Part 15

"What do you mean? Does she know?" asked Steadman in a whisper.

"I don't know how much," replied Ralston. "She feared you were going to lose your chance--that you'd be done for, and asked me to try and look you up. She--she cares for you, I think."

Steadman uttered a groan.

"Oh, I'm a brute," he muttered.

He looked anything but a brute in his olive-drab uniform, campaign hat and shining sword.

"Come along," said Ralston, grabbing him by the arm. They took their seats in the hansom.

"Where to?" asked the cabby monotonously.

"The Chilsworth," said Ralston.

Once more the exhausted animal climbed wearily up Fifth Avenue. A touch of yellow sunlight was just gilding the housetops on the left, and the street stretched gray and solitary northward.

"You say she's waiting?" Steadman asked nervously.

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"All night."

Steadman shuddered.

"How did you know where to look for me?"

"I didn't."

Ralston was beginning to feel the revivifying effects of the whisky and soda and the fresh morning air.

"''Twas like looking for a needle in haystack,'" he hummed. "'Although the chance of finding it was small.' Not an easy job, my friend."

"But I didn't know you were in New York!"

"I'd only been back a few days."

"And Ellen asked you to hunt me up?"

"Ye-es."

Again Ralston felt weary, awfully weary, and sleepy.

"By George, you're a brick!"

"Oh, don't mention it!" yawned this "finder of lost persons."

"But why should you? You hardly knew me!"

"Somebody had to do it."

"And that somebody had to know _how_, eh?"

"It would appear so. You'd concealed yourself pretty effectually for some time. Your friend the colonel was getting anxious, you know."

"How on earth did you ever do it?"

"Tell you some time," answered Ralston sleepily. "By the way, do you mind saying how long you'd been in that house?"

"Three days."

"And lost----?"

"Twenty-seven thousand dollars."

"No one seemed to know you gambled."

"I don't. It was my first experience."

"How long has this little expedition lasted?"

"Two weeks."

The Searcher glanced at his companion. Already the stimulus of the bath had succumbed to fatigue. The face was drawn and hollow; the eyes red; the mouth twitched. Ralston turned away, his old loathing and disgust returning in an instant.

The driver turned into Fifty-seventh Street, and the sun jumped above the housetops. Suddenly Steadman burst into tears, sobbing in long-drawn hollow sobs like a wearied child, covering his face with his hands.

"Come, come, buck up! This won't do!" exclaimed Ralston.

"O God!" groaned Steadman tremulously. "I can't face her. Turn around! Anywhere!"

"You shall see her!" answered the other. "And now!"

Steadman wiped his eyes. His chest heaved convulsively. He had grown quite pale.

"Don't make me!" he gasped.

"You shall see her--as you are," repeated Ralston, "and thank her for having saved you from disgrace."

Steadman said nothing more. The cab drew up before the door of an apartment house.

"Here we are," said Ralston. "Get out!"

Steadman hesitated.

"Get out! Do you hear?" shouted Ralston, with anger in his eyes.

Steadman obeyed, his companion following close behind him. Inside, a darky sat fast asleep by the elevator. Ralston rapped loudly upon the glass and the man moved, rubbed his eyes, and came stupidly to the door.

"Take this gentleman up to Miss Ferguson's apartment," said Ralston. "I'll wait below for you. You can have just ten minutes, understand?"

He returned to the sidewalk. The cabby had fallen asleep again. A feeling of intense loneliness swept over him. He longed to throw himself inside the hansom and rest his exhausted frame. His bones ached and his muscles seemed strange and raspy, and he kept himself awake by walking nervously backward and forward before the house. He could hardly keep his eyes from closing and his knees trembled as if he were convalescing from an illness.

"I did it!" he repeated over and over to himself. "By George! I did it!--saved him for her. Only for me and he would be what he called himself--'a dead one.'"

The sunlight in the street grew momentarily brighter. Milk wagons groped their way from door to door, the horses stopping undirected at the proper places, and starting up again in response to uncouth roars from the drivers.

