He rattled on about his wedding and the graces of Constance, and
their future prospects, calling my attention to his captain’s
shoulder-straps, and the triple gold arabesque on his sleeve and
fatigue cap. I believe I listened as much to the music of his spurs
and sabre as I did to his boyish babble, and at last we stood under
the elms on the Fourth Street corner of the square opposite the
Lethal Chamber. Then he laughed and asked me what I wanted with him.
I motioned him to a seat on a bench under the electric light, and sat
down beside him. He looked at me curiously, with that same searching
glance which I hate and fear so in doctors. I felt the insult of his
look, but he did not know it, and I carefully concealed my feelings.
“Well, old chap,” he inquired, “what can I do for you?”
I drew from my pocket the manuscript and notes of the Imperial Dynasty
of America, and looking him in the eye said:
“I will tell you. On your word as a soldier, promise me to read this
manuscript from beginning to end, without asking me a question. Promise
me to read these notes in the same way, and promise me to listen to
what I have to tell later.”
“I promise, if you wish it,” he said pleasantly. “Give me the paper,
Hildred.”
He began to read, raising his eyebrows with a puzzled, whimsical air,
which made me tremble with suppressed anger. As he advanced, his
eyebrows contracted, and his lips seemed to form the word “rubbish.”
Then he looked slightly bored, but apparently for my sake read, with an
attempt at interest, which presently ceased to be an effort. He started
when in the closely written pages he came to his own name, and when
he came to mine he lowered the paper, and looked sharply at me for a
moment. But he kept his word, and resumed his reading, and I let the
half-formed question die on his lips unanswered. When he came to the
end and read the signature of Mr. Wilde, he folded the paper carefully
and returned it to me. I handed him the notes, and he settled back,
pushing his fatigue cap up to his forehead, with a boyish gesture,
which I remembered so well in school. I watched his face as he read,
and when he finished I took the notes with the manuscript, and placed
them in my pocket. Then I unfolded a scroll marked with the Yellow
Sign. He saw the sign, but he did not seem to recognize it, and I
called his attention to it somewhat sharply.
“Well,” he said, “I see it. What is it?”
“It is the Yellow Sign,” I said angrily.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Louis, in that flattering voice, which
Doctor Archer used to employ with me, and would probably have employed
again, had I not settled his affair for him.
I kept my rage down and answered as steadily as possible, “Listen, you
have engaged your word?”
“I am listening, old chap,” he replied soothingly.