A SHIFTING OF HONOURS
Tom Lockhart emerged from the stage dressing-room in the uniform of
a French soldier, his face made up with paint and powder and crayon
to indicate that he was in the final stages of suffering from gunshot
wounds. His head was bandaged, his clothes were torn, but he gave the
lie to these signs of disaster by dashing up the stairs and into the
wings of the stage with the lusty action of perfect health and a great
zest for his part.
Behind the big curtain he found all the actors in Cary’s play
assembled--except one. The star--everybody had taken to calling Fanny
Fitch the star throughout the rehearsals--was still missing, quite
after the manner of stars. It was yet early, and the audience in front
was but half assembled, but Cary had laid great stress upon everybody’s
being ready and in the wings before the curtain should rise. He had
small faith in amateur call boys and prompters, and the action of the
play was to take place so rapidly that nobody could be permitted to
linger in a dressing-room once the piece was on.
Cary greeted Tom as a laggard. Cary himself was a French officer--and
looked the part to the life; but he was also a stage manager of
martinet qualities.
“About time, you boy! Where’s Miss Fitch? Go back and get her. Hustle!”
The whisper hissed above the tuning of the orchestra.
Tom sped back downstairs. Red Pepper Burns, in the dress of an
operating surgeon soiled and gory, his face made up to show lines of
fatigue, commented in Nan Lockhart’s ear: “Trust Fanny to play the part
off stage as well as on. Presume she’s reckoning on holding everything
up till she gets here?”
Nan frowned. “You never do her justice, Doctor Burns. Fanny’s a born
actress, why shouldn’t she have the little sins of one? But she’s going
to surprise you to-night. She really can act, you know. She’s been only
walking through rehearsals.”
“All right--but she’ll have to get a lot more punch into her work than
I can believe her capable of. Speaking of punch--I haven’t much left
myself to-night,” growled Red. The fatigue suggested by the lines upon
his face had been easy to lay on, by the make-up man downstairs, who
had had only to intensify those already there. As might easily have
been prophesied by those who knew his life intimately, Red had just
had a week of infernally hard work in the operating room, and was much
fitter for a good night’s sleep than for playing the part of a first
line surgeon on the French front.
Robert Black, in the wings, was keeping in order a little group
of children who were representing Belgian orphans--protégés of an
Englishwoman who had come to France to help look after the refugees.
Nan Lockhart had this part; it fitted her beautifully. Jane Ray was
the Red Cross nurse in charge at the clearing station; her white
uniform and glowing red veil brought out her dusky beauty of colouring
strikingly. Three young American ambulance drivers--of whom Harry
Perkins, the young usher at the Stone Church, was one--stood together
in the wings, commenting favourably upon Miss Ray. Altogether, no
body was really doing anything but waiting when Tom Lockhart, grinning
joyously through his queerly contrasting pallid make-up, at last
followed Fanny Fitch upon the stage.
She had refused to dress for the dress rehearsal of the preceding
evening, explaining that her costume was as yet in the making. She had,
quite as Nan had said, “walked through” her part and rather languidly,
at that, in the street attire in which she had come to the little
theatre which was the suburban town’s pride. So now, quite suddenly
and startlingly, appeared to the view of her fellow actors the French
actress of music-hall fame whom Fanny was to represent in the part
which Cary, the moment he had set eyes upon her--and, he might have
added, found her eyes upon him--had declared would fit her like a
glove. As Red and Ellen and Cary Ray and Robert Black now beheld the
dazzling figure before them, there could be no question in their minds
that if Miss Fitch could act the part as she now looked it, there would
be nothing left to be desired. As for young Tommy Lockhart, he was
clearly quite out of his head with a crazy admiration which he did not
even attempt to disguise. What was the use? And must not all men be one
with him in adoring this radiant creature?
Fanny was a vision--there’s no use denying it. All that fairness of
feature and provocation of eye enhanced by the cleverest art of the
make-up box, and set off by daring line and colour of gown, could do
to make her wondrous to look upon, had been achieved. All that a deep
excitement, a complete confidence in what her mirror had told her, a
surety of at least a measure of real histrionic power, could give in
aid of the finished effect, was there. But as she came very quietly
upon the stage there was nothing at all in her bearing to indicate
that she thought herself a form of delight, rather did she suggest that
she was dreading her difficult rôle, and not at all confident that she
could hope even to please the eye. Tom, indeed, could have sworn that
this was so. Had he not held a brief but satisfying dialogue with her
on the way upstairs?