An elevated train rattled by at the end of the street, and some workmen in overalls, conversing loudly in a foreign dialect, hurried noisily past. A few maids unchained front doors, gave the rugs feeble flaps, and eyed Ralston curiously before going inside to resume their domestic duties.

He found that he was walking in a circle. His brain had fallen asleep. He realized that he had been dreaming, but the dream was vague and indistinct. Then he heard the faint sound of distant music. A housemaid dropped her rug and ran toward the avenue. Two pedestrians turned back in the same direction. A driver jumped into his milk wagon and sent the horse galloping.

Ralston listened. Yes, the music was getting louder. They were playing "Good-by, Little Girl, Good-by!" It must be the regiment on their way from the armory to the ferry. He looked at his watch with a lump in his throat. It was "good-by" for him as well as for Steadman. There was no longer any doubt. Perhaps he could get a commission. He'd go away, anyhow.

A hastily formed group of spectators on the corner began to wave their hats. The band was very near. A squad of figures stepping briskly in time came into view, at their head the erect form of Colonel Duer. He could recognize the other members of the staff, the adjutant, the commissary, the quartermaster, the doctor--he knew them all. On the left trudged the chaplain.

"Good-by, Little Girl, Good-by!"

The drum major following the staff turned and swung his baton, then resumed his former position. By George, they were playing well! Ah! What a difference it made when it was real business. Just behind the band followed the field music, with old "Davie" carrying the drum.

"Good-by, Little Girl, Good-by!"

The drums passed and the fifers. Then at a little distance came the lieutenant colonel and his staff at the head of the first battalion, marching full company front down the avenue. Ralston's heart beat faster. That was where _he_ could have been. How well those boys marched; just like a parade, their yellow legs eating up--eating up--eating up--eating up the ground. The band had grown fainter. You could hear the chupp--chupp--chupp--chupp of the hundreds of feet. Eyes front! No one to look at them, but eyes front! This was business. How trim they looked, each man in his olive-drab uniform, leggings, and russet shoes. How set were the faces beneath the gray felt hats! How lightly they bore their heavy load of haversack, yellow blanket roll, canteen, and cartridge belt. How the sword bayonets at their sides clinked and threw back the light to the blue barrels of their Krag-Jorgensens!

"Good-by, Little Girl, Good-by," came faintly from the distance. Still the yellow rows kept passing. The first battalion ended.

Then a major appeared, walking alone, followed closely by a captain and first lieutenant. Ralston strained his eyes for the yellow line behind them. Ah, there they were! Good boys! Good boys!

The even companies swung by until the battalion had passed.

Then came another major at the head of the third battalion. The third battalion! The line swept across from curb to curb with a single man behind the major--a lieutenant. Company D! Steadman's! The major's face was set in a hard frown. Ralston laughed feebly. That was all right. He'd fix that. Just wait a few minutes. His captain would be there.

The little crowd on the corner began to cheer. Another company came into view. They had the colors--the dear old colors. Ralston doffed his hat and held it to his breast, straining his glance after the flag. The pavement floated away from him and his eyes filled with hot tears. He could not see the lines of marching men, but stood staring at the corner beyond which the colors had disappeared.

Overcome with utter exhaustion, he sobbed hysterically, grasping the iron railing at his side. In a moment he got the better of himself and brushed the tears hastily away. Then a hand was laid upon his shoulder and he turned to see Ellen, her own eyes moist, and her face pale, looking up at him.

"Ellen!"

"Dick!"

That was all. At the end of the block the hospital corps with their stretchers were just passing out of sight. Steadman stood on the steps, leaning against the doorway. He grinned in a sheepishly good-natured manner at Ralston.

"Well, I found him!" the latter managed to announce in a fairly natural tone.

"So I see," answered Ellen, "and ready to report for duty."

"Well, I guess I'll say good-by," said Ralston awkwardly. "You people can have the cab as long as the horse lasts."

"No, you don't," said Steadman. "Remember you've agreed to put me at the head of my company. You haven't done it yet! Has he, Ellen?"

"No, we intend to take you with us to the ferry," she answered with a smile.

The word "we" sent a pang through Ralston's tired heart, and for an instant the sunlight paled before his eyes.

