第62章 A KNIGHT(4)

My guest took up Jules's glove that lay on the table; before either of us could raise a finger, he had swung it in the speaker's face.

"Enough!" he said, and, dropping the glove, walked away.

We all jumped to our feet.I left Jules and hurried after him.His face was grim, his eyes those of a creature who has been struck on a raw place.He made a movement of his fingers which said plainly.

"Leave me, if you please!"

I went back to the cafe.The two young men had disappeared, so had Jules, but everything else was going on just as before; the bandsman still twanging out his czardas; the waiters serving drinks; the orientals trying to sell their carpets.I paid the bill, sought out the manager, and apologised.He shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said: "An eccentric, your friend, nicht wahr?" Could he tell me where M.Le Ferrier was? He could not.I left to look for Jules;could not find him, and returned to my hotel disgusted.I was sorry for my old guest, but vexed with him too; what business had he to carry his Quixotism to such an unpleasant length? I tried to read.

Eleven o'clock struck; the casino disgorged a stream of people; the Place seemed fuller of life than ever; then slowly it grew empty and quite dark.The whim seized me to go out.It was a still night, very warm, very black.On one of the seats a man and woman sat embraced, on another a girl was sobbing, on a third--strange sight--a priest dozed.I became aware of some one at my side; it was my old guest.

"If you are not too tired," he said, "can you give me ten minutes?""Certainly; will you come in?"

"No, no; let us go down to the Terrace.I shan't keep you long."He did not speak again till we reached a seat above the pigeon-shooting grounds; there, in a darkness denser for the string of lights still burning in the town, we sat down.

"I owe you an apology," he said; "first in the afternoon, then again this evening--your guest--your friend's glove! I have behaved as no gentleman should." He was leaning forward with his hands on the handle of a stick.His voice sounded broken and disturbed.

"Oh!" I muttered."It's nothing!"'

"You are very good," he sighed; "but I feel that I must explain.Iconsider I owe this to you, but I must tell you I should not have the courage if it were not for another reason.You see I have no friend." He looked at me with an uncertain smile.I bowed, and a minute or two later he began....

III

"You will excuse me if I go back rather far.It was in '74, when Ihad been ill with Cuban fever.To keep me alive they had put me on board a ship at Santiago, and at the end of the voyage I found myself in London.I had very little money; I knew nobody.I tell you, sir, there are times when it's hard for a fighting man to get anything to do.People would say to me: 'Afraid we've nothing for a man like you in our business.' I tried people of all sorts; but it was true--Ihad been fighting here and there since '60, I wasn't fit for anything--" He shook his head."In the South, before the war, they had a saying, I remember, about a dog and a soldier having the same value.But all this has nothing to do with what I have to tell you."He sighed again and went on, moistening his lips: "I was walking along the Strand one day, very disheartened, when I heard my name called.It's a queer thing, that, in a strange street.By the way,"he put in with dry ceremony, "you don't know my name, I think: it is Brune--Roger Brune.At first I did not recognise the person who called me.He had just got off an omnibus--a square-shouldered man with heavy moustaches, and round spectacles.But when he shook my hand I knew him at once.He was a man called Dalton, who was taken prisoner at Gettysburg; one of you Englishmen who came to fight with us--a major in the regiment where I was captain.We were comrades during two campaigns.If I had been his brother he couldn't have seemed more pleased to see me.He took me into a bar for the sake of old times.The drink went to my head, and by the time we reached Trafalgar Square I was quite unable to walk.He made me sit down on a bench.I was in fact--drunk.It's disgraceful to be drunk, but there was some excuse.Now I tell you, sir" (all through his story he was always making use of that expression, it seemed to infuse fresh spirit into him, to help his memory in obscure places, to give him the mastery of his emotions; it was like the piece of paper a nervous man holds in his hand to help him through a speech), "there never was a man with a finer soul than my friend Dalton.He was not clever, though he had read much; and sometimes perhaps he was too fond of talking.But he was a gentleman; he listened to me as if Ihad been a child; he was not ashamed of me--and it takes a gentleman not to be ashamed of a drunken man in the streets of London; God knows what things I said to him while we were sitting there! He took me to his home and put me to bed himself; for I was down again with fever." He stopped, turned slightly from me, and put his hand up to his brow." Well, then it was, sir, that I first saw her.I am not a poet and I cannot tell you what she seemed to me.I was delirious, but I always knew when she was there.I had dreams of sunshine and cornfields, of dancing waves at sea, young trees--never the same dreams, never anything for long together; and when I had my senses Iwas afraid to say so for fear she would go away.She'd be in the corner of the room, with her hair hanging about her neck, a bright gold colour; she never worked and never read, but sat and talked to herself in a whisper, or looked at me for a long time together out of her blue eyes, a little frown between them, and her upper lip closed firm on her lower lip, where she had an uneven tooth.When her father came, she'd jump up and hang on to his neck until he groaned, then run away, but presently come stealing back on tiptoe.I used to listen for her footsteps on the stairs, then the knock, the door flung back or opened quietly--you never could tell which; and her voice, with a little lisp, 'Are you better today, Mr.Brune? What funny things you say when you're delirious! Father says you've been in heaps of battles!"'