“Oh, Tom!” she had called, “is it really time to go on? I’m so
frightened! Do you suppose I can ever do it as Mr. Ray wants it done?”
Tom, gazing his eyes out at her lovely shoulders, as she preceded
him along the narrow corridor to the stairs, keeping her scarlet
silken skirts well away from the walls--he helped her solicitously in
that--answered in eager assurance: “Why, of course you can! And--my
word!--looking at you would be enough, if you couldn’t act at all. My
word! I never _saw_ you----”
“Oh, but Tom, _looking_ a part is nothing--and I’m not even sure I can
do that. But _acting_ it! That’s another story. And you’re so wonderful
in yours----”
“Me? Why, I just have to die! That’s easy!”
“But you do it so realistically--you’re absolutely true to life. When I
bend over you--yes, I do feel that you’re actually my brother, and my
heart---- Well, if that can help, you do help me. And I’ll do my best.
But--I’m simply scared to pieces. Feel my hand, it’s freezing!” She
stretched back one bare arm, and Tom willingly caught her hand in his.
His own was so cold it is doubtful if he could have detected chill in
hers, but he held it fast, chafing it in both his own, and murmuring
tenderly: “You’ll be all right, I know you will. Why, you’ll have the
audience from the minute you go on--they can’t get away from you--any
more than I can!” The last was a whisper.
Fanny turned. They were at the top of the stairway now, with the wings
close at hand. “Tom, tell me! Do you really think I can do it? Will you
just keep thinking about me every minute while you’re lying there?” She
pressed one hand over her heart with a little gesture of fear which
simply finished Tom. “Oh, if it _would_ stop beating so fast----”
Tom slipped his arm about her shoulders. “Don’t be afraid, dear,” was
what he began to say. But she was away from him in an instant, and he
could only recall with tingling pulses that instant’s touch in which at
least two of his fingers had come into fleeting contact with the satiny
bare arm. The next minute he had rallied and rushed after her upon the
stage, to watch with a jealous pleasure the looks which fell upon her
from all sides.
At sight of the “star” Cary Ray came forward. All he said was, “I’m
mighty glad you’re here, Miss Fitch. Real actresses never can be
depended upon, you know--and you certainly look temperamental enough
to give your stage manager some trouble!” But his eyes and his smile
said that he was well satisfied with her as a member of his caste, and
that as a girl of his acquaintance he was immensely glad he knew her.
There was promise in Cary’s look as well. All Fanny had to do now was
to play that part as she knew she could play it, and Cary Ray would
fall before her. Going out to take a drink, after the play should be
over--the thing he would naturally want most to do--would pale into
insignificance before the stimulus she could offer him, if she but let
him take her home and come in for an hour’s talk and coffee by the fire.
But Tom Lockhart and Cary Ray were not the stakes for which Fanny Fitch
meant to play that night. There was a tall figure in the wings of which
she was well aware, and though she did not look toward it she was
very sure that Robert Black was watching her. How, indeed, could he do
anything else? Belgian orphans, ambulance drivers, French officers,
Englishwomen, Red Cross nurses--how could they all be anything but a
background for the lovely “star?” Does not the eye watch the point of
high light in any scene?
And then they were all in their places. Cary rushed about giving last
warnings, the orchestra music dropped to a low murmur of mystery, and
the curtain rose. Black, with a last word to the waiting children,
slipped out of the wings, down the stairs, up through the orchestra
door, and into a seat held for him by a group of young men who were now
his special friends. It was Cary’s expressed wish that he should see
the play from the front, and then come back, with the falling of the
curtain, to tell the amateur actor-manager how it had gone.