"Come, jump in, both of you," said Ellen.

She seemed very cheerful, and strangely enough, so did Steadman. Ralston wondered if when people cared like that just seeing each other again would have such a stimulating effect. For his own part he was too tired to speak. As they trotted slowly down Fifth Avenue Ellen and Steadman kept up a lively conversation. She admired his uniform, his sword, his belt; talked of the other men and officers she knew in the regiment, and of the chagrin of Lieutenant Coffin, when his captain should oust him from his temporary place at the head of the company. On Twenty-third Street, near Eighth Avenue, they overtook the regiment, and followed the remainder of the distance close behind the hospital corps. Then silence fell upon them. The actual parting loomed vividly just before them at the ferry.

Crowds of people, mostly small tradesmen and persons living in the neighborhood, had already begun to collect and follow the troops toward the place of embarkation. Ahead, the band was playing "Garry Owen," and the colors blazed in the sunlight. The regiment looked like a field of yellow corn waving in the breeze. About a hundred yards from the ferry house a few sharp orders came down the line and the regiment halted--at "rest."

Steadman looked at his watch.

"Three minutes to seven," he said, snapping the case. "I guess the old man will drop when he sees _me_!"

"Just in time!" murmured Ellen.

"Drive along, cabby, to the head of the procession," added Steadman.

There was plenty of space to allow the hansom to pass near the curb, and they drove slowly along past the three battalions to where the colonel and his staff stood waiting for the gates to be opened. The band had ceased playing. The men laughed and jested, watching the lone hansom and its three occupants with interest.

At the stone posts by the entrance the cab stopped and Steadman shook hands with Ellen. The smile had gone from his face.

"Good-by, Ellen--good-by!"

"Good-by, John," she answered.

Ralston had turned away his head.

"Well, good-by, old man! Accept the prodigal's insufficient thanks. You're a brick, Ralston. Good-by!"

Beside the hansom Steadman paused for an instant and looked up.

"Don't forget what I said, Ellen! The fellow I spoke of is 'a prince.' Good-by!"

He turned and walked rapidly to where the colonel stood talking to the chaplain. All the fatigue had vanished from his step as he drew himself up before his commanding officer and saluted.

The staff had turned to him in amazement.

"I report for duty, sir!" he said simply.

The colonel stared at him for a moment.

"Take your company, sir!" he replied tartly.

Steadman saluted again, and grasping his sword ran down the line, while a wave of comment and ejaculation followed just behind him.

At this moment a whistle blew inside the ferry house, and a porter slowly swung the gates open.

The colonel drew his sword.

"Attention!" said he, glancing behind him.

"Attention!" ordered the lieutenant colonel.

"Attention!" shouted the majors.

As the regiment stiffened, Steadman stepped to the head of his company.

"Good morning, Mr. Coffin," he remarked nonchalantly.

"Good morning," replied the astounded lieutenant.

Then as the order flew down the line Steadman drew his sword.

"Attention!" he cried in a clear voice.

Behind the staff the drum major held his baton in air, and the musicians stood with their instruments at their lips ready for the order.

The colonel's eye flew down the line.

"Forward--" he cried.

Down came the drum major's baton. The band started "There'll be a Hot Time!"

"--March!" concluded the colonel, and, turning front, stepped ahead.

"Forward--march!" shouted the lieutenant colonel. The order was instantly repeated by the captains.

The battalion came to shoulder arms and moved forward.

"Horrard, Hutch! Horrard, Hutch!" howled the majors.

"Urrgh! Uhh! Huh! Huh!" yelled the captains.

Each company tossed its rifles into place, dressed down the line, marked step for a moment, and then flashed its hundred legs in unison to the band. The yellow field of corn once more wavered in the wind and blew slowly forward.

Ellen and Ralston sat motionless in the hansom as the battalions tramped by. At the head of his company marching with drawn sword, his head slightly bent and his gaze straight before him, came Steadman, but his eyes sought them not. The hospital corps with their stretchers brought up the rear and disappeared through the gates. The commissariat wagons followed stragglingly. The band could be heard dimly in the distance.

