+masked battery. "In all the years I have known you," she went on
+furiously, as though fearing that her courage would leave her before
+the finish, "you have done nothing that was not selfish, mean, and
+cowardly--above everything else, cowardly. Look at the girls you have
+known----" Montague interrupted her with an impatient gesture, but she
+went on: "More than a dozen I could name have given you the depth and
+the sweetness of their first love, inspired by you, called forth by
+you. Do you realize what a woman's heart is and what she gives with it?
+And you--you are too cowardly to face marriage, too cowardly to love
+with your own heart--too selfish to leave women's hearts alone."
+
+Montague took a cigarette-case from his pocket. "May I smoke?" he said
+coolly.
+
+"You are a coward about your profession as well," she hurried on,
+ignoring his interruption. "Your mother, I know, had great dreams for
+you. She planned, worked, sacrificed for you. Yet you are too much of a
+coward seriously to face competition with what you choose to call 'the
+little legal minds of the city.'"
+
+"And thirdly?" he said, lighting a cigarette.
+
+"Yes, thirdly," she said desperately, although his easy nonchalance was
+fast undermining her courage, "you are not in the army. Yet no one
+could say that Dennis Montague is not fit. I can only presume, like
+every one else, that you are afraid."
+
+"And lastly?" He was still calm, although keener eyes than hers would
+have noticed a dark, ominous flush under his eyes.
+
+"And, lastly," she said, unconsciously repeating his formula, "you
+scoff at everything that is good and pure, sneering at religion, and
+drawing yourself aside from your fellow-creatures as though they were
+loathsome. Yet I say to you, Dennis, that there is not a man in the
+slums whose soul isn't far, far richer than yours. It is only a coward,
+afraid to face the real things, who scoffs at life."
+
+Weak from the effort she had made, her voice subsided into silence and
+a cold sweat broke out on her brow and the palms of her hands.
+
+"Will you smoke, Vera?"
+
+"No, thanks," she answered faintly.
+
+"Do. It would soothe you."
+
+"No, I thank you." She repressed a sudden desire to fly from the
+conservatory. She had become suddenly afraid of the cool, smiling
+figure beside her.
+
+"As far as girls are concerned," he said quietly, replacing the
+cigarette-case in his pocket, "just as long as they angle for us with
+every artifice of dress and rouge and coquetry, so long will they catch
+us and the consequences. As for the law, which my mother planned for
+me, I regret that my father left me the instincts of a gentleman, not
+of an attorney. I am not boring you?"
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"As for the army, I don't happen to be interested in the war. I
+disapprove of the crudeness of our Canadian civilization. I disapprove
+of England's lack of the artistic. I disapprove of German militarism,
+Scotch bagpipes, Swiss cheese, Chinese laundries, and American
+politics. Why should I fight for one when I disapprove of them all? As
+for my fellow-man, I shun the ordinary man of the streets because he
+does not think, read, or bathe often enough. I am not hostile to him; I
+merely ignore him. I am not a coward at all, my dear Vera; I am merely
+an artist among artisans."
+
+He bowed gracefully. "Let us return to the dancing," he said.
+
+With a frightened, inquiring glance, she took his arm, and without a
+word they left the conservatory. At the door of the ballroom they
+paused, and she laid a timid hand on his arm. It will ever be a mystery
+to men how women can love and despise the same object.
+
+"Dennis," she said, "will you try to forget what I have said?" Her
+courage had gone, fled before his coolness and the fascination he held
+for her, though she had striven with all her womanhood to free herself
+from it.
+
+"I wish to Heaven I could," he said grimly.
+
+
+V
+
+The morning sunshine invaded the rooms of Dennis Montague with
+pervading cheeriness. It was nearing the end of April, and a hundred
+birds sang of the winter wonders of arid Africa, and of the witcheries
+of the Nile, where Pygmies are at war with the butterflies, and the
+great god Memnon raises his mighty shout to greet the dawn of day.
+
+Oblivious to the sunshine and everything but his thoughts, Montague lay
+in bed, and sought to wrestle with the truth he had heard the night
+before. It was impossible to dismiss the thing from his mind. His brain
+throbbed with resentment, questioning, searching her words--striving to
+convince himself that her charge of cowardice was the vituperation of
+an unrequited love. But it was useless. He could explain her actions,
+dissect her motives, applaud his own pose, but he could not eliminate
+the feeling of personal nausea which clung to him, as though he had
+suddenly sickened of his whole nature.
+
+A knock at the door interrupted the thread of his thoughts, and his
+valet entered with a tray of breakfast-things.
+
+"Good morning, sir." Sylvester carefully rearranged the tray on a
+little table beside the bed. "It's a beautiful morning, sir. There's
+great news too."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Canadians 'ave saved Calais, sir--leastways they've stopped them for
+the time."
+
+"They're in action, eh?"
+
+"'Orrible, too, sir; the paper says the Germans used poison gas."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+"Yes, sir--the French Colonials gave way, yelling that 'ell was let
+loose, and the Canadians went up and 'eld the line."
+
+Montague put down the cup of coffee untasted. "What does it say--about
+casualties?"
+
+"Why, sir it looks as if some battalions was pretty well wiped out.
+'Ere's the paper, sir----"
+
+"No--no. I don't want to see it. Tell me--it says ... the Canadians
+held against ... gas?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Are our Toronto chaps in it?"
+
+"Very 'eavy, sir. It seems as if the 'Ighland Brigade got it the
+worst."
+
+Montague sank back on the pillow, his face grim and pallid.
+
+"Come along, sir; 'ere's your breakfast."
+
+His master gazed at the ceiling. "Sylvester," he said listlessly, "for
+a long time you have ministered to my body. What can you do for a soul
+that is starving?"
+
+The valet beamed reassuringly. A large and varied experience as a
+servant to young gentlemen had inured him to morning-after repentances.
+
+"That's all right, sir," he said, rubbing his hands genially. "A
+bromo-seltzer will fix you up. 'Ello, sir!" The sound of a military
+band drew him to the window. "It's one of the new battalions--blooming
+near a thousand of them. Seems like 'ome, it does, when the Guards used
+to do London in all their swankin' regimentals."
+
+A battalion swung past in steady rhythmical tread to the stirring
+strains of the Welsh hymn of freedom, "Men of Harlech"--and there was a
+youthful vigorousness about the men, a suggestion of unconquerable
+manhood.... And on every man's face there was written pride and
+determination. For their comrades had been tried at Ypres.... They had
+held the line.... And, by the living God, the Hun would pay for that
+foul gas given to the wind to carry against defenseless men.
+
+The last ranks of the battalion passed, and the music ceased as
+suddenly as it had come. The birds resumed their chorus, and William
+Sylvester his imperturbable mask of deference. Languidly Montague rose
+from his bed and lit a cigarette.
+
+"Our civilization," he said quietly, "need not pride itself on raising
+those men. Men have always been brave since the beginning of time. The
+terrible failure of our age is that it has produced men like me--a
+coward."
+
+Mr. Sylvester scratched his head. "Lord bless me, sir!" he ventured,
+"you're not a coward. Why, look at the jump you took at last year's
+horse show."
+
+Montague turned on him with a vehemence that the valet had never before
+seen in his master. "I tell you I am a coward," he said fiercely.
+"Don't I know that my place is with these men? In that battalion that
+passed there are married men with families, there are only sons of
+widows, there are brothers, sweethearts. Who is there to care if I go?
+My death would not cause a single tear; and yet I stay--not that I am
+afraid of bullets or death, but because I know that I should have to
+sleep beside men who are filthy, unclean, and that I should grow filthy
+too. I abhor it. I detest it. Yet I stand aside and let others go."
+
+"You--you are a gentleman, sir."
+
+"A gentleman!" Montague laughed raspingly. "My own definition last
+night was 'a man with a valet and three addresses.' What a fool I was!
+No, I am not a gentleman. I have never been one. The greatest gentleman
+of all time was a carpenter. That is the truth I have to burn into my
+soul."
+
+He sank into a chair, and shadows of fatigue marred his face. "Last
+night, Sylvester," he said slowly, "I lay awake for hours, and
+sometimes in the awful darkness that surrounds one when sleep refuses
+to come, things seem clearer and more cruel than in daylight. Last
+night I saw myself for the first time.... I do not say I shall
+change.... It is too late, I think...."
+
+An hour later he left his flat, fully dressed, and strolled into the
+sun-lit streets. A newsboy dashed past, screaming in strident tones,
+"All night fighting--Canadian Line still holding;" and then, apparently
+feeling the announcement needed identification, he shrieked, "All about
+that great big European War."
+
+Montague heard his name spoken. It was the ex-bank clerk, the young
+subaltern with the uninspired face.
+
+"Good-bye," he said rather shyly.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Marching orders," said the other. "We leave here to-morrow. By jove,
+we've got something to fight for now!"
+
+Montague murmured his best wishes and moved on, but the words that kept
+running through his brain were those of the boy's manager who had
+written "A decent enough fellow, but lacking in initiative."
+
+
+VI
+
+His walk, unplanned as it was, drew him towards the center of the city.
+He mechanically avoided the streets that were crowded, and, like a bit
+of flotsam on the ocean's surface, was guided and buffeted until,
+turning down a quiet side-street, he emerged upon the corner of a huge
+stone building. He glanced up, to realize that it was the Armories and
+was about to change his course when a recruiting sergeant, noticing his
+hesitation, stepped up to him.
+
+"Beg pardon," he said, "but was you lookin' to sign up?"
+
+"Sign up?" Montague repeated the words automatically.
+
+"Sure--sign up with the Brindle's Battalion."
+
+"The Brindle's Battalion?"
+
+"Come off that parrot stuff," growled Sergeant Saunders.
+
+Montague shook himself together. "I beg your pardon," he said stiffly.
+
+The sergeant shuffled uneasily. "Say, don't be so dashed polite," he
+said, not ill-naturedly. "I'm here to get recruits. We're a tough
+bunch; we're a rough bunch; but we're men. Our boys ain't strong on
+polish or eddication, and they're no boozeless, non-smoking crowd; but
+they're straight, and they're game, and they're men."
+
+"They're men," repeated Montague, dazed by a dizziness that seemed to
+wrap himself and the sergeant in an enveloping mist.
+
+"That's what I said," reiterated Sergeant Saunders, mentally noting
+that he would make Montague drop his sing-song if he ever got the
+opportunity. "What do you say, old scout?"
+
+Montague glanced up. "Will you take me?" he said.
+
+"Will we take you?" A broad, brown hand grasped Montague's arm, and he
+found himself being led into a room in the Armories, where he
+discovered that his full name was Dennis Oliver Montague, that he was
+twenty-eight years of age, that he was an Anglican, and that his Uncle
+Charles was his next of kin. He further found that he was the property
+of His Majesty King George the Fifth for the duration of the war and
+six months after. "So 'elp me; and shove 'im in to the medico.--Glad
+you signed up, my lad; you'll never regret it. We've got a man's job
+for you, and--close that bleeding door, Nokes.--All right.--_Next!_"
+
+With whirlwind rapidity Dennis stripped for the doctor, who pronounced
+him an excellent example of cannon-fodder; and, still dazed, he put on
+his clothes and emerged into the open air, a red band about his arm
+proclaiming to the world that he was now Private D. O. Montague, of the
+Brindle's Battalion, C.E.F. He gasped, shrugged his shoulders, then
+went home.
+
+
+VII
+
+Sergeant Skimps surveyed the squad of recruits with the eye of a man
+who had seen recruits for twenty years and was impervious to any
+emotion on the subject.
+
+"You're soldiers now," he began, his dialect strongly reminiscent of
+Bow Bells; "you're in the service now, so, kiss me, 'Arry, get your
+'air cut, all of yer. We don't go in for Paderooskies in the harmy.
+Then 'old yer 'eads hup and put yer chests hout has though you was
+somebody. You ain't, but don't go tellin' no one." (A gentle murmur
+greeted this sally.) "Halways respeck yer hofficers and
+non-commissioned hofficers, and don't go slapping the colonel on the
+back and hoffering 'im a cigar. You're in the harmy--that bloke at the
+hend, spit out that there tobacco--g'wan!--a filthy 'abit on parade,
+and it'll get C.B. for yer. Where do you 'ail from, hany'ow?--a nice
+specimen, I don't think--chewing when a sawgeant's talking to yer. Now,
+then, fall in--hanother 'arf-hour's drill."
+
+For five hours that day alternately Sergeant Skimps talked, and his
+tired squad turned, marched, and wheeled about the gravel
+parade-ground. Weary to the point of exhaustion, already deaf to the
+interminable harangue of Sergeant Skimps, the hour of four-thirty found
+Montague with his first day in the army finished. He had only one
+desire--to seek his apartment, to feel the cool shower upon his body,
+and to lounge in languid repose in his dressing-gown, soothed by the
+inevitable cigarette. He broke away from the group, but was hailed by a
+ruddy-faced Little Englander, who had made various overtures to him
+during the day.
+
+"Going up?" said the other, his accent proclaiming his British birth,
+tempered by ten years of Canadian citizenship.
+
+"Yes," said Montague; "but I'm in a hurry."
+
+"Right-o! I'm with you." He swung along beside Montague. "This is the
+life," he said cheerily.
+
+"What?" asked Montague.
+
+"Soldiering--a dollar ten a day, short hours, and no work--what ho!"
+
+"Do you mean to say you like it?" asked Montague, wishing his companion
+reeked a little less of his recent exertions.
+
+"Why not like it?" said Private Waller. "We're in it, ain't we?"
+
+"I suppose so," said the other shortly.
+
+Private Waller rubbed his hands together. "He's a sergeant, ain't he?"
+
+"Do you mean that strutting bounder who drilled us to-day?"
+
+"Lordee! don't let him hear you say that." The little man went pale at
+the thought. "Say, if you don't like him, just wait until you see
+Sergeant-Major 'Awkins."
+
+A cockney of even ten years' Canadian citizenship loses his h's when
+excited. Montague began to wince under it, and wished a dozen times
+that his companion would hold his tongue and give him a chance to
+think, to separate the varied experiences of the day, and to edit his
+thoughts. He shrugged his shoulders and acknowledged the greeting of
+Mrs. Merryweather from a huge motor-car. Waller's eyes bulged.
+
+"I say, you know some swells, don't you? What was you--a chauffeur?"
+
+Montague considered. "No; I was a sort of social buffoon."
+
+Waller considered. "Something in the plumbing line?" he ventured.
+
+"Not exactly," answered Montague, and muttered, "Duration of the
+war--and six months after--with plebs like this!"
+
+"I'm a carpenter by trade," vouchsafed Private Waller, and then emitted
+a shout of delight. "I say," he cried; "blime, if it ain't the missus!"
+
+In a few moments they reached a little Englishwoman, not much more than
+a girl, who was guiding a baby-carriage containing a chubby little
+youngster of some two years of age.
+
+"'Ello, Bill!" she said. "'Ow's the army?"
+
+"Great," said her husband; "but meet my pal, Private Montague.--Private
+Montague, meet my old woman."
+
+"Glad to know any friend of Bill's," said Mrs. Waller warmly.
+
+Montague bowed. "Thank you," he said gravely. "You are giving up a lot
+in letting your husband go to the war."
+
+"You said I had to, Emily."
+
+The girl pouted. "'E would go."
+
+"But you wanted to go, Bill."
+
+"Of course; but I said----"
+
+"I know--about the biby; but----"
+
+"There you go again. Didn't you say I must?"
+
+"Oh, well, Mr. Montague"--the little woman looked frankly into his
+gray-blue, unreadable eyes--"the biby's a boy, and when he grows up I
+cawn't say to 'im, ''Arry, your father was a slacker!' Now, can I, Mr.
+Montague?"
+
+He made no answer, but a thoughtful look crept into the hard, unsmiling
+eyes.
+
+"Come and have a bit of supper, pard?" Private Waller rubbed his hands
+together at the prospect.
+
+"No--no, thanks," said Montague hastily. He was longing for privacy and
+the solace that comes with solitude. "Some other night, perhaps, when
+we have our uniforms."
+
+"Good enough!" cried the cheery little man. "Then we'll do Queen Street
+together and show the girls--what ho--oh no!"
+
+Montague raised his hat. "Good evening," he said.
+
+"So long," said Private Waller. "See you in the morning."
+
+When they were alone the husband turned to his young wife with an air
+of pride. "What do you think of my pal?" he asked, with an air of
+proprietorship.
+
+"G'wan," said Emily disdainfully; "'e ain't your pal."
+
+"He is, too."
+
+"'E ain't!" She tossed her head. "Don't I know one when I sees one; me,
+the daughter of a footman in Lady Swankbourne's? 'E your pal! 'E
+blooming well ain't--'e's a _gentleman_!"
+
+Far up the street Montague was striding towards his home, wondering if
+any one had seen him with the Wallers, or had heard the garrulous
+little cockney call him pard. Good heavens! what would his friends say;
+or, for that matter, how could he face Sylvester if he had been seen by
+that polite scion of servitude? "But I'll see it through," he muttered
+savagely, biting his lip, "if only to prove that the under-dog, like
+all other dogs, is a thing without a soul!"
+
+
+VIII
+
+It was early in November about eighteen months later that Vera Dalton,
+returning from her self-imposed task at a Military Convalescent Home,
+found a letter awaiting her which bore the heading that will cast its
+unique spell over us and our children for generations to
+come--"Somewhere in France."
+
+Sorrow had come into her home, as it had into so many hundreds of
+others, but it had mellowed, not marred her womanliness.
+
+Into the vortex of the nations she had seen the young men of Canada
+flinging themselves with laughing voices and sturdy courage. With the
+other women of the city she had watched the endless stream of youth as
+though, across the seas, some Hamelin Piper were playing an
+irresistible, compelling melody.... And still the cry was for
+more--more sons, more brothers, more fathers! Month after month the
+ceaseless crusade went on--month after month new battalions sprang into
+being, trained a short time, and then made for the sea.... Always the
+sea, waiting with its foaming restlessness to carry its human cargo to
+the slaughter.
+
+The sea ... the sea....
+
+It became the symbol of sacrifice to her. Across its turbulent expanse,
+youth was forfeiting its life for the blindness of the past. The hungry
+fire of war was being fed with human hearts.... But such is the nature
+of fire that what lives through it is imperishable.
+
+A year ago Montague had gone with his battalion--without even a
+good-bye. She had never heard of him, but the ordeal of the flames had
+left him stripped of his artificiality as a tree stricken by a sudden
+frost is robbed in a moment of its foliage. It is not only the best in
+men that lives through war--vile passions vie with courage and great
+sacrifice.... But artificial things succumb and crumple with the
+scorching heat, and are blown into space by the breath of passions,
+base or noble--it matters not--they are _real_.
+
+With trembling hands she opened the letter.
+
+    "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE.
+
+    "MY DEAR GIRL,--In a couple of hours we are going over the parapet
+    to reach the German lines or gain oblivion--or worse. All around me
+    the men I have worked with, slept with, fought with, are writing
+    to, or thinking of, some loved one at home. I do not know whether
+    the love you once felt for me has died or not, but it was once
+    strong enough to hurt me as no one had ever done before--to tear my
+    soul out to where I could see its rottenness with my own eyes. I
+    could not live with myself after that, and as you must have heard,
+    for I believe it was a drawing-room jest for some time, I joined a
+    battalion composed almost entirely of men from the factories, the
+    workshops, and the streets.
+
+    "It was partly a spirit of bravado made me do it, and partly a
+    desire to wrestle with truth. I cannot say how hard it was at first
+    to endure their company, their incessant, meaningless profanity. I
+    hated every one of them. To salute an officer in the street caused
+    me such humiliation that I thought of desertion a dozen times. From
+    my contempt of my fellow-soldiers to an understanding of their
+    nobility has been a hard, cruel road to travel; but I have traveled
+    it, and I think that somewhere on the road there is a cross whereon
+    my pride was crucified. Vera, my prayer is no longer that of the
+    Pharisee, but of the Publican. I was offered a commission; I was
+    urged to join the signalers or the machine-gun section, because
+    there I should find men more after my own stamp; but I refused--the
+    memory of your words made me stick with the men I started with.
+
+    "I have found them crude, uneducated, unambitious, but true as
+    steel, and asking no better reward for their heroism than that
+    their 'missus and kids' will be looked after at home. I tell you,
+    Vera, that when the war is over we shall have to realize that it is
+    not only the consumptive and the imbecile that deserve care and
+    thought. There is a grandeur, a manhood, in the ordinary, unlovely,
+    unkempt man of the streets that our civilization has failed to
+    bring out, but war has done it. So much has war given to us; so
+    much has peace failed to give.
