Told in a French Garden - Mildred Aldrich (books to read for beginners .txt) 📗

thick and thin 'till death did us part.' I'll have no halfway business," and he turned on his heel, and without looking back he pushed his way through the crowd, which chatted and fussed and never even noted the passing of a broken heart.

The pretty creature watched him out of sight.

There was a humorous pout on her lips. But she seemed so sure of her man! He would come back, of course when she called him if she ever did! Probably she liked him better at that moment than she had liked him in two years. He had opposed her. He had defied her power over him. He had once more become a man to conquer if she ever had time!

But just now there was something more important. That train! It was three minutes to the schedule time.

As he disappeared into the crowd she drew a breath of relief, and hurried out of the waiting room and pushed her way to the platform, along which she hurried to the parlor car, where she seated herself comfortably, as if no man with a broken life had been set down that day against her record.

To be sure, she could not quite rid herself of thoughts of his face, but the recollection rather flattered her, and did not in the least prevent her noticing the looks of admiration with which two men on the opposite side of the car were regarding her.

Once or twice she glanced out of the window, apparently alternately expecting and dreading to see her stalwart husband come sprinting down the platform for the kiss he had refused.

He didn't come!

She was relieved as the train started yet she hated to feel he could really let her go like that!

She never guessed at the depth of suffering she had brought him. How could she appreciate what she could never feel? She never dreamed that as the train pulled out into the storm he stood at the end of the station, and watched it slowly round the curve under the bridge and pass out of sight. No one was near to see him turn aside, and rest his arms against the brick wall, to bury his face in them, and sob like a child, utterly oblivious of the storm that beat upon him.

* * * * *

And he sat down.

"Come on," yelled the Youngster, "where's the claque?" And he began to applaud furiously.

"Oh, if there is a claque, the rest of us don't need to exert ourselves," said the Lawyer, indolently.

"But I say," asked the Youngster, after the Journalist had made his best bow. "I AM disappointed. Was that all?"

"My goodness," commented the Doctor, as he lighted a fresh cigar. "Isn't that enough?"

"Not for _me_," replied the Youngster. "I want to know about her _debut_. Was she a success?"

"Of course," answered the Journalist. "That sort always is."

"And I want to know," insisted the Youngster, "what became of him?"

"Why," ejaculated the Sculptor, "of course he cut his big brown throat!"

"Not a bit of it," said the Critic. "He probably went up to New York, and hung round the stage door."

"Until she called in the police, and had him arrested as a common nuisance," added the Lawyer.

"I'll bet my microscope he didn't," laughed the Doctor.

"And you won't lose your lens," replied the Journalist. "He never did a blooming thing that is, he didn't if he existed."

"Oh, my eyes," said the Youngster. "I am disappointed again. I thought that was a simon pure newspaper yarn one of your reporter's dodges real journalese!"

"She is true enough," answered the Journalist, "and her feet are true, and so is her red hair, and, unless she is a liar, and most actresses are, so is he and her origin, but as for the way she cut him out well, I had to make that up. It is better than any of the six tales she told as many interviewers, in strict secrecy, in the days when she was collecting hearts and jewels and midnight suppers in New York."

"Is she still there?" asked the Youngster, "because if she is, I'll go back and take a look at Dora myself after the war!"

"Well, Youngster," laughed the Journalist, "it will have to be 'after the war,' as you will probably have to go to Berlin to find her."

"That's all right!" retorted the Youngster. "I _am_ going with the Allied armies."

We all jumped up.

"No!" cried the Divorcee. "No!!"

"But I am. Where's the good of keeping it secret? I enlisted the day I went to Paris the first time so did the Doctor, so did the Critic, and so did _he_, the innocent looking old blackguard," and he seized the Journalist by both shoulders and shook him well. "He thought we wouldn't find it out."

"Oh, well," said the Journalist, "when one has seen three wars, one may as well see one more. This will surely be my last."

"Anyway," cried the Youngster, "we'll see it all round the Doctor in the Field Ambulance, me in the air, the Critic is going to lug litters, and as for the Journalist well, I'll bet it's secret service for him! Oh, I know you are not going to tell, but I saw you coming out of the English Embassy, and I'll bet my machine you've a ticket for London, and a letter to the Chief in your pocket."

"Bet away," said the Critic.