Then the whistle blew again and the man who had opened the gates ran out and closed them. The Twelfth had gone--with a full quota of officers.

"The Chilsworth," said Ralston, through the manhole.

The driver once more hitched the reins over the back of his moribund beast, and they started uptown.

"Dick," said Ellen suddenly, in a whisper, "Dick!"

He turned toward her inquiringly.

"Yes, Ellen?"

"I--I was mistaken last night," she said, coloring and looking away from him.

"What do you mean?" cried Ralston, his heart leaping.

"That--there was only one," she answered softly, smiling through her tears, "and--and--_it wasn't_ John!"

The cabby grinned sleepily and silently closed the manhole, with a fatherly expression illuminating his corrugated countenance.

"Hully gee!" he muttered meditatively. "I mighta known there was a woman mixed up in it, somehow! Glad he got her!--Git on thar, you!"

Between the ferry houses the boat was swinging out into midstream, her decks crowded with yellow figures, and across the dancing waves the wind bore the faint strains of "Good-by, Little Girl, Good-by."

NOT AT HOME

"For I say this is death and the sole death,-- When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest." --_A Death in the Desert._

"Harry might have stopped!" thought Brown, as a stalwart young man strode briskly past with a short "Good evening." "I've not had a chance to speak to him for a month." He hesitated as if doubtful whether or not to follow and overtake the other, then turned in his original direction. His delight in the scene about him was too exquisite to be interrupted even for a talk with his friend. Dusk was just falling. For an instant a purple glow lingered upon the spires of the beautiful gray cathedral whose chimes were softly echoing above the murmur of the city; then the light slipped upward and upward, until, touching the topmost point, it vanished into the shadows.

All about him jingled the sleighbells; long lines of equipages carrying richly dressed women moved in continuous streams in each direction; hundreds of lamps began to gleam in the windows and along the avenue; a kaleidoscopic electric sign, changing momentarily, flashed parti-colored showers of light across the housetops; big automobiles, full of gay parties of men and women in enormous fur coats and grotesque visors, buzzed and hissed along; newsboys shrilly called their items; warm, humid breaths of fragrance rolled out from the florist's shops; and smells of confections, of sachet, of gasoline, of soft-coal smoke, together with that of roses and damp fur, hung on the keen air.

The greatest pleasure in Brown's life, next to his friendship for Harry Rogers, was his continuously fresh wonder at and appreciation for the complex, brilliant, palpitating life of the great city in which he, the taciturn New Englander, had come to live. The richness of his present experience glowed against the somber background of his past, touching emotions hitherto dormant and unrecognized. He realized as yet only the mysterious charm, the overwhelming attraction of his new surroundings; and every sense, dwarfed by inheritance, chilled by the east wind, throbbed and tingled in response. So far as Brown knew happiness this was its consummation and it was all due to Rogers. As Brown wandered along the crowded thoroughfare his mind dwelt fondly upon his friend. He recalled their chance introduction two years before at the Colonial Club in Cambridge, through Rogers's friend Winthrop, and how his heart had instantly gone out to the courteous and responsive stranger. That meeting had been the first shimmer of light through the musty chrysalis of Brown's existence.

Shortly afterwards he had given up his place in the English Department at Harvard at the suggestion of one of the faculty and accepted a position at Columbia. The professor had hinted that he was too good a man to wait for the slow promotion incident to a scholastic career in Cambridge, and had mentioned New York as offering immeasurably greater opportunities. The advice had appealed to Brown and he had acted upon it.

He remembered how lonely he had been the first few weeks after his arrival. In that hot and sultry September the city had seemed a prison. He had longed for the green elms, the hazy downs, the earthy dampness of his solitary evening walks. One broiling day he had encountered Rogers on the elevated railroad. The latter had not recognized him at first, but presently had recalled their first meeting.

Brown in his enthusiasm had spoken familiarly of Winthrop, explaining in detail his own departure from Cambridge and his plans for the future. He was nevertheless rather surprised to receive within a week a note from Mrs. Rogers inviting him to spend a Sunday with them at their country place. What had that not meant to him!