+
+    "Life has become a riddle to me, still fascinating, but
+    fascinatingly puzzling. Perhaps I shall find the answer in No Man's
+    Land.
+
+    "Good-bye, dear girl. Don't think from the tone of my letter that I
+    have forgotten how to smile (this is where real humor is found, for
+    humor was always a twin to tragedy). But I am forgetting how to
+    scoff. I suppose, though, that I haven't changed beyond
+    recognition, for I believe behind my back I am called 'The Duke.'
+
+    "Like my comrades, I have written to a loved one at home.
+
+    "I trust, Vera, that it is _au revoir_.
+
+    "DENNIS.
+
+    "D. O. Montague, Pte. No. 67,895,
+    "Brindle's Battalion, C.E.F."
+
+
+IX
+
+"Four minutes!" A subaltern, who had reached the Brindle's Battalion
+only the night before, stood with his back to the parapet, his wrist
+turned so that he could study the face of his watch. Half-a-dozen
+rifles spat at the German trench opposite. The attack was to be a
+surprise, without preliminary artillery fire.
+
+"Three minutes!" There was a slight catch in the lieutenant's voice as
+he watched the ominous course of the hand of his watch ticking off the
+seconds. Dennis Montague turned to look at him, wondering where he had
+seen him before, and idly conjecturing how he had earned that little
+splash of color on his breast.
+
+A signaler looked up from his phone. "O.C. wants to know if everything
+is ready, sir."
+
+"Two minutes! Has every man his gas-helmet, water-bottle, iron ration?
+Right. Tell the O.C. everything's O.K."
+
+There was a coarse jest from a grizzled corporal; a few laughed
+nervously. A little chap, who had lied about his age, caught his breath
+in a sob he could not stifle. The young officer, who was beside him,
+reached out his hand and patted the lad's shoulder.
+
+"One minute!" Every man crouched for the spring--there was a mumbled
+prayer--a curse--a laugh. Montague took a deep, quivering breath, and
+his trembling hand felt for the bayonet-stud to see that it was firm.
+
+"Come on, Brindles! Give 'em hell!" The subaltern leaped to the
+parapet, stood silhouetted a moment against the dull, cloudy sky, and,
+without a word, fell back into the trench--a corpse. And in that moment
+Montague remembered him. He was the "decent enough fellow"--"lacking in
+initiative."
+
+Cursing, shouting, laughing, the men scrambled over the breastwork, and
+were met by a torrent of machine-gun fire that swept through their
+ranks with pitiless accuracy.
+
+"Something's wrong!" yelled Major Watson from the center. "They knew we
+were coming;" and he whirled around twice and dropped in his tracks.
+Montague leaped forward with a hoarse, inarticulate shout, when he felt
+a blow on his arm as though it had been struck by a red-hot iron. He
+fell, but rose immediately, madly excited, muttering words that meant
+nothing. The charge had stopped halfway, and all about him his comrades
+stood irresolute, desperate, unable to advance, determined not to
+retreat.
+
+"Come on," shrieked the adjutant, "for God's sake!" And he fell,
+choking, vomiting blood, with a bullet in his throat.
+
+Without an officer left, the men looked wildly about, the bullets
+spitting around them and taking their steady, merciless toll. With a
+great feeling of ecstasy, Montague staggered to the front.
+
+"Steady, the Brindles!" he yelled hoarsely. "Shake out the line to the
+left--cold steel, Brindles! Come on!"
+
+"Follow the Duke!" roared a dozen voices; and they hurled themselves
+forward.
+
+They hacked their way into the trench, but their triumph was
+short-lived. Things had gone badly on the left, and the signal to
+retire flashed along the line. With horrible blaspheming, the Brindles
+gave up their trench and started back for their own line. When he was
+half-way across a bullet struck Montague in the shoulder, then another
+in the thigh, and he sank to the ground unconscious.
+
+When he awoke the moonlight was streaming over the stricken field. He
+bit his lip to keep from crying out at the sudden spasm of pain in his
+shoulder, and then something he saw almost stopped the beating of his
+heart. A figure was slowly crawling towards him, inch by inch, but
+steadily, ominously coming nearer with every moment. His left arm was
+helpless, and he tried to reach for his bayonet by turning over.
+
+"Pard, are you dead?"
+
+Never did sounds of sweetest music fall more gratefully on human ears
+than the words uttered by Private Waller on the night of October 16,
+1916, on No Man's Land, Somewhere in France.
+
+"Thank God!" cried Montague, his voice weak and quavering.
+"Waller--old--boy."
+
+"Damn!" muttered Private Waller. The Germans, with customary
+fiendishness, were searching the ground with rifle-fire to prevent any
+attempt at rescue. "Are you much hurt, pard?"
+
+"I'm used up pretty bad," Montague answered weakly, and in incorrect
+English. Things change in No Man's Land.
+
+"I'm the third as has come after you," whispered Waller; "Sykes and
+Thompson got theirs."
+
+"Coming--for me?" Montague's voice trailed off into a querulous sob.
+
+"Sure--those of us as got back shook hands on it that we'd get the Duke
+back dead or alive."
+
+Montague tried to speak, but only two scalding tears slowly trickled
+down his cheeks. He was weak from loss of blood, and he was learning a
+bitter lesson in the moonlight on the stricken field.
+
+"I'll hoist you up as easy as I can," whispered Private Waller eagerly,
+"and I'll sort of crawl; and if they spot us, I'll let you down easy.
+Come on, pard."
+
+Fifty yards--that was all--but fifty yards of unspeakable agony. The
+blood flowed again from Dennis's wounds and matted over Waller's hair.
+A dozen times he would have fainted, but he grit his teeth, and
+crawling, grasping, falling, Waller took him to the edge of the trench.
+And then a bullet caught the little man, and he dropped.
+
+"Good-bye, pard," he said.
+
+So died Private W. Waller, of His Majesty's Canadian Expeditionary
+Force.
+
+
+X
+
+Almost a year later, a one-armed man was walking along a quiet street
+in the northern suburbs of a great Canadian city. He paused at a pretty
+little cottage that nestled in a well-kept garden to speak to a young
+woman whose black dress was mute testimony to her tragic bereavement.
+
+"'Ow can I ever thank you, Mr. Montague," she said, "for giving me this
+cottage and going guardian to little 'Arry? And your wife, too, is that
+kind and beautiful that after she comes--and she is in and out nearly
+hevery day--I feel as if an angel had been 'ere. Well, if here ain't
+little 'Arry with his face all dirty!"
+
+A sturdy urchin stumbled forward, and in some way the one-armed man
+hoisted him to his shoulder.
+
+"Hello, pard!" said Montague.
+
+The little chap chuckled and pulled at his hat.
+
+"I often wonders," said the little mother, "why you always calls him
+'pard.' Bill used to call you his pard, but I knew all along you
+wasn't. You was a gentleman, Mr. Montague."
+
+"Mrs. Waller," said Montague, and his voice was very low and soft, "I
+lay one night, wounded and dying, on No Man's Land. Your husband came
+for me, and he called me 'pard,' and he died for me. Perhaps you may
+understand a little of--what it means to me now."
+
+Tears, bitter tears, the heritage of war. Mrs. Waller wept silently,
+and Montague's eyes looked past the garden, past the countryside, and
+saw neither trees nor houses, but a strip of land guarded by wire
+entanglements, and two lines of trenches where men lived, and laughed,
+and learned, and died.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later the same one-armed man stood at a gate that gave
+entrance to a splendid lawn. It was his home, and as he stood for a
+moment drinking in the calm and peace of Nature at sundown, a girl
+emerged from the house and came towards him with outstretched hands.
+
+Wonderfully happy, maimed, but filled with deep content, Dennis
+Montague, the man who had scoffed, went forward to meet his wife, the
+girl who had had the courage to hurt the thing she loved. And the
+deepening rays of the setting sun spread a golden carpet for them to
+walk upon.
+
+
+
+
+THE AIRY PRINCE
+
+
+I
+
+On a hillock that overlooked a mill-stream in Picardy, a girl of
+sixteen was lying, face downwards, reading a book. The noise of the
+water tumbling over the chute was a song to which her ears had grown
+accustomed, but more than once she looked up as the October wind rose
+and fell in a chromatic whine. A dark, thickening cloud crept sullenly
+towards the earth, throwing its shadow on her book.
+
+She gazed up at it and sighed.
+
+A black cat, his green eyes glowing suspiciously in the fading light,
+stalked from the mill-house and furtively watched a wanton leaf that
+was flirting hilariously with the autumn breeze, until, still
+coquetting, it was caught by the stream and carried to destruction.
+
+The cat's teeth showed for a moment in a sinister grin. Cautiously
+measuring each step, he climbed to the top of the hillock, crouched
+suspiciously as a blade of grass moved in the wind, then scampered
+boldly up to the girl and settled ostentatiously upon the open pages of
+the book, for a siesta.
+
+"_Tiens!_" The girl started, laughingly caught the offender by the ear,
+and pulled him to one side. "Louis, you have very bad manners," she
+said, speaking in French. "You come so, without asking permission, and
+you go to sleep on _The Fairy Prince_. Wake up, Louis! To you I am
+speaking."
+
+The cat opened his eyes, bent them on her with a reproving look, and
+slowly closed them once more.
+
+"Louis! Wake up--listen! I will read to you _The Fairy Prince_, and if
+you go to sleep I'll have you gr-r-r-r-ound into black flour. See there
+now!"
+
+Louis scratched his ear with a hind paw, rubbed his nose with a fore
+one, sneezed, opened his eyes to their widest, and generally indicated
+that he was thoroughly awake--in fact, was not likely ever to sleep
+again in this world. His little mistress gathered her shawl more
+tightly about her shoulders, and, crossing one foot over the other,
+shifted her position to secure the acme of comfort.
+
+"Now then, my friend, attention! This is all about a little girl--like
+me, Louis, only she was pretty. Tell me, Louis, am I pretty, eh? Stop
+yawning when I ask you a question. You sleep almost all day and all
+night, and when you do wake up--you yawn. Pouf! Such laziness! So--this
+is the story. This little girl, she lived like me in a house away, ever
+so far away, from everything, and she was very unhappy. You understand,
+Louis, she was _so_ lonesome. And every night she would cry herself to
+sleep--as I do sometimes, because--because----Wake up, you wicked cat!"
+
+The feline culprit stretched his paws and sat up rigidly, like a
+slumbering worshiper in church who has been detected in the act, but
+tries to indicate that he has merely been lost in contemplation of the
+preacher's theme. The girl frowned at Louis, and, laughing gaily,
+rubbed her cheek against his head.
+
+Her laugh had hardly ended when, as her ear caught the note of
+melancholy in the wind, she looked up, and her face, which had hovered
+a moment before between a frown and a smile, was shadowed by a musing
+expression that left her eyes dreamy and her lips drooping in the
+slightest and most sensitive of curves. Her dark hair, rippling into
+curls, fell back from a forehead whose fullness and whiteness added to
+the spiritual innocence of her countenance. Without being faultless,
+her face had an elusive mobility of expression that altered with each
+mood as swiftly as the surface of a pool lying exposed to the caprices
+of an April morning.
+
+"Is it not a pretty story, Louis?" Of a sudden the filmy dreaminess of
+her eyes had lifted, and their dark-brown depths sparkled with life. "I
+am so glad at the convent they made me learn to read. But it is
+dreadfully difficult, my friend--there are such big words, you see.
+Well, Louis, this little girl went one day for a walk to the top of a
+hill--but you shall hear exactly how it is."
+
+She carefully found the place in the book, and, with a finger following
+each line in case she should miss any of it, proceeded to read in that
+ecstatic and unreal style of voice inevitable to young people when
+uttering other thoughts than their own.
+
+"'... Reaching the top of the hill, the most beautiful little girl in
+the world, whose eyes were brighter than stars, and whose lips were
+redder than the heart of a rose' (like me, Louis--yes?) 'sat down on a
+fallen tree and started to sing a song which she had learned from a
+solitary shepherd near her home.'--It does not say, Louis, but I think,
+perhaps, the music goes like this:
+
+    "'Maman, dites moi ce qu'on sent quand on aime.
+    Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?
+    Je suis tout le jour dans une peine extrême,
+    Et la nuit, je ne sais comment.
+    Si quelqu'un près....
+
+"'And just then she saw a handsome cavalier approaching on foot.' (Is
+it not exciting, Louis?) 'He was tall and young, and was the bravest
+soldier in all France. He was so brave and handsome that every one
+called him "The Fairy Prince"'--Listen, Louis, to the wind."
+
+The lowering clouds threw black shadows over the fields; the hurrying
+water of the mill-stream turned the color of ink as it made,
+shudderingly, for the fall of the chute. Through the ominous rise and
+fall of the October wind came the sound of an aeroplane in the clouds,
+to be lost a moment later in a boisterous rush of wind that swept the
+girl's tresses.
+
+"Come, Louis, under my shawl--so! It is cold, is it not? As soon as we
+finish this part of the story, we shall go in by the stove and work
+until bed-time, then.... Do you ever dream, Louis?"
+
+The black cat opened one green eye and closed it with the solemnity of
+an all-understanding wink.
+
+"I often dream, my cat"--again the wistfulness lingered about her
+face--"and always it is of the world that is past the village.... Is it
+that I must stay here and never, never, see that world but when I
+dream? _Voyons_--what has all this to do with the Fairy Prince? I
+continue, Louis: 'As soon as the handsome cavalier saw the loveliest
+little girl in all the country, he came towards her....'"
+
+The droning sound grew louder. She looked up and watched the dark
+billows of clouds hovering over the fields, when, suddenly, through the
+heavy, underhanging mist, an aeroplane appeared, descended swiftly
+towards the earth, straightened out its course, and soared into the
+clouds again.
+
+She could hear the whirring of the machine as it circled round and
+round, like an angry hornet outside its nest that has been entered by
+an invader. The sound of the engine grew increasingly loud; again the
+mists parted as foam from the prow of a ship, and again the aeroplane
+swooped towards the earth. She could almost make out the features of
+the helmeted occupant, when, with a deafening roar, the machine checked
+its downward flight, and rose once more until the clouds took it to
+their bosom and hid it from sight.
+
+"Louis!" Her voice shook. "I am frightened. Louis, we will go in and
+pray to the Virgin, you and I. It may be an _Allemand_, and, so 'tis
+said, they eat little girls--and black cats too."
+
+The whir-r of the engines grew angry with intensity, then fainter as
+the machine rose to a greater height. Suddenly the droning ceased. The
+tumbling waters of the chute seemed insistently loud, as though jealous
+of the brawling monster that had dared to challenge its incessant song.
+The girl had just stooped to resume her book when, above the whining
+breeze, there was a sound like that of a saw-mill she had once heard in
+Étrun--but it came from the air--far over by the village road.
+
+With a catch of her breath, she saw the aeroplane pierce the mists once
+more, and realized that it was pointing towards her as it descended.
+Rising to her feet, she pressed her hand against her mouth to keep from
+screaming, while ominously, noiselessly (but for an occasional hum such
+as wires give on a frosty night), the giant bird sped lower and nearer.
+
+"Louis!" she cried. "Louis!"
+
+Weak with terror, she grasped for the cat, to find that that ungallant
+protector had bolted ingloriously to the mill-house. Unable to move,
+she watched the monster as it touched the earth, bounded lightly, felt
+the ground a second time, and staggered unevenly over a rise in the
+ground. There was a final Wagnerian crescendo of the engines, and the
+aeroplane stopped, motionless, less than fifty yards from her.
+
+The aviator climbed from the pilot's seat and looked about with a
+puzzled air. He was dressed in a leather coat which reached to the top
+of his riding-boots, and his head was encased in a leather helmet.
+Raising his goggles, he looked toward the mill-house, and, for the
+first time, caught sight of the girl.
+
+For a moment he hesitated, then made towards her, taking an
+extraordinary length of pace for one of his medium build, and raising
+his knees, as a bather will do when wading through surf. He paused,
+irresolute, about five yards from her, saluted, unbuckled a strap, and
+removed his helmet with a carelessness that left his generous supply of
+light-brown hair standing straight up like the quills of a porcupine.
+His face was rather long, and, except for his eyes, which twinkled
+humorously, bore a look of exaggerated solemnity. Constant exposure to
+the sun had tanned his face a vigorous brown, but his moustache and
+eyebrows, which were of a size, appeared to have completely faded, and
+stood out, glow-worm-like, against the background of tan.
+
+For a full minute they gazed at each other, the girl with parted lips
+and heightened color, the new-comer's gravity slowly giving way to the
+good-humored persistence of his light-blue eyes, until with a smile he
+ran his fingers through his rumpled hair.
+
+"Phew!" he said.
+
+With something between a sob and an exclamation of delight, she clapped
+her hands together twice, "_Ciel!_" she cried, "but I am so happy!"
+
+The mill-stream had ceased to shudder and had resumed its song.... With
+an air of furtive preoccupation, Louis emerged from concealment and
+proceeded towards them after the manner of an unpopular Mexican
+President walking down the main street of an unfriendly city.... The
+darkening shadows blended with the early approach of night.... And her
+heart was beating wildly, joyously.
+
+Adventure had come to the lonely mill-house in Picardy--and, after all,
+one is not always sixteen.
+
+
+II
+
+"Will you please tell me where I am?" The young man spoke in French
+with ease, but more than a trace of an English accent.
+
+"This is my uncle's mill."
+
+"Of course. And that road?----"
+
+"But the village road, monsieur--what else?"
+
+"And, Mademoiselle Elusive, what village may it be?"
+
+"'Tis where the church is, monsieur; and every Sunday I go there to
+mass."
+
+The pilot produced a pipe and, extracting a pouch, proceeded to fill it
+with tobacco.
+
+"I am lost," he said complacently. "My compass was shot away, and the
+clouds are hanging too low for me to follow any landmarks."
+
+He looked about at the steadily thickening twilight. "How far is it to
+the village?" he asked.
+
+"Five kilometers--and a little better."
+
+"The Devil!" He made a screen from the wind with the flap of his coat,
+and lighting his pipe, puffed it with evident satisfaction. "I shall
+have to leave the old 'bus' here. As a matter of fact, she's so nearly
+'napoo' that I rather expected to come riding home on one plane, like
+the old woman with the broom. But, mademoiselle----"
+
+"Monsieur?"
+
+"I am very tired and distinctly hungry, and I know of a mill-house with
+a cosy fire in the kitchen, where a pretty little fairy that----"
+
+"There is no fairy--only Louis."
+
+"And who the deuce may he be?"
+
+"The cat--_le voici!_"
+
+He surveyed the feline with an air of tolerant gravity. "Do you think
+Louis may object if I remain for supper?"
+
+"Ah--but no!" She laughed gaily, but a look of doubt changed the
+expression of her features in a moment. "But my uncle--he never has any
+one in the house. For many years I have lived alone with him. Only when
+the curé comes, perhaps once a month, does any one visit the mill. My
+uncle is very surly, a perfect bear, and often he gets drunk as well."
+
+The young man raised his absurdly light eyebrows. "A pleasant relative,
+mademoiselle. And, pray, what is his grievance against his fellowmen?"
+
+"I know not, monsieur. All week he works alone, except when he takes
+the flour to sell, but on Sundays he always goes to church and leads
+the chanting. He was taught Latin by his father, who was a gravedigger
+in Paris and learned it from the tombstones. So on Sundays my uncle,
+from his seat in the chancel, performs the chants in such a terrible
+voice that almost always some children scream with terror, and once
+Madame La Comtesse fainted."
+
+The aviator relit his pipe, which had gone out, but did not remove his
+eyes from hers.
+
+"Once," went on the girl, plucking a blade of grass and making a knot
+with it about her finger, "two villagers, Simon Barit and Armand
+Cartier, were requested by the curé, who is very small and weak, to
+tell my uncle to sing no more. Ah monsieur, it was terrible!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"My uncle he is a very strong man; he threw Simon Barit into the
+stream, and the other he chased almost to the village."
+
+"And so, like the mill-stream, he goes on forever?"
+
+"Ah, yes, monsieur, like the war--forever. Listen!"
+
+A great voice, sonorous as that of the fabled giant calling for his
+evening meal of an Englishman, rent the air. The October wind seemed to
+quiver to its lowest note, and the water racing over the chute was
+quieter than it had been for hours.
+
+"I must go, monsieur. It is his supper he wants."
+
+"And may I not come too?"
+
+"Ah--but no! I am frightened."
+
+"Of me?"
+
+She raised her wide brown eyes to his, and her eyelashes, which so
+jealously guarded those guileless depths, parted grudgingly, revealing
+to him their full beauty.... Another roar shattered the air, and she
+laid her hand upon his wrist. "You must not come," she said earnestly.
