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[Illustration: "If you don't leave the room instantly, I will!"]
Q U I N
BY
ALICE HEGAN RICE
Author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch,"
"Lovey Mary," "Sandy," "Calvary Alley," etc.
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1921
Copyright, 1921, by
THE CENTURY CO.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
TO MY MERRIEST FRIEND
JOSEPHINE F. HAMILL
Transcriber's Note:
The Table of Contents was not in the original text and
has been created for the convenience of the reader.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 17
Q U I N
CHAPTER 1
If the dollar Quinby Graham tossed up on New Year's eve had not elected
to slip through his fingers and roll down the sewer grating, there might
have been no story to write. Quin had said, "Tails, yes"; and who knows
but that down there under the pavement that coin of fate was registering
"Heads, no"? It was useless to suggest trying it over, however, for
neither of the young privates with town leave for twenty-four hours
possessed another coin.
The heavier of the two boys, Cass Martel,--the lame one, whose nose began
quite seriously, as if it had every intention of being a nose, then
changed abruptly into a button,--scraped the snow from the sewer grating
with his cane, and swore savagely under his breath. But Quin shrugged his
shoulders with a slow, easy-going laugh.
"That settles it," he said triumphantly. "We got to go to the Hawaiian
Garden now, because it's the only place that's free!"
"I'll be hanged if I know what you want to go to a dance for," argued his
companion fiercely. "Here you been on your back for six months, and your
legs so shaky they won't hardly hold you. Don't you know you can't
dance?"
"Sure," agreed Quin amicably. "I don't mean to dance. But I got to go
where I can see some girls. I'm dead sick of men. Come on in. We don't
need to stay but a little while."
"That's too long for me," said Cass. "If you weren't such a bonehead for
doing what you start out to do, we could do something interesting."
One might have thought they were Siamese twins, from the way in which
Cass ignored the possibility of each going his own way. He glared at his
tall companion with a mingled expression of rage and dog-like devotion.
"Cut it out, Cass," said Quin at last, putting an end to an argument that
had been in progress for fifteen minutes. "I'm going to that dance, and
I'm going to make love to the first girl that looks at me. I'll meet you
wherever you say at six o'clock."
Cass, seeing that further persuasion was useless, reluctantly consented.
"Well, you take care of yourself, and don't forget you are going home
with me for the night," he warned.
"Where else could I go? Haven't got a red cent, and I wouldn't go back
out to the hospital if I had to bunk on the curbstone! So long, _chérie_!"
Sergeant Quinby Graham, having thus carried his point, adjusted his
overseas cap at a more acute angle, turned back his coat to show his
distinguished-conduct medal, and went blithely up the steps to the
dance-hall. He was tall and outrageously thin, and pale with the pallor
that comes from long confinement. His hands and feet seemed too big for
the rest of him, and his blond hair stuck up in a bristly mop above his
high forehead. But Sergeant Graham walked with the buoyant tread of one
who has a good opinion not only of himself but of mankind in general.
The only thing that disturbed his mind was the fact that, swagger as he
would, his shoulders, usually so square and trim, refused to fill out his
uniform. It was the first time he had had it on for six months, his
wardrobe having been limited to pajamas and bath-robes during his
convalescence in various hospitals at home and abroad.
Two years before, when he had left a lumber camp in Maine to answer
America's first call for volunteers to France, his personal appearance
had concerned him not in the least. But the army had changed that, as it
had changed most things for Quin.
He checked his overcoat at the hall entrance, stepped eagerly up to the
railing that divided the spectators from the dancers, and drew a deep
breath of satisfaction. Here, at last, was something different from the
everlasting hospital barracks: glowing lights, holiday decorations, the
scent of flowers instead of the stale fumes of ether and disinfectants;
soul-stirring music in place of the wheezy old phonograph grinding out
the same old tunes; and, above all, girls, hundreds of them, circling in
a bewildering rainbow of loveliness before him.
Was it any wonder that Quin's foot began to twitch, and that, in spite of
repeated warnings at the hospital, a blind desire seized him to dance? At
the mere thought his heart gained a beat--that unruly heart, which had
caused so much trouble. It had never been right since that August day in
the Sevzevais sector, when, to quote his citation, he "had shown great
initiative in assuming command when his officer was disabled, and, with
total disregard for his personal safety, had held his machine-gun against
almost impossible odds." In the accomplishment of this feat he had been
so badly gassed and wounded that his career as a soldier was definitely,
if gloriously, ended.
The long discipline of pain to which he had been subjected had not,
however, conquered Quin's buoyancy. He was still tremendously vital, and
when he wanted anything he wanted it inordinately and immediately. Just
now, when every muscle in him was keeping time to that soul-disturbing
music, he heard his own imperative desire voiced at his elbow:
"I don't want to go home. I want to dance. Nobody will notice us. Just
one round, Captain Phipps."