No need to relate the whole story of the play. It is not with the
stage performance that we are most concerned, but with that other
play, quite out of sight of the audience in the little theatre that
night, which is to us more interesting than the scenes they acted
behind the footlights. The stage play dealt with one of those thrilling
situations with which we have all since then, through printed page and
photograph and drama, become familiar. We know now how those who went
across to help, months--a year--two years--before America came into
the war, felt about us who lagged behind. The young American ambulance
drivers who left their colleges and rushed over because they couldn’t
stand it that we weren’t remembering our debt to France, and who threw
themselves and all they had to give into the breach, angry and proud
and absolutely forgetful of self, just to do their little part--these
had Cary pictured in his play, chafing with impatience because they
couldn’t make all America understand and care. The American girl whose
schooldays had been spent in Paris, who had many friends there, and
who wanted to put aside everything promised her at home and go back to
the country she had learned to love, to nurse the Frenchmen who since
the war began had taught her what true gallantry might be--Cary had
sketched her in his rarest colours, a thing of beauty and of love, her
heart as tender as her spirit was dauntless.
There was the American surgeon, come over at first because he wanted
to study the methods of the French and English surgeons, but staying
out of sheer pity, and grimly working now to the last limit of his
endurance, unwilling to desert while the need was so great, calling
with every eloquent word he could find time to write back to his
brothers in the profession to come and help him stay the flood of
suffering. Drivers and nurses and doctors--these were the characters
whom Cary had chosen with which to make his appeal to the laggard
nation of us at home.
The Englishwoman, the Belgian mother with her little starving children,
the French officer, the dying French poilu--these were the foils for
the actress, torn from her stage by a message brought by one of the
American ambulance men to the hospital that her brother was passing. It
was her part to create the scene with which to stir the blood, hers to
cry to the French officer: “Why are the Americans not here to prevent
his dying? Did not our Lafayette and his men go to them at their call?
Does America owe us nothing, then? See, he is only a boy--too young to
die! Could they not have made it impossible?”
Well, Fanny did it gloriously. All that had gone before led up to her
entrance, her gorgeous fur-lined cloak slipping from her shoulders,
her eyes imploring surgeon and nurses to say that the boy was not yet
gone. When she fell upon her knees beside the cot where lay the limp
figure of the brother she was a figure to draw every eye and thought.
All the colour, all the light of the scene seemed to centre in her, the
bare hospital ward and the people in it turning instantly to a dull
background for her extravagant beauty, her enchanting outlines, her
anguish of spirit, her heroic effort--after that one accusing cry--at
composure. It was impossible not to say that here was amateur acting
of a remarkable and compelling sort. If the pounding heartbeats of the
supposedly dying soldier under his torn uniform might have been taken
as an index of the pulses of the audience, the general average must
have been that of high acceleration under the spell of Cary’s art and
Fanny’s cleverness.
Could it be called more than cleverness? Robert Black was wondering, as
he watched her from down in front. Of course he watched her, he would
have been hardly human if he had not, or if he had not also come, for
the moment, at least, under her spell. Cleverness or real dramatic
power--it was difficult to judge, as it is always difficult when the
eyes are irresistibly attracted by fascination of face and form. In her
dress Fanny had copied to the life the extravagantly revealing outlines
of a certain daring and popular vaudeville actress. When Nan Lockhart
had suggested that for the conservative American suburb a trifle less
frank a showing might be better taste Fanny had laughed and shrugged
her shoulders, and said she didn’t intend to spoil the part by prudery.
She vowed that Cary Ray was the sort who would be furious with her
if she came to his stage looking like a modest maiden on her day of
graduation from school! “He’s no infant prodigy,” she had added, “he’s
a full-grown man-genius, and I’m going to play up to him. Just watch me
get away with it!”
She was getting away with it. Even Nan--who had wanted to shake her
from the moment of her first entrance with that effect of being shyly
reluctant to appear at all--had to admit that Fanny had the audience
in the hollow of her pretty hand, not to mention the male portion of
her fellow actors, and, yes, even herself, as well. It was impossible
for Nan not to be fond of Fanny, and to forgive her many of her sins,
because of her personal charm and her originality of speech and action.
Whatever else she was, no doubt but Fanny was always interesting.
Generous Nan was more than glad to have her friend distinguish herself
to-night, and looked on from her own unexacting rôle, with a full pride
in Fanny’s achievement.
There arrived a moment in the play, however, when to the discerning
there came a sudden shifting of the honours. It was almost at the last,
when the scourging indictment of the French actress had reached its
height. It was then, when the silence following her bitter cry had
continued till it had become painful, that the ambulance drivers and
the surgeon and nurse one by one came forward, till they had surrounded
the weeping Frenchwoman. Then the nurse touched her on the shoulder:
“Madame,” she said, “see. _We_ are Americans!”