+"He would throw you into the stream."
+
+His melancholy face gave way to a boyish grin. "If he did,
+mademoiselle, my ghost would haunt him forever. All night it would sing
+outside his window--and, in truth, my singing is no less terrible than
+his."
+
+There was another roar, followed by a reference to the untimely decease
+of ten thousand devils.
+
+Without a word, she reached for her book, and, throwing her shawl over
+her left shoulder, hurried away. The aviator watched her girlish figure
+with its unconscious grace, then, turning about, he strolled to the
+machine, and, sitting on the side of the fuselage, surveyed its
+bullet-punctured carcass.
+
+"Five kilometers and a little better," he soliloquized in English, "and
+a doubtful prospect of a meal.... Contrast that with what the gods
+offer here--a cosy fire, coffee, eggs and chips, I warrant, and the
+daintiest of little maids--to say nothing of a musical uncle with an
+amiable propensity for throwing visitors into the stream. By Jove, it
+is chilly.... Over in dear old England they'll be roasting nuts and
+telling ghost-stories to-night."
+
+The fast-thickening shadows deepened into the blackness of an October
+night; the wind grew quieter, but there was a bite in the air that made
+him draw his fur collar about his ears.
+
+"What excellent French the little lady uses," he went on. "I wonder who
+her parents were, and why the deuce she has to live with this ogre. And
+what eyes! Enough to make one invent new songs of Araby just to see
+them sparkle and soften.... One moment sad, another tender--and always
+lovely. Steady, the Air Force--you're becoming sentimental."
+
+He looked at the battered machine and shook his head; a solitary
+raindrop lit on his face and slid down its surface like a tear.
+
+A belated gust of wind smote his face and left it moist. He rose in a
+determined manner and adjusted his helmet.
+
+"_Adieu_, my Camel!" He took a last survey of the machine. "The kitchen
+is calling to my appetite; a storm is brewing in the heavens; a pair of
+dark eyes is urging all the romance within me; so--mill-stream or no
+mill-stream--_mon oncle_, I come."
+
+He squared his shoulders and, with the rather absurd long stride and
+the odd raising of the knee, made for the cottage door, from underneath
+which a faint glow of light was timidly emerging.
+
+
+III
+
+In response to his knock there was a roar from within, and the door
+opened enough to show the young lady in the doorway.
+
+"Good evening," he said gravely. "I saw the light in here and decided
+to accept its kindly invitation."
+
+She glanced over her shoulder; but the airman, gently putting her to
+one side, entered and looked serenely about the room, which appeared to
+be kitchen, dining-room, and parlor in one. Beside the stove he noticed
+the stooped figure of a man, whose huge black beard straggled over a
+suit of overalls that had once been dark blue, but had become a dirty
+white from constant association with flour.
+
+"Good evening, monsieur." The airman handed his helmet to the girl and
+proceeded to unbutton his coat. The miller's blotched eyes rose sulkily
+to the visitor's face.
+
+"What do you want here?" His voice was nasal and slovenly, and there
+was a hoarse growl in the words, as though his throat was parched and
+rusted.
+
+"I am doing myself the honor of taking supper with you, monsieur." The
+airman's face was full of melancholy dignity as he divested himself of
+his coat.
+
+The miller's mouth opened, and a rasping, deep snarl resonated
+disagreeably. "There is the village, five kilometers that way."
+
+"Ah--but that is five kilometers too far."
+
+"You cannot stay here"--the miller's voice rose angrily--"there is but
+food for two."
+
+The Englishman tapped his pipe against his heel, and blew through it to
+ensure its being empty. "Then, monsieur," he said, "you must go
+hungry."
+
+The Frenchman rose to his feet and brandished both arms above his head.
+"Go!" he bellowed, and swore an oath that comprised a reference to the
+sacred name of one dog and the sudden demise of the afore-mentioned ten
+thousand devils who, it appeared, rested heavily on his conscience.
+
+"Mademoiselle"--the young man turned politely to the girl--"I apologize
+for this gentleman. Shall I throw him into the stream, or would a
+cleansing spoil his particular style of mottled beauty?"
+
+The miller became eloquent. His language was threatening, blasphemous,
+and deafening. His whole ungainly body vibrated with a fury which, at
+certain moments, grew to such a pitch that he would raise his chin
+upwards until all that could be seen was a forest of beard, the while
+he emitted an unearthly roar that could have been clearly heard on the
+village road. The girl, who had been making preparations for supper,
+glanced timidly at him, but continued her work. The cat, slumbering by
+the stove, opened his eyes dreamily as if some sweet strain had come to
+his ears then settled to slumber once more.
+
+And the whole room resounded and quivered to the hurricane of sound.
+
+With an air of complete imperturbability, the intruding guest slowly
+backed towards the table and became engrossed in the task of refilling
+his pipe, though beneath the glow-worm eyebrows his eyes (which were
+very clear and blue, as though his excursions into the last free
+element of nature had blown all the dust and grime away) held the
+orator in a steady look.
+
+"Fill your pipe?" he said cryptically, choosing a moment when his host
+was swelling up with a breath that promised to burst his ribs.
+
+The response was startling.
+
+Exhausting the air from his lungs with the noise of steam escaping from
+an overcharged boiler, the miller rushed blindly forward, crouching so
+low that his beard against his discolored clothes suggested an ugly
+bush against a background of slushy snow.
+
+With the precision of a guardsman forming fours, the airman took one
+pace to the rear with his left foot and one to the right with his right
+foot. This maneuver, successfully completed, placed the table between
+himself and his assailant, and, tilting it dexterously, he swiftly
+thrust that article of furniture forward, where it came into violent
+contact with the irate miller's knees and shins. With an indescribable
+howl the worthy man fell back in a paroxysm of agony, grasping his
+knees with both hands, and rocking to and fro like a demented dervish.
+
+The airman bowed gravely to the girl. "I learned that," he said, "from
+a gentleman by name of Charlie Chaplin. If you can oblige me with a
+custard pie I shall hurl it at your uncle and thus complete the
+Chaplinesque method of discounting violence."
+
+The young woman's brows puckered. The spectacle of her uncle's
+discomfiture had not disturbed her so much as this new kind of a person
+who could bow so courteously, whose eyes twinkled humorously, and whose
+words were full of gravity on the subject of custard pies. She came of
+a race that coordinated gestures and the play of features with speech;
+but this stranger of the air--_Sapristi!_
+
+The moaning of the uncle grew less and his figure stopped its rocking;
+but his red, blotchy eyes looked furtively at the young man, biding
+their owner's time for a renewal of hostilities.
+
+With an air of deep dejection the airman gazed at the unlovely
+spectacle, then, very slowly, unfastened his holster and drew a
+revolver.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "I offer peace. The alternative is--that I fill
+you full of holes--which would interfere with your singing. I intend to
+have supper here, because I saw hens outside. If they have given no
+eggs, we shall eat the hens themselves as a punishment. We are allies,
+you and I; let us be friends as well. Monsieur"--he struck a Napoleonic
+attitude--"_Vive l'Entente!_"
+
+The swarthy face of the miller, who had retained his posture on the
+floor throughout, wrinkled hideously into a grin, which developed into
+a roaring laugh that set a solitary vase jingling.
+
+With a doubtful air of appreciation, the airman surveyed him, his head
+inclining dubiously to one side. "Come, monsieur," he said, after the
+miller's unpleasant mirth had subsided, "you sit there--at the far end
+of the table; mademoiselle--when you have given us the supper
+things--here; and I, at this end. Just to show how completely I trust
+you, my host, I will keep my revolver beside my plate; and should it be
+necessary for me to blow your brains out during the meal, it will be
+with the very keenest regret that I lose a friend for whom I have
+acquired such an instantaneous and profound affection."
+
+Thus the young lady with the guileless eyes, the youth who had
+descended from the clouds, and the stentorian miller with the painful
+knees, sat down together for their evening repast.
+
+And the mill-stream, chuckling as it sportively tumbled over the chute,
+made a pleasant serenade.
+
+
+IV
+
+The airman glanced at his wrist-watch; it was half-past nine. The
+miller slept by the side of the stove, his chin crushing his beard
+against his chest. Louis also slept, having curled himself into a
+black, furry ball, apparently possessed of neither head nor tail. A
+clock brazenly stating the time to be five-thirty, ticked lazily as
+though finding itself four hours behind the correct hour, there was no
+chance of its ever catching up, and it only kept going because it was
+the sporting thing to do. Just over the clock a picture of Marshal
+Joffre gazed paternally on the quiet scene.
+
+Seated at the table, which was covered by a geranium-colored cloth, the
+girl and the airman sat silent, while a shaded lamp lent a crimson glow
+through which her deep eyes gleamed, like the first stars of a summer
+evening.
+
+To her romance had come.
+
+She was no longer the miller's niece, but the girl who had seen the
+Fairy Prince. All the sighs, all the questionings, all the longings of
+her girlhood had culminated in this amazing adventure of a fair-haired
+knight who, descending from the clouds, had proceeded to terrorize her
+uncle who was feared for miles around. It was wonderful. And he was so
+droll, this young man; and his voice had a little soothing drop in it,
+at times, that left a fluttering echo in her heart.
+
+She had left the convent when ten years of age, on the death of her
+mother. Her father--but then gossip was never kind. He was an officer
+who had deserted his pretty little wife for another woman--or so rumor
+had it; and her mother had died, a flower stricken by a frost. The
+daughter had been taken by a relative, the owner of a lonely mill, and
+for six years had lived in solitude, her horizon of life limited to the
+adjacent village, her knowledge of women gained from the memory of a
+sad, yearning face, paler than the pillow on which it rested, and an
+occasional visit to the curé's sister. Of men she knew only her uncle
+and the few villagers that had not gone to fight for La Belle France.
+
+From unquestioning childhood she had passed to that stage in a girl's
+life when the emotions leap past the brain, fretful of the latter's
+plodding pace. Her mind untutored, unsharpened by contact with other
+minds, left her the language and the reasonings of a child; but her
+imagination, feeding on the strange longings and dreams which permeated
+her life, pictured its own world where romance held sway over all the
+creatures that inhabited its realm.
+
+It is the instinct of a little child to picture unreal things--the
+unconscious protest of immaturity against the commonplaceness of life.
+But with the education of to-day and the labyrinth of artificiality
+which characterizes modern living, the imaginativeness of childhood
+disappears, except in a few great minds who, retaining it, are hailed
+by the world as possessors of genius.
+
+Unhampered (or unhelped, as the case may be) by association with the
+patchwork pattern of society, the miller's niece had retained her gift
+of imagination, without which the solitude and the monotony of her days
+would have been unendurable; until, blending it with the budding flower
+of womanhood, she found mystery in the moaning of the wind. While the
+sun danced upon the grass her spirit mingled with the sunlight; and
+when the moon exercised her suzerainty of the heavens the poetry in her
+soul thrilled to sweet dreams of lover's wooings (though her unreasoned
+rapture often ended in unreasoned tears upon the pillow).... She found
+melancholy in the coloring of an autumn leaf, and laughter in the music
+of the mill-stream.... There were smugglers' tales in a northeast gale,
+and fairy stories in a summer's shower.
+
+The doctrine of pleasure so feverishly followed by her sisters to-day
+was unknown to her--as was its insidious reaction which comes to so
+many women, with the dulling of the perceptions, the blinding of eyes
+to the colors of life, the deadening of ears to the music of nature,
+until they cannot hear the subtle melody of happiness itself, so
+closely allied to the somber beauty of sorrow.
+
+"Little one"--the aviator's voice was very soft, so that the ticking of
+the clock sounded clearly above it--"in a few minutes I must go. It is
+a dark night, and of necessity I must get to the village to-night, and
+be on my way before dawn."
+
+Her eyes were hidden by her drooping eyelashes. "You will return--yes?"
+she asked, without looking up.
+
+He smiled rather wistfully. "'When the red-breasted robins are
+nesting,'" he quoted slowly, "'I shall come.'"
+
+The clock ticked wearily on.... A few drops of rain fell upon the roof.
+
+"Monsieur"--the crimson in her cheeks deepened--"you must not smile;
+but it is in my book, here."
+
+She took from the table _The Fairy Prince_, and handed it to him. He
+gazed at it with a seriousness he might have shown towards a book of
+Scottish theology.
+
+"You know, monsieur"--she appeared deeply concerned in the design of
+the geranium table-cover--"I never leave the mill-house unless to
+attend mass, and sometimes--perhaps you would think so, too--it is very
+lonesome; no brother, no sister, just Louis and my uncle."
+
+He nodded, and, with an air of abstraction, his brow wrinkled
+sympathetically, and his fingers strummed five-finger exercises on the
+table.
+
+"It must be very dull," he said.
+
+"But no, monsieur"--her eyes looked up in protest--"not dull--just
+lonesome."
+
+He sustained an imaginary note with his little finger, frowned
+thoughtfully until his eyebrows almost obscured his eyes, then came
+down the scale with slow and measured pace.
+
+"Well, little lady who is never dull, and what has all this to do with
+_The Fairy Prince_?"
+
+"It is because I have no sisters, no friends, that--that I pretend. But
+you do not understand."
+
+He played some chord with both hands.
+
+"Very young people and very old ones pretend," he said, with dreamy
+sententiousness; "pretending is what makes them happy. But the
+Prince----?"
+
+She smiled deprecatingly. "When I read, monsieur, I think that the
+girl--there is always a girl, is there not?" He nodded gravely. "I do
+not think it is she," she went on, "but myself; and when the book is
+finished, and she marries her lover, then I am happy ... and dream...."
+
+"'We are such stuff as dreams are made of,'" he murmured, and trilled
+with his first and second fingers.
+
+"So, monsieur," she continued, glancing shyly at him, "in that
+book----"
+
+"There is a girl."
+
+"Yes. And a Fairy Prince who was very handsome."
+
+"Like me?"
+
+"It does not say, monsieur."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"But I think so," she said earnestly, "for he was the handsomest man in
+all France."
+
+"It said nothing of England?"
+
+"No, monsieur, only France."
+
+He nodded with great dignity, and motioned her to proceed. She leaned
+forward with her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her
+interlocked fingers.
+
+"To-day I was reading it to Louis," she said, "when, just at the moment
+that they met--_vous voilà!_--you came. Monsieur," she said naïvely,
+"are you a fairy prince?"
+
+He considered, with head characteristically on one side.
+
+"N-no," he said, "I cannot claim that, but----"
+
+"Ah, yes?" Her face lit up with delighted anticipation.
+
+"I am a prince of the air." He struck an attitude and held it.
+
+"Oh!" Her lips parted in ecstasy and her cheeks, which had been
+crimson, became scarlet. "You--are really a prince?"
+
+"Of the air, mademoiselle." He folded his arms and tilted his chair
+back. His face was still grave, but his voice had a sense of distance
+in it, and his light eyes widened as though they saw the world his
+words were picturing. "My kingdom is greater than all the kingdoms of
+the earth, and when I ride, my steed with wings takes me towards the
+stars. For sport I play with clouds and race the wind; at night the
+moon gives me light; and when I travel there are no mountains to climb,
+no lakes to cross. I go faster than the swiftest horse, and ride from
+villages to cities, out into the country, and over the sea with a steed
+that never tires."
+
+"But, monsieur," she cried, "this is wonderful!"
+
+He looked frankly into her eyes. "It _is_ wonderful," he said.
+
+For a few minutes neither spoke, and the soft symphony of raindrops
+played through the quietness of the night.
+
+"Your Majesty," she said timorously, "are you very brave? You
+understand," she hurried on as a slight blush darkened the tan of his
+cheeks, "in fairy books the prince always fights a dragon or a wicked
+giant."
+
+"Don't uncles count?"
+
+She made a pretty _moue_.
+
+"As a matter of fact," he said slowly, "there was a wicked Emperor--a
+blustering popinjay with a madman's vanity--who decreed that all the
+world should be his slaves, and sent his armies into France and Belgium
+to enforce his will. My brothers heard of this, and came from countries
+and dominions thousands of miles away. Across great continents of water
+they sailed, and, with their brothers from the little Islands of the
+North Sea, came to France...."
+
+"Your voice is very sad," she said tenderly. Her nature, that knew
+every mood of a summer breeze, had caught the inflection of his words,
+understanding by their tone what the vagueness of his words hid from
+her mind.
+
+"So many have died," he said, looking away from her. "Almost every day
+some one rides out into the sunlight to his death, young, brave, and
+smiling.... Mademoiselle, it is wonderful how they smile."
+
+Tick--tick--tick.
+
+For more than a minute neither spoke, then, with a smile that was
+strangely boyish, he squared his shoulders and ran his fingers through
+his rumpled hair.
+
+"Ha!" he laughed; "what fancies get into a scatter-brain like mine when
+the rain's a-pattering on the roof. If you will allow me, little Pippa,
+I shall smoke."
+
+"Little Peepa?" she laughed delightedly.
+
+"Pippa," he assented, puffing smoke as he lighted the pipe. "I think I
+shall call you that. You see, according to her biographer, Mr.
+Browning, she worked in the silk-mills all the year, but one day she
+had to herself, from dawn to midnight, and so as to enjoy it to the
+full she--well, she pretended, like you."
+
+"But that is droll," she said eagerly, "for every Easter after Sunday,
+my uncle, who is fatigued from so much chanting in the church, always
+goes to Boulogne and becomes drunk for one whole day. On Wednesday he
+returns. These six years he has done it always the same; and on the
+Tuesday it is wonderful. I am alone with Louis, and we ask all the
+people in our books to visit us."
+
+A sudden gleam of excitement lit his eyes.
+
+"The Tuesday after Easter?"
+
+"Always it is so."
+
+"Pippa," he said--but checked the remainder of his words. He placed the
+pipe in his mouth and ran five-finger exercises at a terrific speed.
+
+"Pippa," he said again, then, ceasing his display of virtuosity, leaned
+back and gazed at her from beneath his eyebrows. "Next spring, on the
+Tuesday after Easter, I will come for you."
+
+She caught her breath deliriously.
+
+"Beyond the village road," he went on, speaking slowly and distinctly,
+"I saw a big pasture-field at the top of the hill. Be there as the sun
+is just above the horizon, and I will come in an aeroplane."
+
+"And, your Majesty, you will take me to your kingdom?"
+
+"For one day, Pippa, to the great city of London--the city that is open
+to all who possess a golden key. We shall return by the stars at
+night."
+
+"Then"--her voice shook, and the brilliancy of her eyes was softened by
+sudden tears, as the rays of an August sun are sometimes tempered by a
+shower, "then--at last--I am to see the world--boys and girls and
+palaces and----"
+
+"To say nothing of prunes and potentates."
+
+"Oh, but, your Majesty, it is too wonderful. I am certain it will not
+come true."
+
+He rose and quietly placed his chair against the wall. "Pippa," he
+said, "there are only two things that could prevent it. One, if there
+is a storm and--the other----" he shook his head impatiently.
+
+The girl took down a work-basket, and after searching its contents
+extracted a tiny trinket.
+
+"You mean," she said, stepping lightly over to him, "that you might go
+to join your brothers--those who smiled so bravely?"
+
+"We never know, Pippa," he answered.
+
+She reached for the lapel of his coat and pinned the little keepsake on
+it. "'Tis a black cat," she said. "I saw it in the village store, so
+small and funny, like Louis. It is a gift from little Pippa, who will
+pray to the Virgin every night that her Prince may not be
+killed--unless----"
+
+He looked at the little mascot, which dangled above a couple of
+ribbons.
+
+"Unless?" he said.
+
+For a moment there was a flash in her eyes and a sudden crimson flush
+in her cheeks that startled him. For the first time in her life she
+felt the instinct of a tigress; that strange fusion of passion and
+timidity that comes to women of her kind when it seems they may lose
+the object of their love.
+
+"Unless he--forgets." The words were spoken between lips that hardly
+moved.
+
+"By the sacred bones of my ancestors," he said, with a sort of sincere
+grandiloquence, "I promise to come. So that I shall always think of
+you, my Pippa, I will paint a black cat upon the machine, and woe to
+the Hun who dares to singe its whiskers!"
+
+A few minutes later, the heavily coated figure of an aviator was
+plowing its way through a drizzling rain, along a dark and solitary
+road. His pace was extraordinarily long for his height, and he appeared
+to be stepping over a perpetual array of obstacles at least one foot
+high.
+
+By a casement window a girl, with hair like the dusk, stood gazing
+towards the road that was hidden in darkness. Silently and motionless
+she watched the melancholy drops of rain as they fell upon the glass,
+until, unconsciously, her lips parted and she sang, very softly, the
+little song taught to the maiden in the story by the lonely shepherd:
+
+    "Maman, dites moi ce qu'on sent quand on aime.
