CHAPTER II

A REMORSELESS ENEMY

There was a murmur of excited expectation and the crowd gathered closer.

For a full minute Frank's eyes looked full into Rabig's. And in the silent duel Rabig's eyes were the first to waver. Then Frank spoke.

"No," he said, quietly. "Brawling isn't in my line. I won't fight--not here or now."

There was a sigh of disappointment from the onlookers who had been keyed up in delighted anticipation, and Rabig, though his eyes had fallen before the glint in Frank's, resumed his swaggering air.

"Afraid to fight, eh?" he sneered.

Before a reply could be made, Mr. Thomas, the junior member of the firm, came out from his private office and the gathering dispersed.

"Why didn't you trim him, Frank?" asked Bart curiously, as they walked down the street together. "I wanted to see you wipe up the ground with him. You could have done it too. You've got as much muscle as he has and ten times the grit. I fairly ached to see you sail into him."

"Well," said Frank, thoughtfully, "there were two reasons. In the first place, I didn't care to soil my hands with the fellow and put myself on his level. Then again, you know how sensitive my mother is, and she'd have hated to see me get mixed up in a shop brawl. But Rabig has his coming to him, and he'll get it sooner or later."

"Sooner, I hope," returned Bart. "If you don't, I'll do it myself. That "_Deutschland Uber Alles_" stuff of his is getting on my nerves. Just now it's the ambition of my life to lick a Hun."

"You may have the chance sooner than you think," laughed Frank. "Germany's just about got to the end of her rope with us. Let her sink just one more ship and she'll find out what she's up against."

"It can't come too soon for me," responded Bart, and as just then they reached the junction of the streets where their ways parted Bart went on and Frank turned into the quiet street on which his home was located.

It was a modest little structure, set some distance back from the street, surrounded by flowers and shrubbery which in summer were a riot of color and perfume.

Before his hand touched the door knob, his mother, who had been watching for his coming, swung the door wide open and stood ready to give him a loving greeting.

Frank's eyes brightened as they dwelt upon her. She was a pretty little woman with a piquancy of expression, a brightness of eye and an alertness of carriage that at first glance betrayed her French origin. Her pretty color and a certain appealing helplessness in her manner toward her son had always made her seem to Frank more like a charming sister than a mother.

And now as he put his arm protectingly about her and stooped to kiss her he was alarmed at the traces of recent tears which she had not been able entirely to obliterate.

"Mother!" he cried, holding her away from him and searching her face anxiously. "You've been crying! You just tell me who's made you, and I'll--" he doubled up his fist in a threatening gesture; but with a little laugh his mother inserted her own small fingers within his and led him into the dining-room.

"Look!" she cried, pointing to a great steaming tureen of soup that stood in the center of the table. "You said last night you were hungry for soup, and so I made it especially for you, dear, to surprise you. You must tell me how you like it before you ask any more questions. See, how steaming hot it is."

"Say, and I stopped to argue when this was waiting for me!" cried Frank, literally flinging himself upon the tempting dish. "Run around to your side, Mother, and hold your plate. Say, if this tastes as good as it smells--"

Like two children they tasted the soup, then with expressions of contentment laughed into each other's eyes. Then Frank launched into an account of the morning's events, for he was accustomed to discuss everything with his mother, who was his comrade in all things small or great.

"My fingers itched to be at that bully," he said, "but I held myself in, and I guess you know one of the reasons."

"Yes, dear," responded his mother, lovingly. "You're always thinking of me. I'm glad you didn't get into a fight. I have always hated them. A time may come," she added, a shadow crossing her face, "when you will be forced to fight, not for yourself, but for the honor of your dear country."

"For two countries, maybe," said Frank with a smile. "For every stroke that America deals to the Kaiser will help France as well."

"Ah, _la belle_ France," said his mother with a sigh. "How my heart bleeds for my beloved country! I had a letter to-day from Cousin Lucie. And, oh, she had such terrible news!"

"Nothing has happened to her, I hope," said Frank, quickly.