The actress looked up. The youngest of the drivers was bending a little
toward her--a tall, slim boy, with his left sleeve torn, a long cut
down his cheek.
“It’s a damned shame!” he said.
The other drivers clenched their fists, murmuring fierce assent. The
surgeon drew his hand across his tired eyes--one could see that they
were blurred. The nurse, her eyes deep and wonderful with pity, put her
arm about the bare, shaking shoulders:
“America will come,” she said--and her eyes seemed to look across the
sea. “She _must_ come--and when she does----”
“Too late--for him!” The actress’s hand pointed accusingly at the still
form on the cot.
“Yes, too late for him. Too late for much--but not too late for all.
Meanwhile, Madame--_we_ are here--_and we care_!”
“You bet we do!” It was the youngest driver.
“Your brother was a peach of a chap,” declared another, and gently the
audience down in front smiled while it wiped its eyes.
“A peasch?” Fanny’s little puzzled accent was perfect.
“A hero, Madame--the bravest of the brave,” the nurse explained.
“Then--I am content!” The gesture was superb. The glittering eyes of
the actress looked out over the audience, then lowered suddenly, to
rest for one instant on Robert Black. It was an error, and a fatal one,
if to nobody but him. Up to that moment she had had him--at that moment
she lost him as an enthralled spectator. The little self-conscious
action broke the spell she had woven. His gaze left her and rested
upon Jane. And there it found--what made him say to himself, suddenly
enraged with his own lack of discrimination:
“Have I forgotten to watch _you_--in watching _her_? Shame on me! She’s
only acting. You are--_real_!”
His eyes, through the remaining moments of the play, never again left
Jane. Now that the dazzling light no longer blinded his vision he
could see the beauty which had needed neither over-enhancing make-up
nor ravishing costume to set it forth. In the plain white of the
nurse’s dress, with the nun-like head-veil so trying in its austerity,
her face full of the exquisite compassion which is the hallmark of
the profession, Jane was now for him the central figure. And when the
actress had left the stage, the cot with its still figure had been
removed, and the five Americans had returned for their final scene,
the simple humanness of it somehow “got over,” as the phrase is, so
completely that in its own way it far outshone the splendour of the
tragedy that had preceded it. And this was the sure mark of Cary’s art,
that he had dared to close with this.
“The thing that gets me”--it was the youngest ambulance driver
again--“is how the devil we’re ever going to make ’em see it back
home--till it’s too late, same as she said.”
The tired surgeon lifted his head. “I would go home and make some
speeches,” he said, “if I could get away. But if I go--who’ll do my job
here?”
“It will take ten men,” said the nurse, simply.
He looked at her, and his grim smile touched his lips. “Twenty nurses
to fill your little shoes,” he retorted.
“_Little_ shoes?” The second ambulance driver looked down at them.
“They _are_ darned little, but it _would_ take twenty nurses, at that!”
“America’s _got_ to come!” spoke the third driver--a fair-haired
boy with a fresh, tanned face. “Gee, she’s _got_ to come, or I’ll
turn Frenchman, for one. I can’t stand it any longer. Money and
munitions--and food--that’s what they write--and we ought to be
satisfied. Satisfied! _Men_--why don’t they send _men_? Why don’t they
_come_--millions of ’em! Oh, it’s hell to have to be ashamed of your
own country!”
“She will come!” It was the nurse. She stood up. Her eyes looked out
again across the seas. “I see her coming.” She stretched out her arms.
Behind her the four men, the tired surgeon and the boyish ambulance
drivers, lifted their heads and stretched out their arms, too. The
girl’s voice rang out:
“O America!--_Come_--before it is forever too late!”
* * * * *
The curtain fell. A murmur came from the audience--the delayed applause
rose, and rose again--then died away. People got up, some triumphant,
some uncertainly smiling, others dark of brow. The young men beside
Black were aflame with the fire of that last challenge; their eyes
looked as if they were seeing new and strange things. When he could
get away from them Black pulled himself together, dived through the
orchestra door and came upon the stage. He went first to Jane Ray.
“Will you let me take you home when you are ready?” he asked, very low.
“I’ll tell you--then.”