+    Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?"
+
+She paused in the improvised melody, and repeated the words slowly.
+
+    "Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?"
+
+And then the little mistress of the mill laid herself upon her bed and
+wept profusely; but whether it was because she was happy or because she
+was sorrowful, let those explain who understand the psychology of a
+woman's tears.
+
+Downstairs, Louis and the miller slept profoundly.
+
+
+V
+
+It was several months later that an airman emerged from his hut into
+the chilly air of an April night that was lingering grudgingly over its
+last hour of darkness. There was a sullen rumble of guns borne on a
+restless breeze that stirred the long grass of the fields and set the
+leaves in the trees whispering and quivering. The drone could be heard
+of a lonely aeroplane returning from its night-ride over the enemy
+lines.... Above the distant roll of the artillery, one gun stood out
+like a pizzicato note on a giant bass violin.
+
+The airman passed the silent aerodrome, and, with difficulty
+accustoming himself to the darkness, made out the shadow of a machine
+in the adjoining field. He heard the sigh of cylinders sucking in the
+petrol as the mechanics warmed the machine, and walked over to it. For
+a moment he spoke to the men before climbing into the pilot's seat.
+There followed the incisive monotone of the flier's incantation between
+himself and the non-commissioned officer.
+
+"Petrol on: switch off."
+
+"Petrol on: switch off."
+
+"Contact."
+
+"Contact."
+
+The propellers were swung into action, hesitated for a moment, then
+wheezily subsided.
+
+The incantation was repeated; the propeller blades coughed, and leaped
+into a deafening roar. The mechanics sprang aside, and the machine,
+stumbling forward for a few yards, turned into the wind. There was a
+sudden acceleration of the propeller, a crescendo from the engines, and
+the machine made swiftly across the field, rising as it attained flying
+speed, and disappearing into the night.
+
+A few moments later its light was mixing with the dulling stars, and
+the drone of its engine could be heard only at the whim of the breeze.
+
+"I wonder what the Black Cat's up to now," said mechanic No. 1, rubbing
+his hands together for warmth. "Rum beggar, isn't he?"
+
+His companion slapped his breast with his arms and blew on his fingers.
+"Mad as a March hare," he growled; "takes a two-seater out at this time
+of night."
+
+"And did you notice the extra outfit?"
+
+"He's mad," repeated the before-dawn psychologist, "mad as a rabbit."
+
+"But he's a mighty stout boy," interposed the N.C.O., who was torn
+between his duty of keeping discipline and his love of character study;
+"and he sure puts the wind up Fritz when he takes off with his Black
+Cat Bristol fighter."
+
+The blackness of night was beginning to give way to a dull and sullen
+gray as the solitary pilot made a detour over the lines. In the gloom
+beneath he could see a long crescent of orange-colored flashes where
+the British guns were maintaining their endless pounding of the enemy.
+Farther east was a large patch of winking, yellow lights, giving to his
+eye the same effect as flakes of gunpowder dropped upon a heated stove:
+it was the bursting of the British shells. Beyond that field of death
+he could see other and larger flashes, and knew the Hun was replying in
+kind.
+
+Everywhere the darkness was being penetrated by long, rocket-like
+lights with a white, starry burst at the end, and, as though to give
+variety to the scene, a few red and green bursts mingled garishly with
+them.
+
+To the airman, from his refuge of height, it all combined in an uncanny
+pageant of fireworks--a weird spectacle of death, as though hell had
+opened and the passions of men were feeding the flames to make a
+devils' holiday.
+
+A searchlight woke him from his reverie. A couple of anti-aircraft guns
+barked at him. With a smile he noticed the rapid approach of morning's
+light, and, turning to the west, he set his course by the compass and
+made for the lonely mill-house of Picardy.
+
+
+VI
+
+From a meadow at the top of a hill, a girl watched the horizon of the
+east as the first glow of daylight heralded the arrival of Aurora's
+chariot. The hurried walk from the mill-house and the climbing of the
+hill had set her pulses throbbing with vitality, and as she watched the
+dull gray give way with the promise of dawn, a wild, unthinking spirit
+of exaltation seized her. Like the Pippa of Browning's song, she felt
+her spirit rise with the triumph of nature.
+
+    Day!
+    Faster and more fast,
+    O'er night's brim, day boils at last:
+    Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim
+    Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
+    For not a froth-flake touched the rim
+    Of yonder gap in the solid gray
+    Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
+    But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
+    Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
+    Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
+    Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.
+
+But he had not come--her Prince with the solemn face and the laughing
+eyes. Day after day, through the long winter, she had lived for this
+hour, thrilling over it, picturing it, dreaming of it--both awake and
+asleep.... And he had not come.
+
+Suppose--supposing----
+
+Her heart leaped painfully. She had heard a sound like the humming of
+an insect--faint--then more clear. The hum became a drone, and in sheer
+intoxication she reached her hands towards the east as the sun, well
+above the horizon, illumed the sky with gold-red flames. Blinded by its
+brilliancy, she turned away; but her ear heard the cessation of the
+engine as the pilot brought his machine towards the earth. She knew
+that he must be approaching her; yet she kept her face averted, on some
+caprice of sixteen years, until she heard his voice calling, a few
+yards off.
+
+He bowed very low as, with lowered eyes, she gave him her hand; then,
+indicating a coat on his arm, he leant towards her, with some effort
+making his voice heard above the impatient throbbing of the aeroplane's
+engine.
+
+"Take off your hat," he cried, noticing with quick approval the pretty
+costume she wore (for however poor she may be, no French girl is
+without one becoming frock), "and slip your curls into this helmet.
+It's the largest I could find."
+
+She did as she was bidden, laughing delightedly.
+
+"Now, youngster, climb into this."
+
+He wrapped her in a fur-lined leather coat, and after buttoning it
+securely, lingered for a moment over the amusing and dainty picture she
+presented. Then, picking her up in his arms, he carried her over to the
+machine and deposited her in the observer's seat, fastening the belt.
+He was just about to climb into his place in front, when, changing his
+mind, he leaned over to her and placed both hands on her shoulders.
+
+"Frightened?" he smiled, speaking so close to her ear that a truant
+curl brushed against his cheek.
+
+She shook her head decisively--for a considerable period she had been
+beyond the power of speech.
+
+He looked into her eyes, which seemed to have borrowed something of the
+sunlight, and patted her reassuringly on the shoulder.... And
+Mademoiselle Pippa, niece of the absent miller, would have gone
+straight to the moon with him had it been his wish and in his power.
+
+She watched him wonderingly as he lifted a heavy sand-bag used as
+ballast, and dropped it on the ground. The next moment he was in the
+pilot's seat, there was a crescendo of the engine, a waddling sensation
+as the aeroplane went forward, the sudden development of the crescendo,
+the burst of speed, and....
+
+The earth was receding!
+
+She caught her breath, and hid her face in her hands to stifle a cry
+and keep the sight from her eyes. She had been afraid that she would
+faint with dizziness, and for a full minute sat, terror-stricken,
+until, gaining courage, she tremblingly parted two fingers and cast a
+timorous glance below. A cry escaped from her--but it was not one of
+fear.
+
+Beneath her, though she was not conscious of height, the countryside
+spread, a great masterpiece of color, the light brown of plowed fields
+standing out vividly against the green of meadows where sheep (she
+laughed out at the thought) were huddled in little groups like peanuts;
+roads had become paths, and cottages were dwarfed to miniature
+dwellings for the tiniest dolls.
+
+But--she felt no height.
+
+Only, the landscape, refreshed after its long winter repose, kept
+closing in--closing in, displaying new beauties every minute, as though
+she were in real truth a Fairy Princess summoning villages and rivers
+and farms into one vast tapestry of nature.
+
+And this was France! As far as the eye could see, it was France, the
+mother of greatness. For the first time she pictured the wide, charred
+plains where the Hun had been, and scalding tears hid everything from
+her sight.
+
+Several times her cavalier of the clouds had turned around to see that
+she was not frightened, and, as often as he did so, she nodded
+excitedly, and waved both hands after the manner of an orchestral
+conductor calling for a fortissimo. Once he shut off the engines, and
+they seemed to lie in the wind, a becalmed ship of the air.
+
+"All right?" he queried inelegantly.
+
+She tried to think of some word to summarize her emotions, but, failing
+utterly, raised her goggles and thanked him with her eyes. A woman's
+methods are not affected by altitude.
+
+It seemed to her that they had flown for an hour, when, in her tapestry
+of landscape, she found the gradual inclusion of the steeples and the
+roof-tops of a city, the streets of which gave the impression of having
+been drawn with a brown crayon with the aid of a ruler. The aeroplane
+appeared to be turning with the wind, and she grasped the side of the
+fuselage, when the whole scene was obliterated by a sea of billowy foam
+that left her cheek wet. She laughed with delight, and reached out with
+her hands, as though she would grasp the foam and compress it like snow
+in her fingers. She sang and clapped her hands in sheer joyousness. She
+was alone with her Prince in a world of dreams. The billows of foam
+grew less dense, became a mist through which light gleamed, and they
+emerged once more. Beneath them lay the Channel, shimmering in the
+April sun. The magic wand drew the Strait to her gaze as it had done
+the fields of France... Suddenly there was no throbbing of the engine,
+and they seemed to float, motionless, in space.
+
+He turned around and pointed to a border of white that lay against the
+blue of the water.
+
+"_Enfin!_" he cried. "England!"
+
+
+VII
+
+There was a knock at the door of "The Plough and Crown," which, in
+spite of its similarity to the title of a treatise, is the name of an
+exceedingly cosy little inn less than twenty miles from the outskirts
+of London. The landlady answered in person, presenting just the stout,
+apple-cheeked, buxom appearance that any one would expect from the
+owner of so cheery a hostelry.
+
+"Good-morning to you, sir--and to you, miss," said the estimable woman,
+as the unlocked door revealed an airman of solemn mien and a blushing
+young lady whose hair had been blown into utter and captivating
+disorder.
+
+A very small dog appeared, irritably, from some subterranean passage,
+and taking in the sight of strangers, proceeded to bark with such
+energy that, with each effort, he was shunted several inches to the
+rear, like a gun recoiling after discharge, until from very ill-temper
+he barked himself completely off the scene and out of this history.
+
+"Good-morning, madam," said the aviator. "This young lady and myself
+would like to have breakfast at your house."
+
+The girl glanced furtively at him. It was the first time she had heard
+him speak in English.
+
+"Bless your baby faces!" cried the good woman. "Come in out of the
+chilly morning; though what you be doing at this hour is beyond the
+likes o' me to fathomate" (a word which performed its function by being
+thoroughly understood).
+
+She led them into the coffee-room, where he removed his coat and
+helmet, and threw them, together with the girl's flying-costume, over a
+chair. A sleepy-eyed and slovenly young woman-of-all-work appeared on
+the scene, and proceeded to build a wood fire in the grate; while the
+landlady, after the manner of her kind, bustled about, shifting chairs,
+colliding with the fire-making girl, removing glasses from the bar to
+the table, from the table to the shelf, and back again to the bar
+again, all the while talking incessantly, or making comfortable noises
+when words failed her (which was very seldom), and in short, giving
+that feeling of hospitable activity handed down from the good old days
+when passengers used to arrive by coach at "The Plough and Crown."
+
+"Madam," said the flying-man, seizing a moment when a more than usually
+severe jolt against her assistant had deprived the good woman of
+breath, "I must telephone the aerodrome at Hounslow to send for my
+machine, so I shall stroll to the post-office down the road. In the
+meantime--this young lady speaks no English----"
+
+"Bless her heart! What heathen country----"
+
+"----speaks no English," he persisted, "and has traveled a long
+distance in the air----"
+
+"Well, I've often said that----"
+
+"----in the air," he repeated, stifling her philosophy in its birth,
+"and I shall be grateful if you will give her any attentions that your
+kind heart may suggest. She is cold, and I suppose she wants to make
+herself look pretty."
+
+"Leave her to me, the sweet innocent. If she were my own daughter, me
+not having any, but----"
+
+"When I return, may we have breakfast?"
+
+"A simple breakfast 'twill have to be," said the hostess, emitting the
+words with a forcefulness reminiscent of a geyser that has been
+supporting on its chest a mountain which has obligingly shifted its
+position. "Things is awful bad, and the Government don't trust no one
+these days. But I'll see what I can get for you two children, for
+you're an officer gentleman, and my own good man's in the army--London
+Scottish he is, though he ain't any more Scottish than the Pope of
+Rome; but he always had a fine figure, had my man--Jacob Wilson is his
+name, for thirty year owner of "The Plough and Crown," which always is
+welcome to them as wants a pint o' bitter or a bed for the night, and
+always will be as long as Jacob Wilson or me is to be found in the
+taproom when opening-time arrives."
+
+After this announcement of the past and future policy of "The Plough
+and Crown," the worthy woman seized a chair that was innocently gazing
+out of the window, and placed it directly opposite a highly colored
+picture of a young lady in pink, talking to a blue young gentleman,
+while a yellow horse, in proportion a little larger than the horse of
+Troy, looked soulfully at them over a hedge.
+
+Having done this, she rested her hands on her hips and sighed like a
+woman who knows she is overworked, but is resigned to her fate.
+
+"Excuse me," said the airman politely, then turned to his companion,
+who had been staring in wide-eyed bewilderment at the activities of
+Mrs. Jacob Wilson.... Frowning heavily at his young passenger, he
+inserted his pipe into his mouth, and left the inn without another
+word, sauntering along the roadway, where hedges and meadow-larks and
+cosy thatched cottages were combining in the merriest of madrigals on
+the beauty of Old England.
+
+Upstairs, in "The Plough and Crown," Pippa's toilet was being
+superintended by the estimable proprietress, whose hospitality,
+surmounting the difficulty of language, poured out in a stream of
+garrulity.
+
+She described to her little guest how Mr. Jacob Wilson first appeared
+in kilts, causing her (Mrs. Jacob Wilson) to throw her apron over her
+face and bid her lord and master go upstairs and clothe himself in
+propriety. She further confessed that he was a poor correspondent
+(though a man of deep intellect, for he was given to long spasms of
+silence); but every time he wrote from the trenches, which was once a
+month (though one month he had written twice, but in September--or was
+it October?--he had not written at all)--at any rate, he always said
+that he had a cold in his head and would she send his medicine, which
+he had used for eight-and-twenty years, and which had never failed to
+cure him.
+
+After this testimony to Mr. Jacob Wilson's recuperative powers, despite
+his susceptibility to colds, his wife became confidential, and told the
+girl of the adoration showered on her during her honeymoon by the
+aforesaid absent gentleman, together with other and romantic details
+which, being told in the strictest confidence, naturally have no place
+in these pages.
+
+And the little girl from the Picardy mill-house listened. She may have
+understood that somewhere in the landlady's bountiful breast a noble
+heart was beating, that behind her cheerfulness lay the shadow of the
+trenches, and that any moment "The Plough and Crown" might be robbed of
+the good man who had marched away with the London Scottish.
+
+She may have understood less than that--or more. Who knows?
+
+Half-an-hour later the Airy Prince returned, and they sat down together
+to a breakfast served to the tune of chortling fowls and the neighing
+of a nearby horse, while the fire chuckled and crackled in enjoyment of
+some joke of its own.
+
+"Well, Pippa," said the Black Cat, seizing a moment when Mrs. Jacob
+Wilson had absented herself from the room, "and what do you think of
+the English?"
+
+The girl of the mill-house pictured the only two she had met.
+
+"I think," she said timidly, "that you are--how say you it--great
+talkers, yes?"
+
+"Bless my soul!" said he, cutting a loaf of bread with the melancholy
+of an executioner beheading an esteemed relative; "aren't we?"
+
+
+VIII
+
+The train for London came round the bend, and drew up, panting, beside
+the platform. The airman and his little companion glanced into four
+compartments which were completely filled, and, hearing the admonition
+of the guard, were forced to enter a first-class carriage containing
+five occupants, who glared at the intruders with that triumph of
+rudeness found only on an English railroad.
+
+"Sorry," murmured the airman, and added something unintelligible about
+the train being full. A fierce-looking gentleman looked up from the
+_Morning Post_ and lowered the window to its fullest extent. An anemic
+woman opposite sneezed and fixed a devastating stare on the fierce
+gentleman. A very young officer of the Guards felt his lip, and stroked
+that portion of it which was pregnant with promise of mustache, while
+his mind wandered into the future. Would he cut Lady Dazzrymple's
+beastly dance, and content himself with only three that evening? Or,
+dash it all! should he go the whole works? What a bore!... A young
+woman with a face of deep intensity read the _New Statesman_, every now
+and then looking up from its pages (as a horse drinking at a trough
+will raise its head between draughts), apparently defying any one to
+challenge her on anything.
+
+With his hands lazily in his coat-pockets, an Australian captain leant
+back in his corner and took in the freshness and winsomeness of the
+French girl, with an admiring frankness that inspired sudden doubt in
+the airman's mind whether it was really desirable to maintain a huge
+Empire.
+
+For ten minutes, in a funereal silence, the train hurried towards the
+Metropolis, while the temperature of the compartment, both actually and
+temperamentally, dropped to freezing-point. Once, as an unusually
+pretty meadow met her eye (and where are there such meadows as one sees
+in England?), Pippa emitted an exclamation of delight and clapped her
+hands.
+
+A look of horror from the fierce gentleman caromed off the _Morning
+Post_ to the face of the offender. The anemic woman stopped blowing her
+nose, and concentrated all her energies on a disdainful sniff. The very
+young Guardsman brought his eyes out of the future, and stared right
+through the girl--rotten form, what! The intense young woman frowned
+and made a mental note that she would write an article on "The Girl of
+To-day"--or, perhaps, a letter to the _New Statesman_ would be more
+effective. One never knew, these degenerate times, if an author was
+writing from conviction or merely writing for a living.
+
+The Australian smiled generously, and burrowed his hands deeper into
+his capacious pockets.
+
+Very timidly the erring daughter of France shifted closer to her
+protector, and her hand reached appealingly for his, which caused all
+eyes but the Australian's to disappear like the legs of a troupe of
+Japanese acrobats from a cross-bar.
+
+"Your Majesty----" she said.
+
+"Hush, Pippa. You must call me just 'monsieur.'"
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Well--you see, a prince is very important, and----"
+
+"Then that is why these people are so solemn? They know you are a
+prince, yes?"
+
+The airman tapped the bridge of his nose meditatively. "N-not exactly,"
+he said.
+
+"But they are so sad."
+
+"They are," he agreed; "but my countrymen sink to their greatest
+melancholy when they travel."
+
+"But why, monsieur?"
+
+"That," he said, "I cannot tell you. Perhaps traveling on a train
+reminds them of the brief journey of life itself. At any rate, all
+really well-bred people who travel resent others doing the same thing."
+
+"What are well-bred people?"
+
+He gazed at an advertisement for pyjamas.
+
+"Well-bred people," he said sententiously, "are those who base their
+superiority on such intangible things that they leave nothing on which
+one can contest it. Do you understand me?"
+
+"No," said Pippa frankly; "but I like your voice."
+
+"Thank you, little one. It was one of the first things I learned at
+Harrow--to say something well rather than something worth hearing."
+
+"I wonder if Louis had his breakfast," said she, at a tangent.
+
+"I think so," he said, with a man's vagueness towards domestic economy;
+"but, to finish my definition of well-bred people----"
+
+"Louis will be angry at my leaving him," she said musingly.
+
+"Pippa, you must listen to me," he said gravely.
+
+"But may I not talk as well?"
+
+"Really charming women only listen."
+
+"_Tiens!_ What a droll country! Do these people understand what we
+say?"
+
+"I don't think so, youngster. Most Britishers look on foreign languages
+as immoral."
+
+The fierce gentleman, who had been growing bluer with cold every
+minute, suddenly endeavored to suppress a sneeze by smothering his face
+in a large handkerchief, with the result that he produced a combustive
+cohesion of sounds, which caused a gurgle of delight from the miller's
+niece. Violently blowing his nose, the irate one resumed his newspaper,
+first turning his coat-collar about his ears as the bracing April air
+blew full against him, and looking as genuinely bad-tempered as his
+somewhat immobile features would permit.
+
+"But he is amusing, is he not?" cried the little French girl, then
+shrank back as the New Statesmanist fixed her with a look of ineffable
+and disapproving intellectuality. "Monsieur, why is it she looks at me
+so?"
+
+The aviator transferred his scrutiny from pyjamas to a picture of
+Canterbury Cathedral.
+
+"She is the New Woman," he said; "and all New Women resent the Old."
+
+"I am old?--but no!"
+
+He lowered his eyes from the cathedral to her happy, flushed face.