The voice was young and singularly vibrant, and the demand in it was
quite as insistent as the demand that was clamoring in Quin's own
khaki-covered breast.
He craned his neck to see the speaker; but she was hidden by her escort,
in whose supercilious profile he recognized one of the officers in charge
of his ward at the hospital.
"You foolish child!" the officer was saying, fingering his diminutive
mustache and viewing the scene with a somewhat contemptuous smile. "You
said if I would bring you in for a moment you wouldn't ask to stay."
"I know, but I always break my promises," said the coaxing voice; "and
besides I'm simply crazy to dance."
"You surely don't imagine that I would get out on the floor with all this
hoi-poloi?"
Quin saw a pair of small gloved hands grasp the railing resolutely, and
he was straightway filled with indignation that any man, of whatever
rank, should stand back on his dignity when a voice like that asked a
favor. A similar idea had evidently occurred to the young lady, for she
said with some spirit:
"The only difference I can see between these boys and you is that they
are privates who got over, and you are an officer who didn't."
Quin could not hear the answer, but as the officer shifted his position
he caught his first glimpse of the girl. She was very young and obviously
imperious, with white skin and coal-black hair and the most utterly
destructive brown eyes he had ever encountered. Discretion should have
prompted him to seek immediate safety out of the firing-line, but instead
he put himself in the most exposed position possible and waited results.
They arrived on schedule time.
"Captain Phipps!" called a page. "Wanted on the telephone."
"Will you wait for me here just a second?" asked the officer.
"I don't know whether I will or not," was the spirited answer; "I may go
home."
"Then I'll follow you," said the Captain as he pushed his way through the
crowd to the telephone-booth.
It was just at this moment, when the jazz band was breaking into its most
beguiling number, that Quin's eyes and the girl's eyes met in a glance of
mutual desire. History repeated itself. Once again, "with total disregard
for his personal safety, Sergeant Graham assumed command when his officer
was disabled," and rashly flung himself into the breach.
"Will you dance it with me?" he asked eagerly, and he blushed to the
roots of his stubbly hair.
There was an ominous pause, during which the young girl stood irresolute,
while Mrs. Grundy evidently whispered "Don't" in one ear and instinct
whispered "Do" in the other. It lasted but a second, for the next thing
Quin knew, a small gloved hand was slipped into his, a blue plume was
tickling his nose, and he was gliding a bit unsteadily into Paradise.
What his heart might do after that dance was of absolutely no consequence
to him. It could beat fast or slow, or even stop altogether, if it would
only hold out as long as the music did. Round and round among the dancers
he guided his dainty partner, carefully avoiding the entrance end of the
hall, and devoutly praying that his clumsy army shoes might not crush
those little high-heeled brown pumps tripping so deftly in and out
between them. He was not used to dancing with officers' girls, and he
held the small gray-gloved hand in his big fist as if it were a bird
about to take flight.
Next to the return of the Captain, he dreaded that other dancers, seeing
his prize, would try to capture her; but there was a certain tempered
disdain in the poise of his little partner's head, an ability to put up a
quick and effective defense against intrusion, that protected him as
well.
Neither of them spoke until the music stopped, and then they stood
applauding vociferously, with the rest, for an encore.
"I ought to go," said the Radiant Presence, with a guilty glance upward
from under long eyelashes. "You don't see a very cross-looking Captain
charging around near the door, do you?"
"No," said Quin, without turning his head, "I don't see him"--and he
smiled as he said it.
Now, Quin's smile was his chief asset in the way of looks. It was a
leisurely smile, that began far below the surface and sent preliminary
ripples up to his eyes and the corners of his big mouth, and broke
through at last in a radiant flash of good humor. In this case it met a
very prompt answer under the big hat.
"You see, I'm not supposed to be dancing," she explained rather
condescendingly.
"Nor me, either," said Quin, breathing heavily.
Then the band decided to be accommodating, and the saxophone decided to
out-jazz the piano, and the drum got its ambition roused and joined in
the competition, and the young couple who were not supposed to be dancing
out-danced everything on the floor!
Quin's heart might have adjusted itself to that first dance, but the
rollicking encore, together with the emotional shock it sustained every
time those destructive eyes were trained upon him, was too much for it.
"Say, would you mind stopping a bit?--just for a second?" he gasped, when
his breath seemed about to desert him permanently.
"You surely aren't _tired_?" scoffed the young lady, lifting a pair of
finely arched eyebrows.
"No; but, you see--as a matter of fact, ever since I was gassed----"
"Gassed!"