At college he had taken high rank and was graduated at the top of his class, but he had made no friends. He would have given ten years of his life for a single companion to throw an arm around his shoulder and call him by his Christian name. He had never been "old man" to anybody--only "Mr. Brown." At night when he had heard the clinking of glasses and the bursts of laughter in the adjoining rooms as he sat by his kerosene lamp reading Milton or Bacon or "The Idio-Psychological Theory of Ethics," he would sometimes drop his books, turn out the light and creep into the hall, listening to what he could not share. Then with the tears burning in his eyes he would stumble back to his lonely room and to bed.

When he had achieved the ambition of his college days and by heartbreaking and unremitted drudgery had secured a position upon the faculty, he had found his relations still unchanged. His shell had hardened. From Mr. Brown he had become merely "Old Brown."

And then how easily he had stepped into this other life! The Rogers had received him with open arms; their house had become the only real home he had ever known; and his affection for his new friends had blossomed for him almost into a romance. Even when Harry was busy or away, Brown would drop in on Mrs. Rogers of an evening and read aloud to her from his favorite authors. He tried to guide her reading and sent her books, and little Jack he loved as his own child.

The friendship, beginning thus auspiciously, continued for many months. Rogers put him up at the club and introduced him to his friends, so that Brown slipped into a delightful circle of acquaintances, and found his horizon broadening unexpectedly. Life assumed an entirely fresh significance, and although, by reason of a constitutional bluntness of perception, he failed utterly to discriminate between superficial politeness on the part of others and genuine interest, the world in which he was now living seemed to overflow with the milk of human kindness.

Brown had been making afternoon calls. The friendly cup of tea was to him a delightful innovation, and he cultivated it assiduously. He paused in front of a large corner house and hopefully ascended the steps.

"Not at 'ome," intoned the butler in response to his inquiry.

He turned down a side street, but no better success awaited him. He had found no one "at home" that afternoon. Usually he had better luck. But it was getting late and almost time to dress for dinner, and, although Brown usually dined alone, he had become very particular about dressing for his evening meal. His heart was bursting with good nature as he sauntered along in the brisk evening air.

This New York was a great place! There rose before him the vision of his little room in the Appian Way in Cambridge. Had he remained he would be just about going over to Memorial for his supper at the ill-assorted and uncongenial "graduates' table" to which he had belonged. Jaggers would have been there, and the Botany man, and that fresh chap, who ran the business end of _The Crimson_, and was always chaffing him about society. He smiled as he thought of the quiet corner of the club, and of the little table with its snowy linen by the window, which he had appropriated.

In Cambridge he had passed long months without experiencing anything more stimulating than a Sunday afternoon call on a professor's daughter or an occasional trip into Boston for the theater, supplemented by a solitary Welsh rabbit at Billy Park's. Other men in the department had belonged to the Tavern Club, in Boston, or the Cambridge Dramatic Society, but he had never been asked to join anything, nor had he possessed the _entrée_ even to the modest society of Cambridge. He was obliged to acknowledge--and it was in a measure gratifying to him to do so, since it threw his success into the higher relief--that judged by present standards his old life had been an absolute failure. No matter how genial he had tried to be, he had elicited little or no response. The days had been one dull round of tramping from his meals to lectures, and from lectures to the library. Although he had had no friends among his classmates, he had at least known their faces, but after graduation he had found himself, as it were, alone among strangers. As time went on he had become desperately unhappy and his work had suffered in consequence.

Then he had come to New York. As if sent by Fate, Rogers had appeared, sought his companionship, made much of him. He began to think that perhaps he had misinterpreted the attitude of his quondam associates--they were such a quiet, prosaic, hard-working lot--so different from these debonair New Yorkers. And was not the cane they had presented to him on his departure a good evidence of their esteem? He swung it proudly. How well he recalled the moment when old Curtis had placed the treasure of gold and mahogany in his hands and, in the presence of his colleagues, had made his little speech, expressing their regret at losing him and wishing him all success. Then the others had clapped and cheered and he had stammered out his thanks. The presentation had been a tremendous surprise. Well, they were a good sort; a little dull, perhaps, but a good sort!