+
+"Pippa," he said, "you are as old as Cleopatra."
+
+"Cleo-patra. How many years has she?"
+
+"Oh, about two thousand."
+
+She pretended to be offended, and ended by looking such a thoroughly
+engaging little figure, with her dark hair and innocently intriguing
+eyes, that the airman resumed his study of architecture from sheer
+self-defense, and the Australian contemplated the odds against his
+knocking the student of cathedrals on the head, and, _à la_ caveman of
+old, eloping forcibly with the damsel.
+
+Chimney-pots! Hundreds of them--thousands of them.
+
+Chimney-pots! Standing like regiments in stiff and orderly array,
+waiting for a review that never took place.
+
+Chimney-pots! Short ones, stout ones, crumbling ones; gray, blue, and
+indigo ones; pots of no color at all, and just as little character.
+
+Chimney-pots! Racing by, mile after mile; industrious fellows, some of
+them, puffing out black smoke as though the mist over London were their
+private and personal concern.
+
+Chimney-pots!
+
+"Waterloo!" yelled a dozen voices, and the bewildered Pippa heard a
+stamping of feet, a rattling of trucks, the din of two porters in a
+semi-religious discussion concerning the right of way, the din being
+aided and abetted by a young gentleman possessed of a voice which had
+recently broken, who howled, alternately in a deep bass and a shrill
+treble (giving the general effect of a Swiss yodeler running amok),
+that, in exchange for coin of the realm, he was willing to barter light
+refreshment--very light refreshment indeed--in the shape of small
+biscuits or popular magazines. A slim girl porter, far too weak for her
+task, dragged a trunk from the van for a vigorous indispensable, who
+stood by with sixpence in his hand. A sailor kissed a rosy-cheeked
+woman with moist heartiness.... A taxi-driver, outside the station,
+took a sudden and violent dislike to a horse-cabby, casting loud
+aspersions on the latter's respectability, and hinting at a doubtful
+pedigree; to which the other replied simultaneously, his remarks being
+quite unintelligible, but apparently giving himself the greatest
+personal satisfaction. Down the road a street-piano burst forth into
+"The Lost Chord."
+
+"Pippa," said the airman, opening the door, "we have arrived. The
+Prince with the Golden Key welcomes you to London."
+
+"_Mon Dieu_," said that young person, "what a noise!"
+
+
+IX
+
+It was nearing the middle of the afternoon when the airman succeeded,
+after some difficulty, in piloting his little companion across
+Piccadilly Circus to Regent Street. It is something to be noticed in
+that most cosmopolitan of districts, but more than one turned to watch
+the solemn officer of the formidable stride and the French girl whose
+wealth of hair and length of dress (barely revealing her ankles) made
+her seem a vignette from some past century novel.
+
+It had been, for her, a day of wonders.
+
+From her lonely little world, peopled with make-believe inhabitants,
+she had been transported through the air to the center of reality.
+London, the "Bagdad of the West," huge, monotonous, garish,
+beautiful--what term is there in language that could not be applied to
+that great gathering of human souls?--London sprawled before her gaze
+in a yellow sunlight which played such tricks with its tired buildings
+that age-old stone looked bright and cheerful, and the very dust seemed
+like the coating of frost when a thaw succeeds a freezing night.
+
+Before her eyes the pageant of passions passed in endless array.
+Poverty and hypocrisy rubbed shoulders with ostentation, greed, and
+lust. Streets, crowded with a suffocating similarity of stodgy
+dwelling-places, gave way to parks, fragrant with the atmosphere of
+romance. Vice stalked unashamed through the thronged streets, and dull,
+tired faces, leaving monotony in their trail, passed their next of kin
+without a glance, those to whom discouragement had come as some
+incurable disease. Sinister, sensuous eyes looked into hers, and
+children pure in mind as snowflakes laughed as they walked beside their
+nurses.
+
+For the sun was in the heavens--and the same warmth that brings the
+beauty of a narcissus into being gives life to the noisome, crawling
+things that feed on decay.
+
+London's costume drama was at its height; uniformed men and girls
+paraded in their thousands. There were loose-limbed Colonials,
+slouchily-smart British Tommies, amazingly serious Americans;
+bus-girls, land-girls, girls on motor-cycles, and girls driving
+ambulances; graceful French officers, swarthy Italians, impassive
+Japanese, and ruddy-faced British sailors seeking a day's diversion
+from the sentry-go of the sea.
+
+From the great, throbbing city a babel of voices rose, like the sound
+from a gigantic mart; hurrying, restless vehicles worried their way
+through the maze of traffic; Youth with its carelessness of years
+elbowed Age, waiting with weakening tread the call of the Reaper to
+whom all men's lives are but sands that run their little course. Over
+the whole city brooded the Past.
+
+Take all the comedies of the centuries; gather the tragedies of
+history; piece them together with the fancies of a madman's brain--and
+what could they offer in the play of human emotions that would compare
+with one hour of London's life?
+
+They had gone a little way down Regent Street when an exclamation of
+delight escaped from the girl.
+
+"_Tiens!_" She caught the airman by the arm. "Papa Joffre!"
+
+A one-legged man with outstretched cap was seated on the pavement, and
+beside him were five colored drawings vaguely suggesting men of the
+times.
+
+"But he is wonderful," cried the girl. "See--it is Papa Joffre himself!
+Monsieur, you will give him a little present?"
+
+The airman presented the art-exhibitor with half-a-crown, receiving a
+gin-and-watery blessing in return, as they strolled on their way.
+
+"She's the fust one," muttered the cripple, preparing to close business
+for the day, "as 'as recognoized that there dial of Juff's this last
+four month. It were a rotten drawink and no mistike. Blime! I'll give
+that cove this 'arf-crown to draw me a picter of this 'ere General Fush
+as what is getting hisself talked abaht."
+
+He saw a shadow on the pavement and held out his cap. A Jewish rabbi,
+with sallow brow and spiritual face, passed without a glance, his
+flowing robes oddly reminiscent of the Levite in that Past to which the
+age of London is mere immaturity.
+
+The wanderers turned into Pall Mall, and, traversing it, reached the
+Strand, where the meeting of human currents forms a whirlpool.
+Threading their way with difficulty, he felt the restraining hand on
+his arm, as he had done two hundred times that day. The girl had
+stopped opposite a hollow-eyed old woman offering violets, from her
+seat on a box, to the thousands who cared as little for her flowers as
+for her.
+
+Once more he produced the inevitable coin, and again received a
+blessing, as trembling, unlovely fingers clutched it. He was about to
+turn away, when something almost attractive in the wrinkled face held
+his attention. The woman had looked searchingly at the girl, then into
+his eyes, and, touched by sudden sympathy, there was a faded echo of
+comeliness in her features that came and went, like a glow caused by a
+breath of air on ashes that seemed dead.
+
+"What is it, mother?" he asked, holding the girl's arm. "Business bad?"
+
+"Yes--yes," answered the woman in a low, weak voice; "but it's her I'm
+thinking of. Take care of her, laddie, won't you?"
+
+The girl, unable to understand them, leaned over and smiled into the
+wrinkled face. With a little air of embarrassment Pippa picked
+half-a-dozen violets from her cluster, holding them out to the woman,
+who took them with strangely twitching features, just as an encircling
+current of the Strand caught them in its grip and carried them away.
+
+Although they had rested at noon in a quiet hostelry in Oxford Street,
+after visiting Kensington Gardens where the delightful statue of Peter
+Pan pleads for belief in fairies, it was obvious that the strain of
+countless impressions was beginning to bring fatigue to his charge.
+Accordingly the airman paused in the doorway of a theater and drew her
+away from the traffic's turmoil.
+
+"It is three-thirty," he said, "and there is a performance inside."
+
+Her eyes, which still held their tenderness for the woman of the
+flowers, sparkled happily.
+
+"That is delightful monsieur. Is it a play as I read in my books?"
+
+"Alas, Pippa! there are no more plays--only revues."
+
+"But there is music?"
+
+"There is an orchestra."
+
+"It will be droll, monsieur?"
+
+"I doubt it, little one; but we shall see."
+
+Purchasing tickets from a lordly being in a cage, they entered the
+theater, where a huge audience was rocking with laughter at the three
+hundred and sixteenth performance of _Oh Aunt!_ They took their seats
+just in time to hear the best of a scene between two comedians who,
+lest the subtlety of their wit be lost, were talking at the top of
+their lung-power, pulling chairs from underneath one another, colliding
+frequently, and every now and then, to emphasize some point, kicking
+each other.
+
+Several minutes passed, and wonderingly the French girl gazed at the
+pair, while the melancholy of her escort's face reached an intensity
+that threatened tears.
+
+"Monsieur."
+
+He inclined his face towards hers.
+
+"Monsieur--they are----?" She did not complete the sentence, but her
+shoulders conveyed her meaning.
+
+He smiled sadly. "They are," he said.
+
+She sighed sympathetically. "Poor gentlemen!" she murmured.
+
+After that the comedians sang a duet, the words of which dealt with
+marital infidelity, that screamingly funny subject on which the stage
+of to-day builds its humorous efforts. Once the verse ended with an
+innuendo so crude that a gathering of navvies might have resented it.
+
+There was a laugh and a gasp from the audience--then wild applause; the
+song could not go on for the riot of appreciation. One of the comedians
+(who had sung it only three hundred and fifteen times) tried to
+commence the next verse, but was suddenly overcome with laughter
+himself. The guffaws became a barrage; then, as the other singer turned
+abruptly about, his shoulders heaving convulsively, the din grew to
+drum-fire and was deafening. How richly humorous! It was really too
+much! People held their sides and gasped for breath.--"Have you seen
+_Oh Aunt_? My dear, it is _too_ killing for words."
+
+Up in the gallery one man sat with an unsmiling face. He was a wounded
+Tommy who had been blown from a ditch to the top of a barn, and from
+the barn to another ditch. He had had his fill of slapstick comedy.
+
+When the song was over there were shrieks of forced, girlish laughter,
+and nearly forty young women in various stages of dishabille rushed on
+the stage, exhibiting to a critical audience the charms and the defects
+of their forty individual forms. The producer had been both daring and
+sparing. He was a second-rate burlesque manager in New York, but
+London, that great haven for American mediocrity, recognized his
+genius, and gave him a chance. He knew the value of a chorus, and how
+to get the best out of them--oh, he knew!
+
+"Monsieur."
+
+The officer turned slowly and looked at the girl beside him. Her face
+was flushed and her eyes stared at the ground.
+
+"Yes, little one?"
+
+"Please--take me away."
+
+Without questioning her further, he reached for his cap, and amid the
+wondering glances of the people around, they left the theater. He
+paused in the foyer and put on his gloves.
+
+"I am sorry, Pippa," he said gravely.
+
+Her hand stole soothingly into his arm, and both of them, unknown to
+each other, experienced a feeling that he was the younger of the two.
+After all, every woman is a potential mother, and men are only boys
+grown serious; so she comforted him with the touch of her hand,
+and--perhaps it was the natural contraction in putting on the
+glove--his arm pressed hers tight to his side.
+
+And though he was a man, he understood. It is not precept or preaching
+that teaches it. Modesty in a girl is instinctive; and the little lady
+from the mill-house had known no other teacher than instinct.
+
+Outside the theater an attendant was changing the performance number of
+_Oh Aunt!_ from 316 to 317.
+
+
+X
+
+Twenty minutes later, in the large tea-rooms of a fashionable hotel
+just off the Strand, there was a murmur of interest as a
+flying-officer, quizzically dejected of countenance, entered with a
+young lady, who glanced shyly about, and whose fingers held his,
+timidly but confidingly.
+
+He secured a table, and ordered tea from a pleasant waitress. This
+accomplished, he said something to his companion, who was sitting
+bolt-upright, keeping a steady gaze on her hands crossed on her lap.
+Smiling a little, she slowly raised her face and looked into his. A
+young Canadian subaltern, seated at a table with a woman whose
+overpowdered, meaningless beauty was only too eloquent, stopped in some
+remark he was making. Something in the French girl's face had sent his
+mind, smitten with loneliness, speeding across the Atlantic to a home
+whence a mother and a sister had sent the finest thing they had across
+the seas.
+
+Near them, two girls, fresh of face, tittered and posed, challenging
+the eyes of every man who entered, with a brazen immodesty strangely at
+variance with their appearance of decent breeding. At a farther table a
+young woman, with a beauty that was marred by too hard a mouth, sat
+with her mother and listened to that woman's urging that she should
+marry a wealthy Jew who had asked for her hand. Was it not her duty to
+herself and to her mother? Besides, even if that young fellow did come
+back uncrippled from the trenches--which was unlikely--he would have to
+begin all over again. Alone, a good-looking artist, discharged from the
+army with wounds, sat with an insouciant, mocking eye, searching for
+types and adventure. Around him women of all ages, some of them with
+men, smoked, while their chatter mixed discordantly with the orchestra
+playing some negroid ragtime piece, and with the sound of rattling
+tea-cups.
+
+"Your Majesty," said the miller's niece, relapsing into her former
+style of address, "there is so much I cannot understand."
+
+"Such as what, youngster?"
+
+"These ladies here. Some are so pretty and so nice. Others are pretty
+and----" Again she shrugged her shoulders as only a French woman can.
+"I am so young, it is true--but see that lady there."
+
+"With the young Canadian--yes?"
+
+"Somehow, monsieur, she frightens me. I did not know that women ever
+looked that way--like Louis when he catches a mouse."
+
+"The simile is very apt, Pippa."
+
+"But then"--her brows puckered with a first endeavor to harness
+language to her psychology--"you can see that nice girl there, so fair
+and pink."
+
+"I prefer them dark," said he seriously; "but what of her?"
+
+The expounder of philosophy breathed deeply, but stuck to her task.
+
+"I think," she said, "that the fair girl is nice, but this one is ..."
+(shrug) ... "Then why, monsieur, does the nice one try to look just
+like the other?--_Regardez-moi ça_--see her now."
+
+He poured out the tea, which had just arrived.
+
+"Shall I tell you a story?" he asked.
+
+She sighed happily. "Tell me a true story," she said with that
+insistence of the young on making all things believable.
+
+He sipped his tea and frowned meditatively.
+
+"Not long ago, my dear, there lived a stupid king."
+
+"Your father?"
+
+"In any one but you, Pippa, that would be pert. No, he was not my
+father."
+
+"I wonder if Louis----" she began, but he checked her with a portentous
+frown.
+
+"Once," he began again, "there lived a stupid king named Convention."
+
+"What a silly name!"
+
+"Pippa!" he admonished her with a warning finger.
+
+She tried to look serious, but ended by laughing mischievously.
+
+"There was a stupid king with a silly name?" she said encouragingly.
+
+"This king," he said, "was very wise in some things, and often kind,
+but his courtiers were a poor lot--Hypocrisy, Snobbery, Good and Bad
+Form, and a lot of others. Now the king used to favor the men among his
+subjects."
+
+"You mean, he liked men?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So do I," she said in an outburst of frankness. "They are so droll."
+
+He poured some fresh tea into the cups.
+
+"This King Convention," he said, after a thoughtful pause, "said that
+men could do a lot of things that women could not, which made the women
+very angry. Now the king had a jester named Shaw."
+
+"What is a jester?"
+
+"A man who makes jokes that people may laugh."
+
+"Why do they laugh at jokes?"
+
+"Well, in England--especially on the stage--it is from the pleasure of
+meeting old friends. As a race, we are rather sentimental about our
+jests, and don't take kindly to new ones."
+
+She sipped some tea, holding the cup in both hands, but with
+considerable daintiness.
+
+"Tell me an English joke," she said.
+
+He stroked his faded little mustache.
+
+"The House of Lords," he ventured, after some thought.
+
+"_Hé!_ Is that funny?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"I do not laugh. Tell me another."
+
+He broke a corner off a piece of toast.
+
+"One of the richest bits of humor in England," he said, "is the idea
+that children born into wealthy or titled families are superior clay to
+their fellows."
+
+Pippa thought tremendously.
+
+"I think, monsieur, I know why you look so sad. It is because of what
+you have to laugh at in your country.... But please go on and tell me
+what happened to--how say you it?--the jester."
+
+"Ah yes. Well, G. B. Shaw----"
+
+"What is this--G. B.?"
+
+"Those are his names--Gor' Blime Shaw."
+
+Pippa sighed. It was very difficult to become interested in people of
+such strange nomenclature.
+
+"What did he, then, this Gor Shaw?" she asked, feeling that the story
+must end sometime.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, he was rather a poor jester, because his
+only joke was to stand on his head. At first every one laughed; but
+after a while they thought that it was his natural position, and paid
+no attention to him. It was really pretty hard on the poor chap,
+because he was too old to learn any new tricks, and he used to become
+dizzy from being upside-down so much. Finally he grew furious at the
+king for not laughing, and urged all the women who did not like
+Convention to murder him. When the war came along they saw their
+chance. The men went away, and the real women of England were too busy
+helping them to bother about anything else. You see, Pippa, in our
+country we have the noisy, chattering, selfish women who do good by
+lime-light and find their reward in the illustrated journals. But there
+are also those, the unrecognized and unthanked ones, who share others'
+griefs, but suffer alone. It is the unseen, unheard women of Britain
+who are really wonderful."
+
+The girl said nothing, but her face, so suggestive of color in its
+elusive change of expression, softened to a tender mood that left her
+eyes very dark and somber, and her lips curved slightly into a smile
+that was full of sympathy.
+
+The young Canadian subaltern looked directly at her and compressed his
+lower lip with his teeth.
+
+"What's the matter, dearie?" croaked the woman beside him; but he
+returned no answer.
+
+The two tittering girls stopped their staccato giggling for a moment,
+then resumed with a steadfastness of purpose that somehow robbed the
+effect of spontaneity. The young woman with the over-firm mouth took in
+the tableau of the airman and his little charge, and turned to her
+mother with some sarcastic comment that was strangely belied by the
+look of hunger in her eyes. The artist, still with his air of graceful
+insouciance, sat with half-closed eyelids and visualized Pippa as a
+subject for canvas. "What a Psyche she would make!" he muttered. The
+orchestra was just going to play, when the leader, who had been idly
+gazing at the throng of guests, made a gesture of dissent.
+
+"We shall not do 'Oh, that Opium Rag,'" he said. "You see that girl
+there, with the dark curls and the sweet little face? For her let us
+play Mendelssohn's 'Spring Song.'"
+
+Quite unaware of their interested audience, the flying-man and his
+companion continued their excursion into the realm of fables, while
+untouched toast and half-emptied cups stood by in neglected array.
+
+"That is practically all the story," he said. "When the war came on,
+they murdered poor old Convention."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Slaughtered him," he said gloomily; "though all his bad courtiers
+escaped. For a long time it was feared that the king's son, Courtesy,
+and his niece, Charm (who were very much in love with each other), had
+also been done to death, but there are rumors that they have been seen
+in remote parts of England. So, Pippa, that is why these young women
+look and act alike. They are the murderers of Convention."
+
+"Monsieur, I am frightened."
+
+He produced his pipe, received a horrified look from a gorgeous waiter,
+and hurriedly replaced it in his pocket. "The first thing the women
+did," he went on, "was to place Vulgarity and his Queen, Stupidity, on
+the throne; but there are signs that their reign will be brief. When
+the men come back and the quiet women speak, I think we shall see
+another Revolution that will put Courtesy and Charm in the place of
+Vulgarity and Stupidity. So, after all, my dear"--he grew quite
+cheerful at the thought--"poor old Shaw may have done some good in
+inciting the murder of Convention. Perhaps, though the thought would
+annoy him frightfully, he may yet go down to history as a martyr--the
+reformer who stood on his head!"
+
+But she was not listening to him. She was silently enjoying, for the
+first time, the fragrance of Mendelssohn's Melody of Spring, which
+found immediate response in her nature, so attuned to the delicate
+things of life. It had a somewhat contrary effect on the others, whose
+conversation, which had begun to lag, took on fresh impetus with the
+sound of the orchestra.
+
+"Tell me," she whispered, vastly puzzled, "why do they talk so loud
+when there is music?"
+
+He shook his head. "I don't know," he answered. "It is said that music
+soothes the savage breast--it certainly loosens the civilized tongue."
+
+The charming setting to the happiness of Spring-time, written by a
+composer who really never grew up, came to an end, and in sheer delight
+the French girl clapped her hands twice. The leader acknowledged the
+compliment by bowing. She did not know that it was for her alone he had
+chosen it.
+
+The airman examined his watch. "Little one," he said, "I am afraid our
+day is nearly over. In half-an-hour we must catch a train back to 'The
+Plough and Crown,' where we shall have dinner and a little rest. At
+eight o'clock two friends of mine from the aerodrome here will bring
+the machine--you understand that taking young ladies from France to
+England has not been officially authorized by the Air Ministry. As soon
+as the stars are out we shall start for home."