She nodded and turned away. He had seen her eyes--they plainly showed
that they had been wet with tears.
He shook hands with Cary Ray, who smiled at him, and spoke rather
deliriously. “We put it over, didn’t we? You don’t have to tell me.
I can read the human countenance. Are you going to start across
to-night--or will morning do?”
“You gripped us all, Cary. Don’t expect me to talk about it--just yet.”
“All right--that’s enough. Here’s the girl who did the trick.” And he
put out his hands to Fanny Fitch.
Only Nan could have told how Fanny had done it, but somehow already
she had managed to get rid of so much of her make-up as was intended
to reach across the footlights, and that which remained was not so
perceptible that it made her look the painted lady. She was a siren
now, was Fanny, and a dangerously happy one. The effect of her had
become that of a radiant girl who enjoys a well-earned triumph, of
which the great masses of orchids and roses she was now carrying were
the fitting sign.
“You scored a great success,” said Robert Black. He was not afraid now
to look at Fanny at close range; there had been one moment in the play
when he had thought he might well be afraid, realizing acutely that he
was only human, after all, and had no stronger defenses than other men.
His glance met hers coolly. “I congratulate you very heartily.”
“Oh, I’m glad you liked me,” she answered, and her voice was
thrillingly low. “It means so much to me--to please _you_! I was afraid
I could never do that--your discrimination is so fine. You would
have known if I had not really felt the part. I did--it seemed to me
I simply lived in that French actress’s body. It was a tremendous
experience really. I can never, never forget it.”
“Wasn’t she glorious?” Cary’s tense voice broke in. He had not moved
away. “I believe I must have written the thing for her without ever
having seen her. But I’ve seen her now!” His fiery gaze devoured her,
his thin cheek flushed more deeply than before. Suddenly Black was
acutely aware of a new source of anxiety for Cary. What would Fanny
Fitch do with him, he wondered. “Listen,” Cary went on hurriedly. “I’m
going to have a bit of a supper over at the hotel--this event has got
to be celebrated somehow. I’ve had Tom telephone over, and they’ll get
a few eats and things together for us in a hurry. Anyhow, we can work
off a little of the high pressure that way--and it’s got to be worked
off, or a maniac like me can’t keep his head till morning. You’ll join
us, of course, Mr. Black?”
“I’ll go over, and take your sister, but I can’t stay. You won’t need
me--and I haven’t been an actor, so I’m naturally not in on it. Thank
you just the same, Cary.”
“Sure thing you’re in on it--nobody more so--we won’t let you off. Nail
him for me, will you, Miss Fitch?” and Cary rushed away.
“Why, it will be no celebration at all without you!” breathed Fanny
Fitch, with a glance which would certainly have turned Tom Lockhart
crazy. Black felt himself proof against it, even though his eyes told
him that it was worth getting if a man had a taste for that sort of
thing. She went on quickly: “You won’t make us--I don’t mind saying you
won’t make me, personally--so unhappy?”
“I’m sure you won’t be that, Miss Fitch, with all your fellow actors to
tell you how skillful your acting was.”
“Skillful! Oh, but I don’t like that word!”
“Why not? All acting means skill, doesn’t it?”
“But--if you didn’t see more than that in it--I shall be dreadfully
hurt, Mr. Black. I meant to put--my heart into it! It was such a
wonderful play--it deserved no less than that, did it?”
“No less. And had no less from you all, I think.”
“Oh, they were all splendid!” agreed Fanny, rallying instantly to this
call. “Miss Ray was perfect, especially. Of course she had the glorious
advantage of the last word--and how effectively she used it! _There_
was skill for you, indeed. I didn’t know Miss Ray was so clever!”
“That’s generous of you,” said Black--and if there was only a
half-veiled irony in his tone now, Fanny didn’t recognize it. The
ambulance drivers were hovering close, waiting for their chance. Black
got away at length, and it was with a curious sense of contentment
that he listened to something Mrs. Red Pepper Burns was saying as he
passed her: “Each one took his or her part tellingly, but of course the
honours rest with Miss Ray. She didn’t act, she _was_ that American
girl summoning us all. I can hear that last call yet!”
“My jolly, so can I!” Red’s lips shut together in a tight line.
Black now did his best managing. He wasn’t specially good at it, it
being rather a new part for him to play, where women were concerned.