"No, not to her," replied his mother. "One of those poor refugees from Belgium has got through the German lines and is staying at her house. This woman was at Dinant when the town was captured by the Germans in the early part of the war, and the stories she tells of what happened there are too dreadful for words. And yet she saw those things herself, and Lucie tells me she is sure the woman is honest and tells the absolute truth."

"I am ready to believe almost anything of German brutality," said Frank, bitterly. "And I suppose for every awful thing that's told there are a hundred more that haven't come to light. Tell me what Cousin Lucie said."

"This Mrs. Pentlivre," replied his mother, "told Lucie that the Germans attacked the town early on an August morning. They outnumbered the defenders, who were forced to retreat and take up new positions. Then those Huns entered the town.

"It was about half past six in the morning. The cathedral was full of worshippers, as it was Sunday and services were being held. The Germans burst into the church, drove out the people and separated the men from the women with the butts of their rifles. Then the troops deliberately shot into the mass of unarmed men, killing twenty or more of them. They made prisoners of the rest, and then went through street after street, setting all the houses on fire until the beautiful town was completely destroyed.

"All day long they kept the wretched people prisoners, threatening and reviling them--you couldn't imagine the names they called them, so Cousin Lucie said--and after that they took all the people whom they had not already put to death to a garden wall at the end of the town. Then they took those poor men and even the little boys and stood them up against the wall. Oh, Frank, what do you suppose those murderers did then? Shot them down in cold blood, while their wives and mothers fell shrieking on their knees, begging passionately for mercy for their loved ones."

"The brutes!" cried Frank, pushing back his chair and beginning to pace the room while his mother watched him with tears in her eyes. "There's German Kultur for you! And what they did there, they've done in fifty other places in Belgium and Northern France. I tell you, Mother, the world won't be a fit place to live in until such things are punished as they ought to be."

"I'm afraid not," sighed his mother. "But such a task as it is going to be!"

"America will do it!" cried Frank, confidently. "It's up to her to tame the beasts. France and England are holding them in check, but they won't be able to drive them back until Uncle Sam's army boys get over there."

"But think of what it means if we get into the war," said his mother sadly. "It's bad enough to read and hear about such terrible things, but what will it be when our own men are killed and wounded and blinded by the thousands. Ah, I cannot bear to think of it!" and she looked at Frank with apprehension in her eyes.

"Americans have always known how to die," said Frank, proudly. "They've shown that at Bunker Hill, at Monterey and Gettysburg and other battlefields. And the man who doesn't know how to die, doesn't know how to live and isn't fit to live."

"Spoken like my own brave boy," cried his mother. "And yet my heart stands still when I think of you in those awful trenches. You are all I have, Frank!" and tears welled again to her eyes.

"I know, little Mother," said Frank, coming around to her chair and patting her cheek fondly. "But you wouldn't want your son to be a slacker, would you? How could I look you in the face if I held back, while the sons of other mothers went forward to fight for their country."

"You're right, dear, of course," said his mother. "And hard as it would be, I'd let you go if your country needed you. But, oh, the days and nights of waiting while you were gone! I would not have one happy moment, one care-free hour."

"Yours would be the harder part, Mother," said the son gently. "I'd have at least the excitement and fury of the fight, while you would be eating out your heart here--alone. But cheer up," he continued in a lighter tone, "it hasn't come to that yet, and perhaps it never will. A hundred things may happen. Russia may come up to the scratch again. Hindenburg has already begun to retreat, Germany may cave in at any time. Austria may make a separate peace. The Germans may call off their U-boat campaign rather than bring the United States into the war. We'll hope for the best while we're getting ready for the worst. At any rate, we won't grizzle about it till we have to--will we, Mother?" this last in a coaxing tone that brought a swift response from his mother, whose French vivacity and sparkle returned in a measure.

"No, we won't, dear," she answered, smilingly brushing away the tears. "We're going to be just as happy and bright as ever and await with courage whatever the future may bring to us. But, dear boy, look at that clock! You'll be late if you don't hurry. Hurry, now, I must not be the one to blame."

She kissed him good-bye with a smile on her lips and waved to him merrily from the doorway. But there was a world of foreboding in her mother eyes as she watched him swinging briskly down the street.