+
+They rose to go.
+
+She smiled shyly at the orchestra, and once more the leader bowed. With
+the daintiest of gestures she raised her hand and waved to him; then,
+feeling for her protector's arm, she started for the door, her eyes
+timidly glancing about her from beneath sheltering, downcast eyelashes.
+Without the least embarrassment, the tanned airman with the strangely
+light moustache and eyebrows walked beside her, experiencing an
+indefinable sense of possession that proved most agreeable.
+
+The artist toyed with an unlit cigarette. "With such a model," he
+muttered, "if I could only indicate that swift rhythm of expression, I
+should be great."
+
+The tittering girls kept up their chatter. They had long since learned
+that nothing stifles thought like meaningless conversation--and they
+were afraid their thoughts might be unpleasant.
+
+The young woman with the over-firm mouth drew back as the airman and
+his companion passed her table, but her eyes clung to the French girl's
+face as though its winsomeness and purity held the answer to her
+troubles. Swift as imagination itself, her mind leaped to France,
+picturing a young fellow who, if he did come back unmaimed, would have
+to begin all over again.
+
+"Mother," she said, with hot resentment in her voice, "I am entitled to
+my own life. I have seen too many tragedies in material marriages to
+dread one of love."
+
+"You are a fool," said the other; and because she was the stronger of
+the two, she prevailed.
+
+The woman who looked as Louis did when he caught a mouse turned on the
+Canadian boy, who had followed Pippa with a far-away, dreamy stare.
+
+"What's the matter, dearie?" she queried, with the tedious endearment
+of her class.
+
+He brought himself from the reveries that had strangely blended the
+French girl's face with the faces of two other women across the sea;
+then he looked into his companion's with its leering comeliness. With a
+quick, decisive movement he rose to his feet, and, feeling for his
+pocket-book, placed a pound-note on the table.
+
+"Pay for what we've had," he said, his jaw stiffening, but his voice
+shaking oddly.
+
+"What! aren't I going to see you again?"
+
+He was going to speak, but changed his mind, and, turning on his heel,
+strode from the place, his spurs jingling with each step ... and there
+was something in his face that made people keep silent as he passed.
+
+
+XI
+
+It lacked two hours of midnight when an aeroplane crossed the Channel.
+
+With his feet automatically guiding the rudder and his eyes keeping
+incessant watch on his compass and the pulsating lights of landing
+points showing like lighthouses at sea, the Black Cat brought all his
+conscious mind to bear on the events of the day.
+
+In the whim of the moment, when the rain was on the roof, he had
+suggested this adventure to the little girl of the lonely mill-house;
+and for one day London had been hers. He had carried out his plan. Her
+countless comments, some childish, some strangely mature, were evidence
+enough of her enjoyment. Then why, he questioned, was he experiencing a
+dull feeling of depression, as the shadows beneath showed that once
+more they were over France? To-morrow he would have the zest of battle;
+again he would lead his squadron in the greatest sport of the ages....
+Then why this heaviness of spirit?
+
+His mind relapsed into a musing mood that got him no further in his
+introspective analysis; and his eyes, which had always been a reliable
+pair, commenced playing odd tricks with him. Though in the daytime he
+was used to seeing the earth and the horizon, and thus establishing his
+estimate of distance, he was relying that night almost entirely on his
+sense of equilibrium, glancing only occasionally at the instruments
+which would tell him if he were not flying level.
+
+It was the compass that first surprised him.
+
+He was studying its sensitive needle when he noted with some
+astonishment that the dial had taken on the addition of two dark and
+most expressive eyes, which proceeded to surround themselves with the
+delicate features of a girl's face, possessed of a brow that was
+spiritually white, and dark hair that melted into the blackness of the
+night.
+
+He shook his head and sought a light on the ground, which, after the
+manner of "Winking Willies," was showing long and short flashes like
+Morse. To his amazement, the light became a smile, which gradually
+developed into a most alluring female face. If he had been in
+possession of his usual sense of the humorous, he would have recalled
+that Lewis Carroll's cat appeared to Alice in much the same way; but
+his mind and body were both in the clouds, a realm where cats and humor
+are uninvited guests.
+
+He next tried a star, which underwent the same evolution. Even the moon
+was not proof against the phenomenon. Once he half-closed his eyes, but
+that was worse than ever. Everywhere he looked, there was the same
+face--smiling, pouting, coquetting, sympathizing, commiserating.
+
+He tried whistling, but it offered no relief.
+
+Behind him, nearly asleep, Pippa sat with closed eyes. To her the
+solution was much more simple. All day she had had her Prince by her
+side, her arm in his, her fingers locked with his. Therefore she was
+happy; also she was tired.
+
+Not having any tiresome masculine mental gyrations to perform in
+discovering a truth that was so easily apparent, she accepted the
+situation with sentimental nonchalance, and falling asleep, dreamed
+that the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens had changed to that
+of the Airy Prince (who, she thought, was ever so much more handsome),
+and that she was sitting on the grass admiring him, while rabbits
+played about his feet. She was awakened from this delightful dream by a
+sensation similar to that of falling off a ladder in one's sleep; but
+such is the penalty of those who travel at night by air.
+
+And, applying the laws of logic to the case, when a young gentleman
+sees dark eyes and curved lips in a compass, and a young woman dreams
+that the citizens of London have erected a monument to a young
+gentleman with a long face and glow-worm eyebrows, it is reasonable to
+suppose that they have fallen in love with each other.
+
+But strange things happen in the month of April.
+
+
+XII
+
+She had just fallen asleep for the second time, when the cessation of
+the engines woke her, and a few moments later they had descended in a
+field adjoining his aerodrome.
+
+He jumped from the pilot's seat and lifted her out. "Quick, Pippa," he
+said. "They'll be here in a few minutes for the machine. I had to land
+here because that light was my only guide. Do you see that heavy tree
+over there by the road? Wait by it until I return with a motor-cycle.
+Hurry, youngster; they're coming."
+
+She did as he bade her, and took refuge in the shadow of a huge tree,
+just as men's voices told her the mechanics had come. The rolling of
+distant guns, like thunder echoing through cavernous depths, traveled
+on the wings of the wind and left her heart fluttering from a sudden
+contraction of pain. For one day, in the restful meadows of England and
+in the fascination of the unmarred City of Adventure, she had forgotten
+France's agony. With the thought came a sudden bitterness.
+
+Ten minutes later she heard him coming with a motor-cycle, to which a
+side-car was attached. She took her seat in the car, and he fastened
+the rubber cover over her knees. Then, opening the throttle, they sped
+through the night towards her home.
+
+It was just twenty minutes to twelve when they reached the mill.
+Hurrying across the foot-bridge which spanned the chute, she entered
+the cottage and lit the lamp.
+
+"Louis!" she cried. "Louis!"
+
+That patient feline awoke from slumber and stretched in the most blasé
+manner; but his little mistress, gathering him in her arms, pressed her
+cheek against his head, asking a dozen questions at once, to which he
+deigned no reply other than blinking into space and licking his chops,
+as though the ways of women were beyond him, but 'twere best to let
+them have their own way.
+
+The airman followed her in.... The prevaricating clock continued its
+dilatory march of time. Marshal Joffre was, if anything, more paternal
+than before, and the geranium-colored table cover lent its unsubtle
+glow to the scene.
+
+"Good-by, Pippa," he said.
+
+The girl stood motionless, and there was a quick stab in her heart. She
+had known that this moment would come, but had kept her thoughts from
+it ... and now ... he was going....
+
+Once more she would have only her little world of make-believe. She
+released the cat from her arms and turned her eyes away.
+
+"You have been very kind, monsieur," she said.
+
+He fingered his helmet absent-mindedly. "Did you enjoy it?" he asked
+aimlessly.
+
+"It was wonderful," she said quietly, still looking into distance; "I
+have seen so much. This morning I was just a little girl, but now----"
+
+His fingers ceased turning the helmet, and he frowned at it intently.
+"We do not grow old with years but by moments," he said. "For a long
+time one is a child; then there comes an instant of suffering, or of
+love ... and one is no longer a child. That is all."
+
+She slowly sank into a chair by the table, and, folding her hands,
+appeared engrossed in the table cover. "Your Majesty," she said, "do
+you remember the poor lady with the violets?"
+
+"Yes, Pippa."
+
+"What did she say to you?"
+
+He smiled awkwardly. "It--it is rather hard to explain, little one. She
+told me to--to take care of you."
+
+"Why did she say that?" she asked without removing her eyes for a
+moment from the table.
+
+"Well--perhaps you do not know this--but men are sometimes very unkind
+to women."
+
+"I know, monsieur. Simon Barit, he often beats his wife."
+
+He sat down on a chair opposite her. "There are many more ways of being
+cruel than that," he said. "Sometimes a kiss, or the gift of a flower,
+is worse than a blow. Often, Pippa, men play with women's hearts
+as--well, as Louis does with a spool."
+
+A shadow fell on her face. "I think I understand, monsieur. That poor
+lady was afraid I should fall in love with you, but that you would not
+love me."
+
+"That is partly what she meant."
+
+Pippa rose and walked to the window. "To-night I think," she said,
+after a minute's silence, "that women have the most sorrow in life."
+
+"They do, little one."
+
+"But also the most joy, monsieur."
+
+He rested his chin on his hand, but said nothing.
+
+"All to-day," resumed the girl, "when men seemed happiest it was
+because they were with women. Also when they looked most cruel--you
+perhaps know what I mean--there were women there too with the faces
+that frightened me. And all those lovely children playing in the
+park--always they seemed so merry because their mothers were near them.
+But also, you remember the poor soldier in the chair?--no legs and but
+one arm. His face was so sad until once the lady with him--a nurse, you
+said--spoke to him and he looked at her and smiled. It was lovely,
+monsieur. I think I wept a little."
+
+He made no comment, but his left hand ran slow arpeggios on the table.
+From the window she could see the water of the chute, all silvery in
+the moonlight.
+
+"So to-night, monsieur," she went on, "I am not the same as this
+morning. Then I thought that we who are women are the happiest; but now
+I think, in the real world, it is we who give pleasure or unhappiness.
+Perhaps, monsieur"--she turned around and faced him--"perhaps a woman
+finds joy only when she gives it to others."
+
+He looked at her, and his eyebrows were raised in wonder. When he had
+said we grow old by moments, was it more than just a well-turned
+phrase?
+
+She returned to her chair by the table.
+
+"When Louis and I are alone," she murmured, "I shall not dream the same
+as before. Then we had only young people, brave and handsome, but now I
+shall pretend that there are many old and sad ones, who perhaps will be
+glad if I am with them. And----"
+
+"Pippa, my dear"--he looked into her eyes that met his without
+timidity, and there was a pleading note in his voice--"you may be
+lonely here, but you saw to-day how many discouraged, unhappy people
+there are--how much sickness and unkindness there is. Keep to your
+little world here with its Fairy Princes and the music of the wind. It
+is better, Pippa.... Perhaps it is even more real than the other."
+
+She smiled, patiently, and, for the second time that day, felt a
+motherly pity for his youthfulness.
+
+"Your Majesty," she said, "in my book, _The Fairy Prince_, the girl
+sings a song about love, and she asks her mother, '_Est-ce plaisir,
+est-ce tourment?_' I know now that it is both. Ah! I think it is too
+wonderful to be a woman; for some day, perhaps yes, perhaps no, I shall
+have my own children and a husband and friends. And sometimes, when my
+husband, he is much discouraged if the mill makes no money, though he
+works so hard, or if my children are perhaps sick and cry--then it is I
+who smile and say: '_Mes enfants_'--for he, too, will be only a big
+child--'_Mes enfants_, can you see the sunshine? Do you hear the birds?
+Can you smell these flowers?--So!' _Et alors_--perhaps they smile too.
+So I sing a pretty song and say to my husband '_Courage, mon ami!_ Have
+you not your little wife?' And after that we are all happy.... And now,
+that is why I think it is so wonderful to be a woman."
+
+The clock hiccoughed, and struck eight.
+
+The airman looked at his watch. "By Jove, it is midnight!" he said.
+"Pippa, our day is over----"
+
+Tears sprang to her eyes, and her hands groped for his. "But no,
+monsieur," she cried, "you must not go. It will be so lonely."
+
+He leaned over and covered her little hands with his large, tanned
+ones. "It will be lonely for me as well," he said.
+
+"But you will come back, Your Majesty? Perhaps--next Easter?"
+
+He gently stroked her hand. "On my honor," he said, "I will come on the
+Tuesday at dawn. You will be there?"
+
+He released her hands as she slowly rose and crossed once more to the
+window.
+
+"At daybreak," she said very quietly, gazing at the steely brilliance
+of the running water, "I will watch from the hill. And if you do not
+come, though I shall weep a little, I shall say, 'He is fighting, and
+could not leave for little Pippa. Next year he will come.'"
+
+"And supposing, little one, he does not come the next year either?"
+
+She leaned her arm against the window-pane and rested her cheek on it.
+"I shall watch again at dawn, monsieur"--the words were spoken very
+slowly--"and I shall say, 'He is not coming.... He has gone to be with
+his brothers who went, out into the sunlight, smiling so bravely----'"
+
+Her words ended in a half-sob, and she pressed her face with both
+hands.
+
+"But every Easter," she said, her voice very soft and trembling, "on
+the Tuesday I will watch the dawn from the hill, and perhaps, monsieur,
+you will see me."
+
+He stood motionless for a moment, slowly reached for her leather coat
+and helmet, and placed them over his arm. "Good-by, Pippa," he said,
+and he held out his hands.
+
+Timidly, and with cheeks that went all white, then crimson, she came
+towards him and raised her face for him to kiss. For a moment he held
+her in his arms, which quivered oddly.... Then, stooping, he gently
+kissed her--not on the upturned, trembling lips, but on the cheek, just
+beside her mouth.
+
+Without a word he gently released her from his arms, flung the door
+open and went out into the night.
+
+Motionless, with the burning memory of his hot lips upon her cheek, she
+stood until the sound of his footsteps was lost in the song of the
+chute. Slowly her hands dropped to her side and she sank into the chair
+by the table. The cat looked up from the task of licking his paws, and
+sprang upon her lap.
+
+"Louis!" she cried, smothering him in an embrace that threatened to
+snuff out his nine lives prematurely, while tears from her eyes fell
+glistening on his fur. "Louis!"
+
+
+
+
+MR. CRAIGHOUSE OF NEW YORK, SATIRIST
+
+
+I
+
+A raw wind from the sea swept against the mammoth building of the
+_New York Monthly Journal_. The editor of that classic publication
+stretched his arms lazily, then crossed to the rattling window and
+looked at Broadway, far beneath. A few belated flakes of snow mingled
+with the dust that eddied about in little whirlpools of wind. Like
+gnomes, the people hurried on in an endless diverging torrent of
+humanity, slouch-hats of soldiers adding a strangely Western effect to
+the usual bizarre scene.
+
+The telephone rang, and the editor, Mr. E. H. Townsend, left the window
+to answer it.
+
+"Yes?" he said. "Mr. Craighouse? Send him right in."
+
+He took from a drawer a box of notoriously expensive cigars, and laid
+it on his desk. The reasonings of Dr. Watson himself could hardly have
+failed to deduce that the visitor was of some importance.
+
+A moment later a young man, in the uniform of a United States officer,
+knocked, and, in response to the invitation, entered the inner temple.
+Mr. Townsend offered him the arm-chair, and reached for the cigars.
+
+"You look well in uniform," he said, after appropriate comments on the
+April weather had been made by both.
+
+"Thanks. I received your note this morning asking me to call."
+
+"Ah yes. By-the-by, you are sailing soon, I believe?"
+
+"Any time, now; naturally, we don't know to a day."
+
+"What branch of the Service are you with?"
+
+"The Engineers."
+
+The editor thrust his hands into his pockets. "That is odd," he said.
+"Did you know anything about engineering?"
+
+"A little." The young man's voice was abrupt, but not unmusical. His
+brain had always been alert, and army training was making his voice so.
+"I was a science grad. at Harvard."
+
+The editor gazed out of the window again. "You are a remarkable
+combination, Mr. Craighouse," he said. "There is nothing more stifling
+to the artistic nature than a purely scientific training; in fact, the
+influence of this journal has always been used against absolutely
+technical schools. Almost the first requisite of any artist is a keen
+appreciation of the intangible; science deals only with things that can
+be proved. I often nurse along a young writer if he is incoherent
+because, as frequently happens, his temperament is greater than his
+technique. Scientists always marshal their facts well, but they never
+soar to the heights."
+
+The editor tapped the window gently, the young officer gazing
+quizzically at him the while. They were a strangely contrasted pair,
+the editor in the autumn of life, with the calm voice and bearing of
+one who has fastened routine to art, and become jaded in the process;
+the young man keenly alert, with eyes that never lost their
+restlessness, and thin, satirical lips that mocked the high forehead of
+a philosopher.
+
+"I am greatly interested in your writing," said the editor, after
+rather a lengthy pause.
+
+The officer smiled. "Is that why you rejected my last two manuscripts?"
+
+"Yes. Neither of them did you credit. Both of them betrayed rather a
+nasty cynicism in your style."
+
+"I meant them for satire."
+
+"Ah! there is a great difference. Cynicism recoils on the cynic; satire
+is always delightful, and is never offensive. However, I may say, in
+spite of their faults, if you survive the war you should become one of
+America's finest writers."
+
+The young man flushed with pleasure. "Thanks very much, Mr. Townsend."
+
+"You have temperament and you have language," went on the editor, "and,
+though your emotions are artificial and your judgments too impetuous,
+that is a natural condition of youth--nature has to keep something to
+recompense us for growing old. But you have big moments, plus some most
+promising incoherency, as I said before, and when that chaos becomes
+cosmos, the world will acknowledge you. You have never been to England
+before, have you?"
+
+The officer shook his head, a little puzzled at the abrupt descent from
+the abstract.
+
+Mr. Townsend smoked reflectively for a full minute. "England," he said
+slowly, "is the paradox of the ages. In America we have the present and
+the future; England has the present and the past--principally the past.
+Inefficiency is often no bar to success there--as a matter of fact, an
+Englishman dislikes appearing efficient--but remember that the British
+Navy is the most thorough organization in the world. I have often
+thought that England's success in colonization was largely due to her
+utter inability to understand the temperament of the people she
+governed. Look at Canada. There was never an Englishman who really
+appreciated the restless independence of the Canadian; yet, when the
+Old Land goes to war, Canada sends and maintains a mighty fine army
+corps to help her. Listen, my boy. I want you to go to England with
+your pores open; receive impressions and make a note of them. I want a
+series of articles explaining England to America--not as it is being
+done by those polished gentlemen who visit us from London, but by an
+American for Americans. Don't send me a description of the Strand, or
+Westminster Abbey, or your thoughts on first seeing the Thames. Go
+deep. I want a series of articles that rise above journalism. I want
+the psychology of England written up in a light satirical vein by a
+clever man with red blood in his veins. You will be there for some
+time, I suppose?"
+
+"Very likely, as we are the first of the vanguard."
+
+A half-hour later the young officer rose to go, with a contract that
+promised him generous remuneration, in return for which he had agreed
+to write ten articles on England. He stood, facing the older man, and
+smiled slightly. He had removed his cap, and his black hair, struggling
+into an unruly curl, combined with his dark, brilliant eyes in an
+appearance of arresting virility.
+
+"You are very encouraging, Mr. Townsend," he said. "I had no idea that
+an editor could be so--so nearly human."
+
+"My son," said the older man, "we are literature's midwives, toiling
+year in and year out in the hope that some day we shall assist at the
+birth of a masterpiece."
+
+"But how is it that you don't write yourself?"
+
+The editor shrugged his shoulders. "Why does a hangman never commit a
+murder?" he said.
+
+
+II
+
+Three weeks later a great ocean liner, known since the war as H.M.
+Transport, No. --, dropped gracefully down the river towards the open
+sea. Craighouse, from the hurricane-deck, watched the amazing
+silhouette of New York, as her mighty buildings stood outlined against
+the darkening skyline. From the wharf came the strains of "The
+Star-Spangled Banner," and hundreds of handkerchiefs fluttered in
+farewell.
+
+A British cruiser was lying at anchor, and a thousand bluejackets
+roared three mighty British cheers for the new crusaders. A bedlam of
+shouting from the transport acknowledged the compliment, and one
+American soldier, whose constant attendance at baseball matches had
+produced stentorian qualities within him, boomed out the words, "Good
+old Roast Beef!"
