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A Soldier of the Legion
BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHORS
CAR OF DESTINY
THE CHAPERON
GOLDEN SILENCE
GUESTS OF HERCULES
HEATHER MOON
IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT
LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER
LORD LOVELAND DISCOVERS AMERICA
MOTOR MAID
MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR
PORT OF ADVENTURE
PRINCESS VIRGINIA
ROSEMARY IN SEARCH OF A FATHER
SET IN SILVER
A Soldier of the Legion
BY
C.N. & A.M. Williamson
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
1914
_Copyright, 1914, by_
C.N. & A.M. WILLIAMSON
_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian_
TO
THE LEGION
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Telegram 3
II. The Blow 15
III. The Last Act of "Girls' Love" 34
IV. The Upper Berth 45
V. The Night of Storms 58
VI. The News 71
VII. Sir Knight 80
VIII. On the Station Platform 95
IX. The Colonel of the Legion 106
X. The Voice of the Legion 117
XI. Four Eyes 132
XII. No. 1033 143
XIII. The Agha's Rose 148
XIV. Two on the Roof 163
XV. The Secret Link 173
XVI. The Beetle 189
XVII. The Mission 203
XVIII. Gone 223
XIX. What Happened at Dawn 228
XX. The Beauty Doctor 242
XXI. The Eleventh Hour 254
XXII. The Heart of Max 263
XXIII. "Where the Strange Roads Go Down" 278
XXIV. The Mad Music 285
XXV. Corporal St. George, Deserter 294
XXVI. Sanda's Wedding Night 302
XXVII. The Only Friend 317
XXVIII. Sanda Speaks 332
XXIX. Out of the Dream, a Plan 346
XXX. The Play of Cross Purposes 351
XXXI. The Gift 368
A Soldier of the Legion
CHAPTER I
THE TELEGRAM
It was the great ball of the season at Fort Ellsworth. For a special
reason it had begun unusually late; but, though the eighth dance was on,
the great event of the evening had not happened yet. Until that should
happen, the rest, charming though it might be, was a mere curtain-raiser
to keep men amused before the first act of the play.
The band of the --th was playing the "Merry Widow" waltz, still a
favourite at the fort, and only one of the officers was not dancing. All
the others--young, middle-aged, and even elderly--were gliding more or
less gracefully, more or less happily, over the waxed floor of the big,
white-walled, flag-draped hall where Fort Ellsworth had its concerts,
theatricals, small hops, and big balls. Encircled by their uniformed
arms were the wives and sisters of brother officers, ladies whom they
saw every day, or girls from the adjacent town of Omallaha, whom they
could see nearly every day if they took the trouble. Some of the girls
were pretty and pleasant. They all danced well, and wore their newest
frocks from Chicago, New York, and even, in certain brilliant cases,
from Paris. But--there was a heart-breaking "but". Each army woman,
each visiting girl from Omallaha knew that at any minute her star might
be eclipsed, put out, as the stars at dawn are extinguished by the
rising sun. Each one knew, too, that the sun must be at the brink of the
horizon, because it was half-past eleven, and it took more than twenty
minutes to motor to Ellsworth from Omallaha. Besides, Max Doran, who
used to love the "Merry Widow" waltz, was not dancing. He stood near the
door pretending to talk to an old man who had chaperoned a daughter from
town to the ball; but in reality he was lying in wait, ready to pounce.
It was a wonder that he hadn't gone to meet her; but perhaps she had
refused his escort. A more effective entrance might be made by a
dazzling vision alone (the "stage aunt" did not count) than with a man,
even the show young man of the garrison.
The show young man talked jerkily about the weather, with his eyes on
the door. They were laughing eyes of a brilliant blue, and accounted for
a good deal where girls were concerned; but not all. There were other
things--other advantages he had, which made it seem quite remarkable
that a rather dull Western fort like Ellsworth should possess him. His
family was high up in the "Four Hundred" in New York. He had as much
money as, with all his boyish extravagances and wild generosity, he knew
what to do with. He was exceedingly good to look at, in the dark, thin,
curiously Latin style to which he seemed to have no right. He was a
rather popular hero in the --th, for his polo, a sport which he had
introduced and made possible at Fort Ellsworth, and for his boxing, his
fencing, and his marksmanship. He had been graduated fourth in his
class at West Point three years before, so that he might have chosen the
engineers or artillery; but the cavalry was what he preferred; and here
he was at old Fort Ellsworth, enjoying life hugely and so well helping
others to enjoy life that every one liked him, no one was jealous or
grudged him what he had.