He was much more accustomed to maneuvering to escape a too persistent
encouragement of his society than deliberately to planning to get
somebody to himself. His idea just now was that if he could only take
Jane away before the rest had started for the hotel, a few blocks down
the street, he might secure the short walk with her alone. He had
discovered that it was raining, one of those late March rains which
melt the lingering snow from the streets, the air mild, the suggestion
of coming spring hinting strongly in the very feel of the air. Cary
was announcing that motors would soon be at hand to take everybody--he
wanted them all to remain in costume, just for fun. Black must be quick
now if he would secure the thing he found he wanted very much indeed.
“Miss Ray, don’t you want to walk instead of ride? I warn you that it’s
raining, but wouldn’t the walk be good for you, after all this heat and
strain?”
Jane turned to him. She had put on a long belted coat over her white
uniform; she still wore her nurse’s veil-cap.
“Oh, yes!” she answered, quickly. “It’s just what I want most.”
“Then come--now, if you can. I’ll tell Tom to explain to your brother.
He’ll forgive us--he’ll forgive anything to-night.”
They slipped away, and only Red’s quick eye saw them go. He said
nothing to anybody--why should he? He knew Robert Black too well, by
now, not to understand why he felt like getting away, and not to be
entirely in sympathy with his wanting to go with Jane Ray. He felt like
that himself--he didn’t want to go to anybody’s supper party. But he
knew that Cary must be allowed to let down gradually to-night, and he
knew that he was the one to stand by, as he meant to do. Black had done
it far oftener than he.
Down in the street, with the first touch of the wet, mild air upon her
hot cheek, Jane drew a long, refreshed breath.
“Oh, that’s so good,” she said.
“Isn’t it? Somehow I knew it was what you needed after that. Do you
know what you did to us?”
“I don’t know what I did to anybody,” she said, “except myself.”
“_I_ know.”
They walked in silence, after these few words, for a full block. Black
held the umbrella low--it was a large umbrella, and sheltered them both
very well. He had offered Jane his arm--it is difficult for two people
to keep sufficiently close together under an umbrella not to get wet
unless one takes the other’s arm. She had not taken it, but she had
gripped a fold of cloth on the under part of his sleeve, and this held
her securely in place. He could just feel that slightest of contacts,
and it gave him an odd sense of comradeship.
The silence was grateful to them both, as silence may be between two
people each of whom understands a good deal of what the other is
thinking. When Jane broke it, at the end of the second block, it was
with an unconscious security that she could go on from where she had
left off, without explaining the gap.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, in a tense voice. “I knew that, when I took
the part, or I couldn’t have dared to take it.”
“I knew you must be feeling that way. I understand. So am I.”
She looked up quickly. “Oh! Shall you go?”
“Of course.”
“At once?”
“I am in a sense bound to my church--until my first year here is up,
at least. It will be up in April. If war isn’t declared by that time I
shall go, whether the church is willing to send me or not.”
“I can’t wait,” said Jane, “till America is in, unless she is in before
I can get away. Cary can’t, either. He is going to try to get a berth
at once, as correspondent for his old paper. He has sent them this
play--it ought to show them that he is--at work again and that--his
brain is clear. He’s physically pretty fit now, I think.”
“That’s great. And how will you go?”
“I don’t know yet--I’ll find a way. All I know is, I can’t stand
it another day not to be getting ready. There’ll be some place for
me--there must be.”
“I don’t question it.” He looked down at that sweet, sturdy profile
outlined now against the many lights of the small downtown park they
were passing. “Yes, they’ll find a place for you. I wish I could be as
sure of the one I want.”
“You?” Jane looked quickly up at him, and their eyes met. “You want a
commission?”
“Yes. I want a chaplaincy.”
“Oh!” Her tone showed deep disappointment. “I knew you were all on fire
about the war, but I did think you----”
“Would want a bigger job?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t know of any,” he said, steadily.
“How can you feel that way--how can you? A chaplain doesn’t bear
arms--doesn’t go to the front--stays in safe places----” Her fingers
let go of his sleeve, she walked alone.
“The sort of chaplain I mean,” said Black--with a biting sense of
injury at his heart--“does bear arms. He does go to the front. He never
stays in safe places if he can by any chance get out of them. Will you
please--take that back? I don’t think I can bear it--from you.”