+
+Every one laughed. Why not? Men always laugh readily when their
+emotions are playing leapfrog with each other.
+
+The strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner" sounded fainter; the
+handkerchiefs were blurred into a fluttering white cloud. A French
+battleship lay a quarter of a mile from them. As they passed it a bugle
+sounded on board, followed by a salvo of cheers from the crew.
+Craighouse noticed that the French cheers were a full third higher in
+pitch than the British.
+
+Another roar came from the transport, and all eyes were turned towards
+the stentorian private. He took a deep breath.
+
+"Good old Froggy!" he bellowed, and two or three soldiers laughed. To
+America, France is the martyr of the ages, and there is a strange sense
+of the feminine in the affection which the Old World republic inspires
+in the New. Truly, the ways of an extempore humorist are unhappy.
+
+They passed the Battery, and, nearing the open sea, received the
+blessing of the Statue of Liberty extending her welcome to all that are
+weary and discouraged.
+
+Craighouse experienced a thrill of patriotism, and, feeling that he
+must express it in language, turned to his nearest neighbor, who
+happened to be a British officer. "That's an inspiring sight," he said.
+
+"Which?" said the Englishman briefly.
+
+"The Statue of Liberty," answered Craighouse with the tone of a 4th of
+July orator. "That is the spirit of America--equality for all, freedom
+of thought and action, liberty for every one."
+
+"Oh yes--splendid," commented the Englishman politely.
+
+There was silence for a moment, and then, in a burst of inexcusable
+chauvinism, Craighouse said, "You haven't anything like that in
+England, have you?"
+
+"No," said the English officer casually; "but we had an army in France
+two weeks after war was declared. I say, do come and have a drink."
+
+
+III
+
+Three months later the editor of the _New York Monthly Journal_
+received a letter from Craighouse. Adjusting his glasses, he settled
+comfortably into his chair and read it.
+
+    "MY DEAR PATRON,--I hope you have not been disappointed at my lack
+    of articles, but, to be candid, I have not struck the proper mental
+    balance yet.
+
+    "England is delightful; England is absurd. I was on a bus
+    yesterday, and the conductress gave the signal to go ahead by
+    hammering the side with the fare-box. It fascinated me.
+    Incidentally, the girls have wonderful complexions over here, but
+    they do not dress as cleverly as ours. I know you will say it is
+    war-time, but nothing is powerful enough to interfere with anything
+    so fundamental as a woman's clothes." ("A bit labored, but quite
+    good," muttered the editor.)
+
+    "The country, as you know, is like a garden, with all a garden's
+    charm and limitations. I don't feel yet that I can take a deep
+    breath. There are woods; but the trees seem to huddle together for
+    want of space, and one always feels that just the other side of the
+    woods there is a town or a village. England is lovely, but I feel
+    the lack of immensity. To me, the whole effect is that the country
+    is complete; there is nothing more to do. Everything that can be
+    built has been built." ("And well built, too," muttered Mr.
+    Townsend.) "In fact, I don't see what there is over here to employ
+    to the full the brains, the nerves, and the imagination of a
+    full-blooded _homo_. Again I return to the garden simile. Is
+    the task of maintenance big enough for the splendid specimens of
+    manhood that England rears?
+
+    "I feel that there is something wrong with the public-school
+    system. Not that it is inefficient, but rather that it is too
+    thorough in its results. Judging superficially, of course, it seems
+    that the public school ignores the fact that every one is born an
+    individual, and proceeds to produce a type. To use a vulgarism, it
+    is a high-class scholastic sausage-machine. It takes in variegated
+    ingredients, and turns out uniformity of product. It instructs the
+    youth of the land in the manly virtues of past ages, but appears to
+    ignore the creative instinct. Public-school men are the Greek
+    chorus of England's national drama; they seldom provide either the
+    dramatist or the principal actors.
+
+    "My biggest disappointment has been the English stage. I know our
+    'playsmiths' are futile enough, but we would never endure in New
+    York what is put on at many first-class London theaters. At a time
+    when her grandsons from the four corners of the world are paying,
+    in most cases, their first visit to the Old Country, England offers
+    them the spectacle of a once classic stage given over to inanity
+    and vulgarity. Of course, there are two or three producers who
+    still maintain a commendable standard of art, but in the majority
+    of first-class London theaters one finds a coarseness of innuendo,
+    an utter lack of refinement, and an almost total elimination of
+    humor. In their musical shows the producers still go in for the
+    type of comedian known on Broadway as 'hard-boiled'--the kind that
+    carries his own jests in a valise, and whose _pièce de résistance_
+    is the word 'damn,' which seldom fails to convulse the audience. If
+    I may coin a phrase, I would say the aim of some London producers
+    is 'to be vulgar without being funny.'" ("I wonder if that is
+    original," observed the editor.)
+
+    "I like the restraint of the better English newspapers, and there
+    are still five or six monthly journals that demand a high standard
+    of writing from their contributors. Some of the popular English
+    magazines, however, publish stories that would hardly pass muster
+    as a blushing schoolgirl's first attempt at authorship. I remember
+    my mother used to say to me, 'Out of nothing, nothing comes.' She
+    had obviously never seen one of these fiction magazines.
+
+    "Judging by the advertisements in these publications and in the
+    society illustrated papers, I would say that manufacturing women's
+    underwear, or 'undies,' as they are coyly called, is the greatest
+    commercial industry here. The advertisements state that an officer
+    can send a lady a complete set of these garments with his
+    regimental crest on them. I am still trying to gauge the mental
+    attitude of an officer who would do so.
+
+    "The political situation puzzles me. Lloyd George looks like a
+    mighty big man, but he has to spend most of his time dodging
+    snipers from behind. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, but a
+    certain section of the House of Commons goes in for absolute
+    symphonies while Britain is locked in the death-grip with Germany.
+    But she's a dear old country, and her people are as brave and
+    cheery as in the days when she was Merrie England, and not England
+    of Many Sorrows.
+
+    "To hear her people talk, you would think that the Canadians and
+    the Australians had done all the fighting, and that the United
+    States was the savior of the world; but I know there's hardly a
+    home in England or Scotland that hasn't lost a son--and often the
+    last son too. And when the old families send their boys, it's right
+    into the trenches, not back on the lines of communication.
+
+    "There--you can see why I have not written before. Incoherency
+    alone is hardly sufficient. I haven't seriously sorted my
+    impressions as yet. As you would say, the chaos has not yet become
+    cosmos.
+
+    "By-the-by, the British Navy mothered us from the coast of Ireland
+    like an eagle with her young.
+
+    "Every one is most cordial, and invitations are showered on us from
+    every quarter. I'm going to-morrow to visit the Earl of
+    Lummersdale, who seems to want to entertain a real, live American.
+    As I have six days' leave, I'm going to let him. They tell me he
+    comes of a very old family, so look out for an article on the
+    aristocracy.
+
+    "This letter is rambling most aimlessly. I suppose you are bored to
+    tears. Just a minute, till I read over what I have written....
+    Yes--I might add in my comments on the English theater that a chap
+    named Beecham is doing opera in English, and it's pretty nearly the
+    finest opera I have ever heard. Then, of course, Barrie produces a
+    play every now and then, just to show that he hasn't lost his
+    genius of tenderness and whimsical charm.
+
+    "Perhaps my visit to the Earl of Lummersdale will crystallize some
+    of my vagrant impressions. Good-by, dear patron.--Faithfully yours,
+
+    "LAWRENCE CRAIGHOUSE (Lt.),
+
+    "c/o American Officers' Club, London.
+
+    "P.S.--We're working like beavers getting things ready for the
+    American Army which is coming. It looks slow, but when Uncle Sam's
+    men are ready, Fritz is going to enjoy a real avalanche. This, I
+    promise you.
+
+    "L. C."
+
+
+IV
+
+One morning a south coast train contained a first-class compartment
+which was shared by Lieutenant Craighouse, U.S.A., and a timorously
+proper gentleman who read the _Times_ for twenty minutes, and then
+stared at nothing very intently--an art highly developed amongst those
+who worship at the shrine of good form.
+
+Craighouse was silent also for over an hour, which was a feat of the
+first magnitude for him. He was thinking of some official figures shown
+to him, in confidence, a week past--figures which gave the totals of
+England's manufacture of munitions and guns, her construction of
+aeroplanes and tanks, her production of all the minutiæ of war
+essentials, in quantities which his brain could hardly grasp.
+
+Judged by any standard, the achievement was amazing. For a nation at
+peace it would have been stupendous; but, in addition, this country
+that amused Americans, this nation of obsolete methods and lack of
+organization, had held the seas open and frustrated Germany's plans on
+land. He wondered if he had been a fool--if, after all, the English
+were not the most efficient race on earth. Just then an advertisement,
+conspicuously placed beside the mirror in the compartment, smote his
+eye, and he gasped.
+
+"How many people ride in a carriage like this in one day?" he asked
+abruptly.
+
+The well-bred one cleared his throat and shook his head. They had not
+been introduced; and, besides, he didn't know.
+
+"Ten, twenty, forty--say thirty?" said Craighouse.
+
+"Very probably--oh, yes--rather--quite." The words were decorously
+languid.
+
+"Thirty people a day," went on Craighouse rapidly; "say a thousand a
+month. In a year that would mean, roughly--oh, put it at ten thousand.
+Am I right?"
+
+The Englishman shifted uneasily. "Very probably--oh
+yes--rather--quite."
+
+"The war has been going on for three years." The American was warming
+to his subject. "Three years mean that approximately thirty thousand
+passengers have traveled in this compartment since the beginning of the
+war, eh?"
+
+His companion reached for his cigarettes. "Very probably," he said. "Oh
+yes--rath----"
+
+"How many of these carriages are in use?" interrupted Craighouse. "Two
+hundred, four hundred--say three hundred?"
+
+"Very probably--oh yes----"
+
+"I may be short or long on that estimate, but putting it at three
+hundred, this line has had about--well, roughly, nine million
+first-class passengers. Is that correct?"
+
+"Very pro----"
+
+"Then, great Scott! look at the advertisement behind you, the most
+prominent one in the compartment. This line has had a chance to have a
+heart-to-heart talk with nine million average, well-to-do passengers.
+From the standpoint of propaganda, figure out the national importance
+of that. From the commercial point of view, estimate the value of that
+space. And yet, after three years of war, it says that the steamship
+line from Newhaven to Dieppe is the shortest route to Austria, south
+Germany, and Spain! And it gives a map! Austria, south Germany, and
+Spain!----" The American's tirade ended in a splutter of indignation.
+
+The train stopped at a junction station, and both men emerged, the
+Englishman proffering his cigarettes.
+
+"Thanks very much," said Craighouse, taking one. "Good-morning." And he
+disappeared into the crowd.
+
+The Englishman paused to light his cigarette.
+
+"What extraordinary people these Americans are!" he said to
+himself--which recalls the well-known saying of a Quaker to his wife,
+"Every one is queer but thee and me; and thou beest a little queer."
+
+
+V
+
+When one passed the lodge which guarded the entrance to the Lummersdale
+estate, all sense of present-day responsibilities fell away like a
+cloak. Decades made no impression upon Oaklands; centuries very little.
+The family was surrounded by traditions; the past pointed the way to
+each succeeding generation, as sign-posts direct itinerant motor-cars
+upon their course. A Lummersdale never was forced to plan his own
+future, and there is no record of one ever having done so. Whoever bore
+the proud title felt that his children did not really belong to him; he
+was but a pruner, and they were branches to be trimmed to an absolute
+uniformity. A Lummersdale must resemble nothing so much as a
+Lummersdale; the associations of Oaklands and a judicious period spent
+at a public school succeeded admirably in effecting the required
+standardization.
+
+To this home Lieutenant Craighouse, of the U.S.A. Engineers, brought
+his ultra-modern and Western Hemispheric personality. Like all men born
+in a republic, he had instinctive leanings towards Socialism; like most
+men of artistic tastes, he was distinctly susceptible to luxury. He
+snorted disapprovingly when the castle-like turrets of Oaklands
+appeared, but he drank in the green of the lawns and the colors of the
+flowers like a desert traveler who finds a pool in his path.
+
+The earl and his lady welcomed him with simple dignity, spoke of the
+pleasure it afforded them to entertain an American officer; and the
+butler then took charge of him. Craighouse made a facetious remark to
+that gentleman as they went upstairs, but received no encouragement.
+Within the precincts of his chamber he made another attempt with
+creditable bonhomie, but Mr. Watkins's reply was not stimulating.
+
+"Your bath, sir, is next door, and will be ready for you immediately.
+The family breakfasts at nine; lunch is at one-thirty, tea at five; and
+dinner is served at eight-fifteen. The gong is sounded, and the family
+assembles in the saloon." Whereupon, with an air of deferential
+superiority, Mr. Watkins cruised from the room with no apparent
+physical effort whatever.
+
+Luncheon produced Second Lieutenant Viscount Oaklands, the
+twenty-year-old son and heir, who was leaving that afternoon to join
+the --th Horse Guards in France. He was of good athletic physique, and
+had a high, clear complexion which spoke not only of an out-of-door
+life, but a clean one as well. He was rather languid, and, in an
+amiable, impersonal way, appeared somewhat bored. The second son, on
+three days' leave from Dartmouth, was two years younger, but differed
+very little from the viscount in any other respect.
+
+There was also a daughter. (Craighouse knew instinctively that, if the
+countess had been enumerating her family, she would have said, "I also
+have a daughter.") She was apparently twenty-three or twenty-four years
+of age, possessed of an exquisite skin, eyes which were both blue and
+deep, and a golden luxury of hair. With all these fundamentals of
+feminine beauty, her appearance was rather disappointing--a lack of
+animation in the eyes, a stolidity about the mouth. Craighouse felt,
+like Pygmalion, that if this statue could only come to life she would
+be irresistible.
+
+The conversation at lunch consisted of flattering questions about
+America's preparations--questions to which Craighouse, who was never an
+economist in words, did full justice. They all said that it was
+perfectly splendid of America to come into the war; in fact, they
+didn't know what Britain would have done without her.
+
+"I know," blurted Craighouse. "She'd have gone on fighting until every
+family was drained to the last man; and, by Jove! I believe the women
+would have carried on then. America is going to make victory possible,
+thank God! but England never would have been beaten."
+
+He stopped, surprised at his own vehemence. The Earl of Lummersdale
+protested that he was too generous. The countess echoed her husband's
+opinion. The sub and naval cadet sons supported their parents' protests
+languidly. The daughter, in acknowledged order of precedence, ended the
+chorus by the statement that it was ripping of him to say so. Had they
+been discussing the commentaries of Cæsar they could not have shown
+less enthusiasm. Craighouse pictured a similar situation at home if an
+English officer had paid a corresponding compliment. He had not learned
+as yet that carrying emotional moderation to excess is part of the
+English paradox.
+
+At four that afternoon a trap drove up to the door, and the kit of
+Viscount Oaklands appeared followed a moment later by that young
+gentleman himself. He kissed his mother, and gave his sister a
+half-embrace; then he shook hands with his paternal progenitor, and
+nodded to his younger brother.
+
+"Good-by, old man," he said, shaking hands with Craighouse. "Look me up
+if you ever get near the regiment, won't you?"
+
+For a few minutes every one spoke of the military situation, the
+delightful fellow-officers he would have, and other things which
+well-bred people talk of. Amidst all this the trap started, then
+stopped at a sign from the viscount.
+
+"I say, dad."
+
+"Yes, Douglas?"
+
+"Do tell Edwards to see that the hounds get some exercise this
+week.--Cheer-o, mater!" And thus the eldest son and heir to Oaklands,
+which he was never to see again, went to the war.
+
+
+VI
+
+Dazed at the bloodlessness of the scene, feeling his heart torn by the
+apparent lack of depth in the most primeval of all emotions, the parent
+love, Craighouse strolled away, to find that the daughter was by his
+side.
+
+"You will miss your brother," he said.
+
+"We shall," she said; "though, as a matter of fact, I haven't seen much
+of Douglas the last three or four years."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Oh, he was at Eton, and only home during the holidays. I was always
+away at those times; and, of course, he's been training for the last
+year."
+
+"He is joining the Horse Guards?"
+
+"Yes. The eldest son always goes into the army until he succeeds to the
+title."
+
+"And the second son?"
+
+"The navy."
+
+A smile lurked in the corners of his mouth. "Supposing the second son
+proved a bad sailor, what then?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose he would stay on shore, and
+probably go to the devil."
+
+He stooped to pick a blade of grass, and munched it meditatively. "And
+what happens to the girls?" he asked, after a pause.
+
+Her lips, which were like pomegranates, straightened into a line. "The
+girls are not of great account," she said, a note of suppressed tension
+in her voice, which he quite failed to note. "We are educated in a sort
+of a way, introduced to the arts, but not allowed to pursue the
+acquaintanceship; then we marry--if at all--some one of our set and
+everybody says, 'Didn't she do well to get him?'"
+
+"And then?"
+
+Again she made a pretty shrug with her shoulders. "Then we move into
+our new homes, which are much the same as the old ones, and we bring up
+a family of descendants for our husbands. When the husband dies, the
+eldest male child takes over the estate, and his wife rules in the
+mother's place."
+
+"And she leaves, in her declining years, the home which, naturally, she
+has grown to love?"
+
+"Yes. Why not?"
+
+For several moments neither spoke. Always hasty in its judgments, his
+brain was fired with a rankling sense of injustice. He thought he saw
+the explanation of the bloodless good-by to the viscount. The mental
+inertia of the sons and the emotional placidity of the girl were
+natural consequences of a hereditary system which dulled personalities
+and drove initiative into the scrap-heap of tradition. It was monstrous
+that one's future and entity should be planned like the life of a
+hot-house plant; it was no longer a puzzle to him that England's real
+leaders and thinkers sprang from obscurity. He thanked "whatever gods
+there be" that he was born in a country which had only one
+tradition--that it once rebelled against the past.
+
+He turned towards the girl and gazed argumentatively into her very deep
+and very blue eyes; then he gasped, and a far-away look crept into his
+own dark, restless ones.
+
+"_Galatea_," he said, "_is coming to life_."
+
+Subconsciously she had caught his spirit of resentment, and, being a
+woman, she thrilled to the sense of rebellion in his nature. With the
+unlocking of her emotions had come the sparkle in the blue depths of
+her eyes, and the animation which had lit at once the dormant radiancy
+of her beauty--and his sudden admiration. In addition--though none was
+needed--the mellowing sun lingered on her hair till it seemed like
+strands of gold.
+
+"You look like a wild rose," he said irrelevantly, then dashed on into
+a sea of words. "Are you content with this? Do you never feel a divine
+restlessness in your nature, urging you to be the architect of your own
+fate? Are you satisfied to be a mere link in the chain of generations?
+Surely the individualistic instinct is not dead in this country?"
+
+He paused, rather astonished, but quite pleased with his burst of
+oratory.
+
+"What would you have me do?"
+
+"Anything--everything that expresses your own personality. Be yourself,
+and get away from type."
+
+"I have done a little."
+
+"What? Appeared in a few charity _tableaux vivants_? Posed for your
+photo in the _Sketch_ as a woman interested in war work?"
+
+"I am sorry," she said demurely, "that you disapprove of me."
+
+"Great Scott!" he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets with an
+air of defiance, "you are one of the most charming women I've ever
+seen." He drew himself up to his full height. "But before I succumb to
+the beauty of these surroundings and the--the--loveliest----"
+
+"Yes? Please don't hesitate."
+
+"You are mocking me."
+
+"Not at all, Don Quixote. Only why shy at the windmill?"
+
+He surveyed her carefully with his head cocked to one side. "I believe
+you have a sense of humor," he said.
+
+"The daughter of an earl humorous?" She laughed gaily, and her beauty
+was exceedingly good to look upon.
+
+An uncomfortable feeling crept into the mind of Lawrence Craighouse,
+officer and satirist, that, though armed with the broadsword of
+masculine self-assurance, he was being beaten by the stiletto of
+feminism. His embarrassment, however, was broken by the approach of a
+servant.
+
+"Pardon me," said Lady Dorothy. "It's the mail."
+
+She took from the salver a letter, which bore the stamp of the Red
+Cross, and opened it.
+
+"I am so glad," she said, looking up at him; "I have been accepted for
+France."
+
+"As what?"
+
+"As a V.A.D., my dear knight. I have been one for two years."
+
+He began to think that his broadsword was decidedly worsted, but he
+made one final and thoroughly masculine attempt to retain the posture
+of superiority.
+
+"I supposed you soothed a great many convalescent and gallant
+lieutenants?" he said airily. It was a lamentable attempt, but he felt
+a sudden jealously of all wounded subalterns.