There he stood, this "show young man," well-groomed and smart in his
full-dress uniform of second lieutenant of cavalry, the stripes and
splashes of yellow suiting his dark skin: a slim, erect figure, not very
tall, but a soldier every inch of him, though the wide-apart blue eyes
gave the square-chinned face a boyish air of wistfulness, even when he
smiled his delightfully childlike, charming smile. Girls glanced at him
as they swung past in their partners' arms, noticing how tense was the
look on the brown face, and how the straight eyebrows--even blacker than
the smooth dark hair--were drawn together in expectant concentration.
Suddenly the door opened. The curtain-raiser was over. The drama of the
evening was about to begin.
It seemed wonderful that the band could keep presence of mind to go on
playing the "Merry Widow," instead of stopping short with a gasp and
crash of instruments, to start again with the "Tango Trance," _her_
dance in "Girls' Love."
She flashed into the ballroom like a dazzling fairy thing, all white and
gold and glitter. Because she knew that--so to speak--the curtain would
ring up for her entrance, and not an instant before, in the fondness of
her heart for young officers she had not even delayed long enough to
change the dress she wore as the Contessa Gaëta in the third act of
"Girls' Love." The musical comedy had been written for her. In it she
had made her first almost startling success two years ago in London,
where, according to the newspapers, all young men worth their salt, from
dukes down to draymen, had fallen in love with her. She had captured New
York, too, and now she and her company were rousing enthusiasm and
coining money on their tour of the larger Western cities.
The Gaëta dress looked as if it were made of a million dewdrops turned
to diamonds and sprinkled over a lacy spider-web; the web swathing the
tall and wandlike figure of Miss Billie Brookton in a way to show that
she had all the delicate perfections of a Tanagra statuette.
Despite the distraction of her entrance, followed by that of the little
gray lady engaged as her aunt, the musicians had the self-control to go
on with their "Merry Widowing," irrelevant as it now seemed. The dancers
went on dancing, also, though the dreaded dimness of extinction had
fallen upon even the brightest, prettiest girls, who tried to look
particularly rapturous in order to prove that nothing had happened. They
felt their partners' interest suddenly withdrawn from them and focussed
upon the radiance at the door. No use ignoring that Radiance, even if
one had in self-defence to pretend that it didn't matter much, and
wasn't so marvellously dazzling after all!
"There goes Mr. Doran to welcome her--of course!" said an Omallaha girl
lately back from New York. "I wonder if they really are engaged?"
"Why shouldn't they be?" her partner generously wanted to know. (He was
married.)
"Well, for one thing, she doesn't seem the sort of woman who'd care to
give up her career. She's so self-conscious that she must be selfish,
and then--she's older than he is."
"Good heavens, no! She doesn't look nineteen!"
"On the stage."
"Or off, either."
"Anyhow, some people in New York who know her awfully well told me that
she'd never see twenty-nine again. An actress of twenty-nine who can't
look nineteen had better go into a convent! Though, when you notice, her
mouth and eyes are hard, aren't they? What _would_ Max Doran's wonderful
mother say if her son married Billie Brookton?"
"Miss Brookton's father was a clergyman in Virginia. She told me so
herself," said the married partner.
"She _would_---- Oh, I don't mean to be catty. But she must have a
background that's a contrast--like that aunt of hers. I don't believe
she'd want to marry for years yet--a man who'd make her leave the stage.
She has the air of expecting the limelight to follow her everywhere
through life, and I'm sure Max Doran's gorgeous mother wouldn't let her
daughter-in-law go on acting, even if Max didn't mind."
"Max would mind. He'd never stand it," Max's brother officer informed
the girl who had been to New York. "Though he's so simple in his manner,
he's proud, I guess. But whether she's nineteen or twenty-nine, I don't
see how Billie could do better than take Max Doran, unless she could
snap up an English duke. And they say there aren't any unmarried ones
going at present. She'd be an addition to this post as a bride, wouldn't
she?"
"Ye-es," answered the girl, giving wonderful dramatic value to her
pause.