The word acted like a charm. The girl's sensitive face, over which the
expressions played like sunlight on water, softened to instant sympathy,
and Quin, who up to now had been merely a partner, suddenly found himself
individual.
"Did you see much actual service?" she asked, her eyes wide with
interest.
"Sure," said Quin, bracing himself against a post and trying to keep his
breath from coming in jerks; "saw sixteen months of it."
Her quick glance swept from the long scar on his forehead to the bar on
his breast.
"What do all those stars on the rainbow ribbon mean?" she demanded.
"Major engagements," said Quin diffidently.
"And the silver one in the middle?"
"A citation," He glanced around to make sure none of the other boys were
near, then confessed, as if to a crime: "That's where I got my medal."
"Come over here and sit down this minute," she commanded. "You've got to
tell me all about it."
It would be very pleasant to chronicle the fact that our hero modestly
declined to take advantage of the opportunity thus offered. But it must
be borne in mind that, his heart having failed him at a critical hour, he
had to fall back upon his tongue as the only means at hand of detaining
the Celestial Being who at any moment might depart. With what breath he
had left he told his story, and, having a good story to tell, he did it
full justice. Sometimes, to be sure, he got his pronouns mixed, and once
he lost the thread of his discourse entirely; but that was when he became
too conscious of those star-like eyes and the flattering absorption of
the little lady who for one transcendent moment was deigning "to love him
for the dangers he had passed." With unabated interest and curiosity she
drank in every detail of his recital, her half-parted lips only closing
occasionally to say, "Wonderful!" or "How _perfectly_ wonderful!"
On and on went the music, round and round went the dancers, and still the
private in the uniform that was too big and the officer's girl in blue
and gray sat in the alcove, totally oblivious to everything but each
other.
It was not until the girl happened to look at the ridiculous little watch
that was pretending to keep time on her wrist that the spell was broken.
"Merciful heaven!" she exclaimed dramatically, "It's six o'clock. What
_will_ the family say to me? I must fly this minute."
"But ain't you going to finish this dance with me?" asked Quin with
tragic insistence.
"Ought you to dance again?" The note was personal and divinely
solicitous.
"I oughtn't, but I am"; and, with superb disregard for doctors and syntax
alike, Quin put a firm arm around that slender yielding figure and swept
her into the moving crowd.
They danced very quietly this time, for he was determined to hold out to
the end. In fact, from the dreamy, preoccupied look on their faces one
might have mistaken them for two zealous young acolytes lost in the
performance of a religious rite.
Quin was still in a trance when he helped her on with her coat and
piloted her down the crowded stairs. He could not bear to have her
jostled by the boisterous crowd, and he glared at the men whose admiring
glances dared to rest too long upon her.
Now that the dance was over, the young lady was in a fever of impatience
to get away. Qualms of remorse seized her for the way she had treated her
one-time escort, and she hinted at the trouble in store for her if the
family heard of her escapade.
Outside the pavements were white with snow, and falling flakes glistened
against the blue electric lights. Holiday crowds thronged the sidewalks,
and every other man was in uniform.
"I left my car at the corner," said Quin's companion, nervously
consulting her watch for the fourth time. "You needn't come with me; I
can find it all right."
But Quin hadn't the slightest intention of forgoing one second of that
delectable interview. He followed her to her car, awkwardly helped her
in, and stood looking at her wistfully. In her hurry to get home she
seemed to have forgotten him entirely. In two minutes she would never
know that she had met him, while he----
"Good-by, Soldier Boy," she said, suddenly holding out her hand.
"My name is Graham," stammered Quin--"Sergeant Quinby Graham; Battery C,
Sixth Field Artillery. And yours?"
She was fussing with the starter by this time, but she smiled up at him
and shook her head.
"I? Oh, I haven't any! I'm just an irresponsible young person who is
going to gets fits for having stayed out so late. But it was worth it,
wasn't it--Sergeant Slim?"
And then, before he knew what had happened, the small runabout was
skilfully backed out of its narrow space and a red tail-light was rapidly
wagging down the avenue, leaving him standing dazed on the curbstone.
"Where in the devil have you been?" demanded a cross voice behind him,
and turning he encountered Cass's snub-nose and irate eyes.
Quin's own eyes were shining and his face was flushed. With a laugh he
flung his arm around his buddy's shoulder and affectionately punched his
head.
"In heaven," he answered laconically.
"Funny place to leave your overcoat!" said Cass, viewing him with
suspicion. "Quin Graham, have you had a drink?"
Quin hilariously declared his innocence. The draught of which he had so
freely imbibed, though far more potent than any earthly brew, was one
against which there are no prohibitory laws.