Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 60: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

850 ‘that she was quite gray. When she looked up he saw that the luminous eyes were swimming with tears. “IT am sorry,” she said. “ That you should suffer for me is a great pity, al- though a woman loves to have a man suffer for her. So would I, if you were not the man you are, my frien’. That adjutant,” she said, ‘‘ he is a pig! Sometimes I think all the English are pigs! No?” ‘““T thought so myself at one time,” an- swered Morgan with a laugh. ‘‘ Some of them are. So are some of my people, and so, mademoiselle, are some of yours.” “You are a Canadian, no?” “* American.” ‘TI thought so! I have seen your people in the war. I am French and my name is Virginie Eloise St. Alary. JI have heard recently that a newspaper in Paris con- ducted an inquiry, asking thousands of girls of marriageable age of what nationality they should wish their husbands to be. And I believe, sir, they all wanted Ameri- cans. ‘“ Ah, it was cruel to put you in jail for saving a life. The adjutant isa pig! What a country! Walls, walls, wails! Every- where I go I see walls. What is behind all of them?” “Nothing is behind most of these,” an- swered Morgan, pointing to those stretches of wall that lined the road, “ cabbage gar- dens, and rings for exercising and schooling horses. They might as well be open, but it seems that when an Englishman does anything to a bit of ground he has to put something around it—a hedge or a wail, before he can plough it in comfort. ‘“'That one yonder has a pond back of it. It is a haunted pond. A soldier was drowned there swimming horses, and since then no one likes to go near it.” They walked in silence for a time, past the rotunda where, in the museum, lay Na- poleon’s traveling kitchen. The faint veil of cloud drew away and the sun came out strong and warm. The white road seemed to slip by under Morgan’s feet like smooth, slow water. There was a charm to his companion that stole over him; after a time he set it down to her grace. In spite of her smallness she ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. was delicately mature, and her grace was the grace of a woman, but with it was the winsomeness of a child. She walked now with one hand on his arm and the other on her hip, in a pose that was curiously the- atrical but at the same time thrilling. The cape fluttered in the soft breeze, and he saw that she wore a dress of some soft, draped material which he at first thought to be black, but discovered in the strong . light to be a very dark gray which shaded through an infinity of degrees to smoke color at her throat. ‘When I first saw you in the lane,” he said, “you were standing with your back to me. Your head was bent, and it seemed to me that you were—crying. It seemed to me at the moment—that moment when I thought I was going to run you down, that you must be sobbing, and that you must be very unhappy not to hear the ma- chine coming behind you.” ‘I was,” she said simply. . They strolled in silence until they came to a street full of more dun walls, topped with heavy green. It was a street of villas, detached and semi-detached, with ugly gates, but he knew that it led toward Black- heath, and he turned northward. She walked silently and steadily beside him, and the unreasoning happiness that had begun with the morning grew to be so strong in him that it became almost a pain. He walked softly for fear of breaking the spell. “They call you a ghost in the barracks,” he went on after a time, ‘‘ because the sen- tries have seen you at queer hours of the night—sometimes by the garrison church, sometimes in the gun park, and sometimes on the main parade. You have come to be almost a superstition in the garrison.” “They should not go to bed so early,” she said with that delectable chuckle. “That is what makes it seem so strange to them. To-day I have arisen early—at noon. At home [I go abroad at night and no one thinks of it. You are very brave?” “T don’t know,” he answered, looking down in the suddenly upturned face. “I hope so.” ‘You are. did yesterday. You must be to do as you Yesterday I stand and comicoooks CO) im