"What'd I tell you what'd I tell you? He speaks every God blessed language going, and if it wasn't that, he'd tell fast enough."

"Never mind," said the Trained Nurse, "so that he goes somewhere with the rest of us."

"You YOU?" exclaimed the Divorcee.

"Why not? I was trained for this sort of thing. This is my chance."

"And the rest of us?"

The Doctor intervened. "See here, this is forty eight hours or more earlier than I meant this matter to come up. I might have known the Youngster could not hold his tongue."

"I've been bursting for three days."

"Well, you've burst now, and I hope you are content. There is nothing to worry about, yet. We fellows are leaving September 1st. The roads are all clear, and it was my idea that we should all start for Paris together early next Tuesday morning. I don't know what the rest of you want to do, but I advise _you_," turning to the Divorcee, "to go back to the States. You would not be a bit of good here. You may be there."

"You are quite right," she replied sadly. "I'd be worse than no good. I'd need 'first aid,' at the first shot."

"I'm going with her," said the Sculptor. "I'd be more useless than she would." And he turned a questioning look at the Lawyer.

"I must go back. I've business to attend to. Anyway, I'd be an encumbrance here. I may be useful there. Who knows?"

As for me, every one knew what I proposed to do, and that left every one accounted for except the Violinist. He had been in his favorite attitude by the tree, just as he had been on that evening when it had been proposed to "tell stories," gazing first at one and then at another, as the hurried conversation went on.

"Well," he said, finding all eyes turned on him, "I am going to London with the Journalist if he is really going."

"All right, I am," was the reply.

"And from London I shall get to St. Petersburg. I have a dream that out of all this something may happen to Poland. If it does, I propose to be there. I'll be no good at holding a gun I could never fire one. But if, by some miracle, there comes out of this any chance for the 'Fair Land of Poland' to crawl out, or be dragged out, from under the feet of the invader well, I'll go _home_ and and "

He hesitated.

"And grow up with the country," shouted the Youngster. "Bully for you."

"I may only go back to fiddle over the ruins. But who knows? At all events, I'll go back and carry with me all that your country had done for three generations of my family. They'll need it."

"Well," said the Doctor, "that is all settled. Enough for to night. We'll still have one or two, and it may be three days left together. Let us make the most of them. They will never come again."

"And to think what a lovely summer we had planned," sighed the Divorcee.

"Tush!" ejaculated the Doctor. "We had a lovely time all last year. As for this summer, I imagine that it has been far finer than what we planned. Anyway, let us be thankful that it was _this_ summer that we all found one another again."

"Better go to bed," cried the Critic; "the Doctor is getting sentimental a bad sign in an army surgeon."

"I don't know," remarked the Trained Nurse; "I've seen those that were more sentimental than the Journalist, and none the worse for it."


IX

THE VIOLINIST'S STORY

THE SOUL OF THE SONG

THE TALE OF A FIANCEE


On Saturday most of the men made a run into Paris.

It had finally been decided as best that, if all went well, we should leave for Paris some time the next day. There were steamer tickets to attend to. There were certain valuables to be taken up to the Bank. The Divorcee had a trunk or two that she thought she ought to send in order that we might start with as little luggage as possible, so both chauffeurs were sent up to town with baggage, and orders to wait there. The rest of us had been busy doing a little in the way of dismantling the house. The unexpected end of our summer had come. It was sad, but I imagine none of us were sorry, under the circumstances, to move on.

It was nearly dinner time when the cars came back, almost together, and we were surprised to see the Doctor going out to the servants' quarters instead of joining us as he usually did. In fact, we did not see him until we went into the dining room for dinner.

As he came to the head of the table, he said: "My good people, we will serve ourselves as best we can with the cook's aid. We have no waitress to night. But it is our last dinner. A camp under marching orders cannot fuss over trifles."

"Where is Angele?" asked the Divorcee. "Is she ill?" And she turned to the door.

"Come back!" said the Doctor, sharply. "You can't help her now. Better leave her alone!"

As if by instinct, we all knew what had happened.

"Who brought the news?" some one asked.

"They gave it to me at the _Mairie_ as I passed," replied the Doctor, "and the _garde champetre_ told me what the envelope contained. He fell at Charleroi."

"Poor Angele," exclaimed the Trained Nurse. "Are you sure I