Just then the reign of the "Merry Widow" came to an end, and as soon
after as could be, the "Tango Trance" began. The band had practised it
in Miss Brookton's honour; and it had been ordered as the first dance
after her arrival. The aunt sat down, and Billie Brookton began
"tangoing" with Max Doran. They were a beautiful couple to watch; but of
course people had to keep up the farce of dancing, too. This was not,
after all, a theatre. One was supposed to have come for something else
than to stare at Billie Brookton without paying for a place.
"Your pearls," she whispered, as she and Doran danced the tango
together, taking graceful steps which she had taught him during the
fortnight they had known each other. "How do they look?"
"Glorious on _you_!" he answered. "And the ring has come. I telegraphed,
you know. It's what you wanted. I was able to get it, I'm happy to say.
Oh, Billie, can it be possible that I shall have you for mine--all mine?
It seems too wonderful to be true."
"I've promised, haven't I?" She laughed half under her breath, a pretty,
tinkling laugh. "Honour bright, Max dear, you're the first man I ever
said 'yes' to. I hope I shan't be sorry!"
"I won't let you be sorry," whispered Max. "I'll do everything to make
you so happy you'll forget the theatre."
"If anything or anybody could make me do that, it would be you," she
answered, under cover of the music. "I believe you must be very
fascinating, or else I--but never mind---- Now let's stop dancing and
you'll show me the ring. I'm engaged for the next--and I can't wait till
you and I have another together."
Max took her to sit down at an end of the room uninfested by chaperons.
No one at all was there. He had the ring in some pocket, and, by dint of
sitting with his "back to the audience," hoped to go through the sacred
ceremony without being spied upon. The ring Billie had asked for was a
famous blue diamond, of almost as deep a violet as a star-sapphire, and
full of strange, rainbow gleams. It had belonged to a celebrated actress
who had married an Englishman of title, and on her death it had been
advertised for sale. Billie Brookton, who "adored" jewels, and whose
birthstone conveniently was the diamond, had been "dying for it." "She
was not superstitious," she said, "about dead people's things." Now the
blue diamond, with a square emerald on either side, and set in a band of
platinum, was hers. She took it between thumb and finger to watch the
sparks that came and went, deep under the sea-like surface of blue. As
she looked at the ring, Doran looked at her eyelashes.
Never, he thought, could any other woman since the world began have had
such eyelashes. They were extraordinarily long and thick, golden brown,
and black at the tips. The Omallaha girl who had been to New York
thought that Billie Brookton herself had had more to do than heaven in
the painting of those curled-up tips. But such a suggestion would have
been received with contempt by Max Doran, who at the threshold of
twenty-five considered himself a judge of eyelashes. (He was not; nor of
a woman's complexion; but believing in himself and in Billie, he was
happy.) Miss Brookton had a complexion nearly as white, and it seemed to
him--more luminous, more ethereal, than the string of pearls he had
given her a month in advance of her birthday. She said it would be her
twenty-third, and Max had been incredulous in the nicest way. He would
have supposed her to be nineteen at the most, if she had not been so
frank.
"Now, if you've looked at the ring enough _off_ your finger, will you
let me put it on?" he begged. "I'll make a wish--a good wish: that you
shall never grow tired of your bargain. For it _is_ a bargain, isn't it?
From the minute this ring is on your finger you're engaged to me."
"What will your beautiful mother say?" asked Billie, hanging back
daintily, and doing charming things with her eyelashes.
"Oh, she'll be surprised at first," Max had to admit. "You see, she's so
young herself and such a great beauty, it must be hard for her to
realize she's got a son who has grown up to be a man. I used to think
she was the most exquisite creature on earth, but now----"
His words broke off, and he looked up from the gleaming line of
gold-and-black lashes. An orderly had come quickly and almost
noiselessly to him. "For you, Lieutenant," the man announced with a
salute, holding out a telegram.
"May I?" murmured Doran, and perfunctorily opened the envelope.
Billie went on gazing at the ring. She was faintly annoyed at the delay,
for she was anxious to see how the blue diamond would look on her
finger, and Max had asked to wish it on. The lights in the stone were so
fascinating, however, that for an instant she forgot the interruption.