She looked up at him again, and again he looked down at her. She saw
the pain in his eyes, saw the virility in his lean, strong face, the
way his jaw set and his lips compressed themselves in the line that
speaks determination, and was ashamed--and convinced.
“I take it back,” she said. “You couldn’t be anything but a fighting
man wherever they put you. I ought to know, by the way you have fought
for my brother. Forgive me.”
He was silent for a minute. Then he said slowly: “The next time you
come on a list of citations for distinguished bravery, over there,
would you mind reading it carefully? And when you come to a chaplain’s
name, notice what he did to deserve it. That’s all I ask.”
“I’m sorry,” Jane said softly. “I suppose I don’t know the facts.”
“I imagine you don’t, Miss Ray.”
“You’re still angry with me. I can’t blame you.”
“I’m not angry. But I do care that the splendid fellows over there who
wear the cross on the collar of their tunic should never be spoken of
as if they were looking for safe places. If I can take my place among
them I’ll want no higher honour--and no more dangerous work than they
take upon themselves.”
Jane’s fingers laid hold of the fold of his coat-sleeve again. She bit
her lip. Then she said gently:
“I asked to be forgiven. Isn’t it a part of your office to forgive the
repentant?”
He was staring straight ahead, and this time it was she who looked at a
profile; stern and hard she thought it for a minute. Then the set lips
relaxed, and a deep breath came through them. “I seem to care too much
what you think,” he acknowledged. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose, what
you do think. Never mind.”
“But I’ve apologized.”
“You haven’t changed your feeling about it. I’m not looking for a
personal apology. It’s all right. Tell me--when do you think you can
get off?”
Jane stopped short. The pair were in a side street, and there were no
pedestrians upon it within a considerable distance. “Mr. Robert Black,”
she said, “I’ll not go another foot with you till you are friends with
me again.”
“Friends with you?” He seemed to consider the question. “Having once
been your friend--how can I ever be anything else--unless you tell me I
can’t be? But even friends can--fail to see.”
“I don’t fail to see. I see very clearly--quite suddenly. And--if we
are both going over, in the same cause, we must keep on being friends.
I think--” Jane’s voice held a peculiar vibration--“I think, before
I am through with it, I may be very glad to have--a chaplain--for a
friend!”
Robert Black looked at her steadily for a moment. His lips broke into
a smile; she could see his splendid white teeth between the pleasant
lines. “Ah, you do make full amends!” he admitted. “I--shall we----”
Then he glanced up and down the street. He began to laugh. “Where is
that hotel?” he queried.
Jane’s eyes scanned the street corners ahead and behind them. “I think
we’ve gone by it,” she said, with mirth.
“Then--let’s go a little farther by. Do you mind? Mayn’t we go to that
big building down there, before we turn around? It’s not raining so
very hard now. I hate to take leave of you--just yet. It seems a poor
place to stop--when we’ve just got back to--the place we started at.”
“And what was the place we started at?” She let him take her forward
again. He was walking more and more slowly. It looked as if a good
deal of time might possibly be consumed before they should reach the
designated building and then retrace their steps to the patiently
waiting hotel.
“The place where we were both going to war. Do you realize what a
meeting ground that is?”
She nodded. “It is--quite a meeting ground. It seems to----” she
hesitated. He repeated the words with the rising inflection. She shook
her head.
“I can finish it for you,” he said. “It seems to--set us apart, just
a little--from the rest. At least--till they say they are going,
too. Some of them will say that very soon. Till they do--do you mind
being--in a little clear space--just with me--and with this big thing
ahead to talk about together?”
It was a minute before Jane answered. When she did, it was in the
frankest, sweet way that she said straightforwardly, “No, I don’t
mind, Mr. Black. I think I--rather like it. You see, you’re not--poor
company!”
Though they went on from there on that note of frank friendliness,
finished the walk, came finally to the hotel, parted with the simplest
sort of comradely good-night, there could be no question that the bond
between them, till now established wholly on the basis of Black’s
friendship for Cary, had become something which was from Cary quite
apart. Whatever it was, it took Robert Black a good three miles of
walking alone in a rain which had all at once become a downpour to
think it out, and wonder, with a quickening of the pulses, where it
led.