+
+She pirouetted daintily.
+
+"I was in a Tommies' hospital," she said; "and when I wasn't scrubbing
+floors I was waiting on the nurses at table--and you have no idea what
+cats some of them were."
+
+Whereupon Lawrence Craighouse of New York handed over his sword and
+surrendered unconditionally.
+
+
+VII
+
+Three days later Craighouse wrote another letter to Mr. Townsend. That
+gentleman read it with great interest, and noted particularly these
+passages: "They have a library, but nearly every book I have opened has
+uncut pages." "The daughter, Lady Dorothy Oaklands by name, is quite
+good-looking, but mentally and emotionally she is asleep." "The old boy
+showed me the portraits of his ancestors this morning. I made the
+mistake of asking what each one _did_. It appears that they merely
+_were_." "I am trying an experiment in feminine psychology--I am
+acting Pygmalion to Lady Dorothy's Galatea." "The earl appears to be
+very rich, but quite respectable." "We had some titled women to lunch
+to-day. I have at last found out what countesses talk about--how to
+secure exemption for their gardeners. It has quite done away with the
+former vice of gossip." "Lady Dorothy plays the piano rather nicely,
+but with no soul." "Have I mentioned the daughter, Lady Dorothy? She is
+refreshingly beautiful at times." "I do like the speaking voices of
+English women when they are not putting on side. Lady Dorothy has a
+contralto lilt in her voice that is rather pleasing." "Dinner is a
+tremendous affair. A prune may constitute a course, but nothing reduces
+the ritual performed by the high priest and his assistant."
+
+That evening Mr. Townsend looked over the table at his wife.
+
+"My dear," he said, "what happens when an American young man falls in
+love with the daughter of an English earl?"
+
+"Why, both families object, naturally," said the companion of his joys
+and sorrows.
+
+
+VIII
+
+It was the last evening before his departure, and Lady Dorothy had
+played for him for an hour; played little melodies from _La Bohème_,
+lesser gems from _Chu Chin Chow_, and twice had explored the delightful
+memories of Gilbert and Sullivan. Once he sang very softly to her
+accompaniment, and when they finished she turned abruptly to him.
+
+"You have a voice," she said.
+
+"You play beautifully," he answered.
+
+"It is easy to play when an artist is listening."
+
+"Have you found that, too?"
+
+She turned to the piano and softly fingered the opening strains of
+Rudolpho's aria in the first act of _La Bohème_.
+
+"It is just a matter of personality," he said softly. "One woman chokes
+a man's artistry; another reveals the heights which are in his soul. I
+suppose it is the same with men?"
+
+She played on in silence for a few moments, then murmured, "What
+happened to the statue when it came to life?"
+
+"You mean Galatea?"
+
+She nodded her head.
+
+"I don't know," he said pensively. "I have quite forgotten the ending."
+
+She went on playing, and in the soothing light of the music-room she
+made a picture that lingered for months in his memory.
+
+"Some day I will tell you," she said suddenly. "Here are mother and
+dad."
+
+That night, while in the act of disrobing, he heard the calm knock of
+Mr. Watkins at his door.
+
+"Come in," he said. "I am going at seven to-morrow morning."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+Mr. Watkins carefully placed a pitcher of hot water on the stand.
+
+"Are you married, Watkins?"
+
+The butler considered deferentially. "No, sir," he said, after mature
+reflection.
+
+"You ought to be," said the American.
+
+The butler carefully drew the window-curtains together. "Are you, sir?"
+
+"No," said Craighouse with great energy; "but when I do marry it will
+be with some girl born in the United States of America."
+
+Mr. Watkins drifted towards the door. "Your bath will be ready at six,
+and breakfast at six-thirty," he said.
+
+What Mr. Watkins had taken for persiflage was in reality another
+American declaration of independence.
+
+
+IX
+
+It was late in March, 1918, that two American officers sat by the side
+of a road in France and watched a stream of refugees go by in an
+endless pageant of misery. Old men crawled along on bleeding, ill-shod
+feet; women were carrying grotesque bundles and leading absurd ponies
+that drew household goods on rickety carts; and there were girls,
+half-women, who bore infants in their arms, and who looked neither to
+right nor left, but followed on in mute fatigue and tearless agony.
+
+Craighouse, who wore the badges of a captain, swore softly to himself.
+His companion bit his lip.
+
+"I hear the Germans are smashing through everywhere," said the latter.
+
+"God! I wonder if we have been too late."
+
+Several ambulances passed in rapid succession, their bandaged and
+bleeding occupants lying crowded together.
+
+A girl, less than eighteen years of age, dropped to the ground opposite
+to them. In a bound Craighouse was by her side and had lifted her to
+her feet. For a moment his strong hands gripped her arms tenaciously as
+though he would transmit some of his strength to her.
+
+Without a word, without a look at him, she freed herself and staggered
+on, her face livid except where a slight flush showed beneath the black
+hollows of her eyes.
+
+Craighouse went back to the other officer, but his face was gray and
+drawn, while his clenched fists drove the nails into his palms. His
+companion cursed blasphemously.
+
+The roar of the guns grew louder, like a storm that is driven on the
+wings of a hurricane. They heard the snorting of engines behind them,
+and looking quickly, they saw a long line of London omnibuses crowded
+with English soldiers. They were shouting encouragement to the
+refugees, and waved gaily as they passed the Americans.
+
+"Those chaps will be in action in an hour," said Craighouse, and
+swallowed noticeably. "Simpson," he went on, "do you realize that it's
+little England who has kept this thing from us for three and a half
+years? It's England who stood by her word; and now that she's drained
+of her men and boys, she doesn't reproach Russia for letting her down;
+she hasn't uttered a word of impatience for our slow arrival--asking
+nothing for herself, blaming no one. It's little England who is
+gathering the spear-points into her breast that your children and mine
+may live like human beings!"
+
+His companion rose to his feet, and his jaw stiffened ominously. He
+felt for his revolver-holster and adjusted his haversack.
+
+"Tell the O.C. I've deserted," he said grimly. "I'm going up the line
+to join the first bunch that'll take me. There's some vermin up there
+that I reckon need exterminating."
+
+Craighouse muttered something about discipline.
+
+"To hell with discipline!" said Lieutenant Simpson, ex-mining engineer
+of Colorado. "I'm going----"
+
+A corporal had halted before them and saluted. "O.C.'s compliments," he
+said tersely, "and the company is to go up the line as auxiliary
+infantry. Parade falling in now, sir. We move off in an hour."
+
+When the officers reached their headquarters they found a scene of
+bustling activity. Gas-masks were being inspected, ammunition supplied,
+first-aid packages given out where they had been lost, rifles cleaned
+and inspected, and all the accouterments of war checked and shortages
+replaced.
+
+Craighouse strode up to his section, ignoring the sergeant's salute.
+"We're going into this scrap," he said quietly, though his voice
+vibrated oddly, "and I want every mother's son of you to see red.
+There's a girl out on that road who is dying of fever, and its fear of
+the Hun that is driving her on, and before night she'll be lying dead
+by the side of the road. She's somebody's daughter--somebody's
+sister--and, by Heaven, we'll make the Hun pay for it! What do you say,
+you Yankee sons o' guns?"
+
+They cheered him to the echo, and some of them swore, and some of them
+laughed (but the laugh had a cruel ring in it), and some of them felt
+the salt tears stinging their eyes--but every one saw red.
+
+Craighouse slowly walked over to his hut to superintend the packing of
+his own things. In his heart was a great exaltation and a mad love for
+the men who looked to him for leadership. In the seclusion of his hut
+he did what he had not done for years. He knelt for a moment by the
+side of his kit and prayed that he might quit himself like a man.
+
+There are moments in war when men's very souls are touched by a
+nobility, by a compassion, by a reverence that rises above all creeds.
+Out of the depths they have risen to heights supernal.
+
+
+X
+
+In a private ward at Abbeville an American officer lay in great pain,
+and tossed restlessly in a delirium of fever. A young woman in the
+uniform of a V.A.D. watched by his side, and, sponging his palms and
+forehead, sought to soothe him with a gentleness and a tenderness that
+a mother would show to her child. The man was badly wounded in chest
+and leg, and exposure had brought a fever to torment his sufferings.
+Once he sat up and glared wildly at her.
+
+"Did the guns get away?" he cried. "Did they get away?"
+
+"Hush!" she said softly. "You must not talk. You are very ill."
+
+He sank back on the pillows and laughed. "There's a girl lying dead on
+the road," he said; "but there's a crowd of Huns this morning who are
+answering the roll-call in hell."
+
+He was silent for several minutes, then frowned heavily. "Look here,"
+he said sternly, "I wish you would stop driving nails into my knee. Who
+do you think I am--Hindenburg?"
+
+He laughed again, then groaned, and great drops of perspiration stood
+out on his brow. The woman ministered to him with the gentle firmness
+of her sex that rises to its best when face to face with suffering. She
+smoothed his pillows and shifted his position so that he might not
+irritate his wounds; and, as if soothed by her presence, he sighed
+weakly and broke into a little negro melody:
+
+    "All dat I got on de whole plantation,
+    All dat I got in de whole creation,
+    In de big roun' worl' or de deep-blue skies,
+    Is dat fat li'l feller wid his mammy's eyes,
+    Li'l feller wid his mammy's eyes."
+
+His voice was very low and soft. Then he suddenly sat up in bed and
+pointed past her. "Look!" he cried. "The cavalry! The cavalry! By
+Heaven, how they ride! Look at that officer! Great Scott! it's
+Oaklands!--Good old Oaklands!--Come on, men--one last fight!--Get those
+guns away--d' you hear? Get those guns away--_now_!"
+
+Weak from the effort he had made, he sank back with a moan; and the
+woman stroked his brow, and kept back the tears which welled to her
+eyes. For half-an-hour he did not speak; then he went through the
+pantomime of lighting a cigarette.
+
+"The reason I can't marry her," he said abruptly, "is the same reason
+that East is East and West is West. What can I offer her? She can't
+dress on two manuscripts a month; and, besides, she knows nothing of
+building bridges. If I made a great success I might come to her,
+but--as I am now--no--no." He solemnly shook his head and flicked the
+ash from the imaginary cigarette. "Can you picture Lady Dorothy in a
+pretty little cottage outside New York, helping me to write--my
+constant inspiration--the mother of my children? Can you picture her
+sharing my discouragements; telling me I can write if the whole world
+says I cannot; believing in me when I've lost belief in myself? Can you
+see her motoring into New York with me, and the two of us dining at
+Rector's to celebrate the acceptance of a play? Would she be happy in
+such a life? No--no--no; as Euclid says, it 'is absurd.' By the way, my
+dear fellow, you might shift the grand piano, will you? It is resting
+on my knee."
+
+His voice trailed into silence, and he sank into a slumber. Twilight
+was throwing its cloak over the earth when he spoke again. His hand
+reached out, and she took it in both of hers.
+
+"I thought I was dying," he murmured. "I think I should have died
+there--in that ditch--but Dorothy--Dorothy--was beside me.... She held
+my hand when everything went dark--she wept a little.... It was only a
+dream, I know; but I lived. She must never know I loved
+her--because----"
+
+"Lawrence!" The word was low and stifled. "Lawrence"--that was all.
+Then she leaned over and kissed his lips.
+
+_Galatea had come to life._
+
+
+XI
+
+The first darkening shadows of an August night crept over the lawns of
+Oaklands, and settled about the turrets of the house like a mist.
+Inside, in the music-room, a pale American officer was telling some
+story--a story that kept his listeners silent and made the distant cry
+of a hawk sound strangely eerie and loud. He had three auditors--an
+elderly man, who had an unlit cigarette in his fingers; a woman, with
+gray locks, who sat, motionless, with folded hands; and a young woman,
+whose brown hair was like gold, and in whose deep-blue eyes there was a
+mingled look of pain and love.
+
+"We knew when dawn broke," went on the American, "that we were
+outflanked, and we tried to get the guns away; but the Huns saw our
+move, and came at us with bayonets. We formed a line in front of the
+guns, Scots and Englishmen, and the few of our fellows who were left,
+and we did our best to give the gunners a chance, but they were on us
+too soon. Everything looked over, when we heard the cavalry coming.
+God! how our men shouted as they saw the squadron--that is all there
+were--bear down on the Germans! Their officer seemed to bear a charmed
+life, for he thrust and cut like a demon, while his commands rang out
+above the whole shock and crash of the fight. The Germans fell back,
+and this officer wheeled about, shouting instructions for the guns and
+rallying his men. For the first time I saw his face as he rode up to
+me. It was your boy."
+
+There was a deathly silence for a moment, unbroken by a sound from his
+hearers, though a solitary tear fell slowly on the older woman's cheek.
+
+"We contrived to get the guns started back, and we retreated to a
+sunken road which gave us protection. It was on the way there that I
+was shot in the knee, but managed to keep up, when a shell lit between
+two guns and killed some of the horses. We had to leave them, and went
+on; but a few minutes later we heard a shout. The Germans were surging
+about the guns, and the little group of cavalry had turned and charged
+right into the center of them. I was hit again, and dropped; but
+Simpson, one of our officers from Colorado, led our men back to their
+assistance, and they fought till only Simpson and eight others were
+left. Then he fell dead beside the body of your lad who had led the
+cavalry."
+
+There was a long silence, broken finally by the voice of the older
+woman. "I am glad that Douglas died bravely," she said, and her voice
+was low and calm, "and I am proud that he lies in France beside a very
+gallant American gentleman."
+
+As if by mutual consent, every one rose, and the two women left the
+room together.
+
+The old nobleman stood by the fireplace and gazed at the undulating
+lawns that showed from the windows in the deepening shroud of night.
+"It was good of you to tell us that," he said; "it will make my wife's
+sorrow more easy to bear." He walked slowly to a window and passed his
+hand wearily over his brow. "Sometime," he went on gently, "I must show
+you his room. We are keeping it just as it was."
+
+Craighouse said nothing, but in his heart was a great understanding.
+
+The first silver rays of the moon were dancing on the grass, when the
+earl spoke again. "It is hard for my wife," he said; "but she will be
+proud to know that she gave everything she had for--for England."
+
+The American's heart sank. "Everything?" he stammered. "You mean----"
+
+The older man's head was bowed with the simple dignity of his grief. "I
+have not told her yet," he said, "but I received an Admiralty message
+to-day that my second son's destroyer has gone down. He is reported
+'missing.'"
+
+
+XII
+
+It was nearly an hour later, when Craighouse was wandering about the
+lawns in the glistening moonlight, that he heard the rustle of skirts
+behind him. It was Lady Dorothy, and her eyes were shining like
+twin-stars.
+
+"I thought you would be here," she said. "It is a night that draws one
+to it."
+
+"It is a night for memories," he said quietly. "What bitter-sweet
+things they have become since we had war!"
+
+"Yes;" and she sighed.
+
+For a little time they spoke of the sorrows and the tragedies of their
+world; they talked of Oaklands, which would pass from her family
+because there was no heir; they played on the minor chords of life, and
+in their voices the melancholy elegy for beautiful things that had died
+found expression in their hushed and murmuring tones.
+
+But they were young, and in the heart of youth there is always Spring;
+and the witchery of a moonlight night was calling to it. The minor
+strains trembled into silence, and the melody of hearts that are young
+took its place. She had deep-blue eyes that were never meant for tears,
+and he had a nature that responded to the beauty of life as an Æolian
+harp to the moods of the wind.
+
+As men and maids have done for generations, they talked of themselves.
+(A dangerous topic when the moon is making fairy-rings upon the grass.)
+They traced their friendship from his first visit, and lightly touched
+on the weary hours when she watched by his bedside in France. They
+laughed, they sighed, and once their fingers touched by accident, and
+he felt a thrill as the hot blood rushed to his cheeks. He experienced
+a sudden resentment against her wild-rose coloring, the marble fullness
+of her throat, and the luxury of silky, brown hair which held a vagrant
+moonbeam in a lingering caress. It was a protest of the brain to the
+senses against the allurement of beauty.
+
+"We must never meet again," he said severely.
+
+"You are right," she answered wistfully, and something like a smile
+lurked mischievously in the corners of her mouth. The moon plays havoc
+with men, but lends great discernment to the daughters of earth.
+
+Another half-hour passed, full of words that meant so little and
+silences that meant so much. Then, with a quick contraction of his
+shoulders and a deepening frown, he turned and faced her squarely.
+
+"I came to your home," he said, "to gather material for satire. I found
+it in your parents--in your brothers--in you. In my room are ten
+completed articles which I am going to send to New York. They are my
+impressions of the English. They will be published as the psychology of
+England studied under the microscope of a satirist."
+
+"And I form one of your satirical studies?"
+
+"Yes. I referred to you as Galatea, and to myself as Pygmalion. You
+supply the feminine interest which is so necessary. I pictured you as a
+statue amidst stifling conventionality, and I was the artist who tried
+to bring you to life."
+
+"With what success?"
+
+He thrust his hands into his pockets, and his shoulders drooped
+listlessly. "The artist," he said, "fell in love with her the moment
+the marble became human. He was a fool."
+
+"I am so sorry," she said gently; and for a brief moment--a very brief
+moment--her hand rested in his. Whereupon the moon was constrained to
+disappear behind a cloud to hide her smile. "And what happened to her?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "being a woman, she decided to torture Pygmalion. She
+came out on the lawn at night with him, and, by the music of her voice
+and the charm of her beauty, inflicted an hour's exquisite pain. I am
+like a man," he said, with an abrupt descent from the impersonal, "who
+knows that on the morrow he will be stricken with blindness, and is
+looking for the last time on a sunset." Whereupon Captain Craighouse
+sighed like the classic furnace, and Lady Dorothy Oaklands smiled
+again, though her eyes were glistening with a mysterious dew.
+"To-morrow morning," he went on, "the sculptor, sometimes known as Don
+Quixote, is going away to forget about the statue. It is the only thing
+he can do."
+
+Her eyes were lowered to the ground. "The woman--Galatea," she
+murmured--"she just forgets, I suppose?"
+
+"Women forget easily," he said, and thought he spoke the truth.
+
+"Listen," she said, and her voice was so soft that he could just make
+out the half-whispered words; "let me tell you the real story of
+Pygmalion and Galatea. When the marble became life, she loved the
+artist who had created her soul. But he didn't return her love; it had
+been an experiment with him. So the woman in her froze and died, and
+Galatea became a statue again."
+
+He caught her hands in his, and his eyes flashed like brilliants.
+"Dorothy!" he cried, "you are not jesting? You are not just--cruel?"
+
+She said nothing; but, oh, what eloquence sometimes lies in a woman's
+silence! Then did Captain Craighouse of New York say many things which
+would look absurd in the cold medium of print, but which sounded like
+sweet music to his companion on that moonlight August night. He likened
+her to a motif that remained in his life as a melody that haunts the
+memory. He told her he would scale the heights of fame to cast its
+laurels at her feet.
+
+"You stupid boy," she laughed caressingly; "as if anything you could
+ever do would be finer than just this--that you are fighting for your
+country!"
+
+In some mysterious way his hands reached her shoulders; and in an
+equally inexplicable manner she was suddenly in his arms, and her hot
+cheek was against his.
+
+"Lawrence dear," she murmured, "Galatea only knew one thing about
+Pygmalion--that he had brought her into being, and so she loved him.
+That was all."
+
+And the moon, feeling that her evening had been a complete success,
+disappeared behind a cloud, and stayed there.
+
+
+XIII
+
+A raw wind from the sea swept against the mammoth building of the
+_New York Monthly Journal_. The editor of that famous publication
+crossed to the rattling window and looked at Broadway, far beneath. A
+few drops of rain mingled with the dust that eddied about in little
+whirlpools of wind.
+
+In his hand he held a long letter from Craighouse, and, after a pause,
+he re-read the ending.
+
+... "And so I crept downstairs in the early morning and built a fire of
+my articles, in a grate. I am sorry to have failed you; but, if one
+would ridicule England, first let him go to the sea and watch the men
+that go out in ships--and the men that never come back from the sea. If
+he would scoff at the simple folk of England, first let him stop at a
+farm I saw, where an old man of seventy is toiling in the fields, that
+the King's horses and men may be fed; while his four sons sleep in
+France. If he would laugh at the old families of England, let him come
+to the old homes where every son went without a murmur, and where, too
+often, the last one fell beside his brothers, because England had
+called for men.
+
+"If he would make the mothers of England a study for satire, first he
+should mock the woman at the foot of the Cross, for her love and their
+love, her grief and their grief, are one."
+
+Like gnomes, the people on Broadway hurried on in an endless, diverging
+torrent of humanity.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Blower of Bubbles, by Arthur Beverley Baxter
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40501 ***