Then, sensitive to all that was dramatic, something in the quality of
Max Doran's silence struck her. She felt suddenly surrounded by a
chilling atmosphere which seemed to shut her and Max away from the
dancers, away from music and life, as if a thick glass case had been let
down over them both. She glanced up quickly. No wonder she had felt so
cold. Doran's face looked frozen. His eyes were still fixed on the
telegram, though there had been time for him to read it over and over
again. He was so lost in the news it had brought that he had forgotten
even her--forgotten her in the moment when she had been consenting to a
formal engagement, she, the illusive, the vainly desired one, run after
just to the foot of her unclimbable mountain by the nimblest, the
richest, everywhere!
Her small soul was stirred to resentment. She wanted to punish Max Doran
for daring to neglect her at such a time, even for a few seconds; but a
half-angry, half-frightened study of the dark, absorbed face changed her
mood. No man could look like that unless something awful had happened.
What, that was awful, could happen to Max Doran? Why, he could lose all
his money!
Billie's heart leaped, and then seemed to fall back heavily in the
lovely bosom sheathed like a lily with a film of sparkling dew. Would he
ever speak? She could not wait. Besides, it was right to be sympathetic.
"Max, what is it--_dear_ Max?" she whispered in the honey-sweet voice of
Gaëta in "Girls' Love."
He started, and waked up. "It's my mother. She's been hurt," he said.
"My God, I must go at once!"
Almost, Billie sighed out her intense relief in words; but she had just
presence of mind and self-control enough to hold them back. Gently she
took the telegram from him, and he let her do it. Meanwhile, however,
she had slipped the ring on to her own finger--but not the engaged
finger. Evidently this was no time for an announcement, or
congratulations and sensations. But it was just as well to have the blue
diamond safe on one's hand, even if it were the right hand instead of
the left.
* * * * *
"'Your mother dangerously injured in motor accident,'" she read.
"'Asking to see you. Come without delay. Reeves.'"
* * * * *
"Oh, how very sad!" breathed Billie. "How awful if she should be
_disfigured_! But I do hope not."
Doran did not remember to thank his love for her solicitude. He got up,
not frozen now, but a little dazed. It occurred to Billie that he had
never looked so handsome, so much a man. She felt that he was gathering
himself together. "I'll telephone to Omallaha for a special train to
connect with the limited at Chicago," he said. "By the time I can see
the Colonel and get off it ought to be ready. Yes, I ought to catch the
limited that way. It's awful to leave you like this, but I must. I'll
take you to your aunt, and--who's got the next dance with you?"
"Major Naylor," she answered, slightly injured, for not ten minutes ago
he had been looking at her card. He ought to have remembered every name
on it and in the right order.
"Well, he'll come to you in a minute. Trust him not to lose a second!
And--you'll write to me?"
"Of course; you'll wire as soon as you can, how your mother is--and
everything? On Monday I shall be back in Chicago."
"I'll wire the moment I can," Max assured her. "You know the address in
New York?"
"Oh, yes, everybody knows the beautiful Mrs. Doran's address. I'll write
or telegraph _every_ day. My heart will be with you."
He squeezed her hand so desperately that she could have screamed with
pain from the pressure of the blue diamond. But with touching
self-control she only smiled a strained, sympathetic little smile. And
Max had forgotten all about the ring!
"Thank you, my beautiful one, my angel," he said. And Billie's large
brown eyes (so effective with her delicate dark brows and rippling
yellow hair) gave him a lovely look. She had been called many things by
many adoring men, but perhaps never before an "angel." Max Doran was
very young, in some ways even younger than his years. "Good-bye," she
murmured. "But no--not 'good-bye.' That's a terrible word. _Au revoir._
You'll come to me when you can, I know. I shall be in Chicago a
fortnight. But if you can't leave Mrs. Doran, why, in six weeks I shall
be in New York."
"Don't speak of six weeks!" he exclaimed. "It's like six years. I _must_
see you before that. But--my mother is before everything just now."
They bade each other farewell with their eyes. Then he took her to Mrs.
Liddell, the small gray aunt, and hardly was Billie seated when Major
Naylor dashed up to claim her for Gaëta's waltz in the first act of
"Girls' Love."
After that, things happened quickly with Max Doran. He seemed to dream
them, and was still in the dream, tearing toward Chicago in a special
train whose wheels rushed through the night in tune with that first-act
music from "Girls' Love."