A Soldier of the Legion Part 6

Let's wish each other happiness."

"I wish you happiness," echoed Max.

"And I you. I shall often think of you, even if we never meet after to-morrow. But I hope we shall! I believe we shall." She shut her eyes suddenly, and lay still for so long that Max was afraid she might have fainted again.

"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously, bending toward her from his low seat on the suitcase.

She opened her eyes with a slight start, as if she had waked, half dazed, from some unfinished dream.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I was making a picture, in a way I have. I was wondering what would happen to us, in our different paths, and trying to see. One of my aunts says it is 'Celtic' to do that. I saw you in a great waste-place, like a desert. And then--_I_ was there, too. We were together--all alone. Perhaps, although I didn't know it, I'd really fallen asleep."

"Perhaps," agreed Max, and a vague thrill ran through him. He, too, had dreamed of desert as he lay in the lower berth, and she, overhead, had dreamed a desert dream, each unknown to the other. "Try to go to sleep again."

She closed her eyes, and presently he thought that she slept. Once or twice she waked with the heave and jolt of a great wave, always to find her watchdog at hand.

But at last, when with the dawn the storm lulled, Max noiselessly switched off the light and went out.

CHAPTER VI

THE NEWS

It was after breakfast when they met once more, on a wet deck, in bleak suns.h.i.+ne.

"I waked up in broad daylight and found you and your suitcase gone,"

said the girl. "Oh, how guilty I felt! And then to discover that, just as you thought, the cabin _was_ 63, not 65. What became of you?"

"I was all right," replied Max evasively. "I got a place to rest and wash."

"In 65?"

"No, not there."

"Why, was there a woman in that cabin, _too_?"

Max laughed. It was good to have some one to laugh with. "I didn't dare look," he confessed. "And I didn't care to wander about explaining myself and my belongings to suspicious stewards."

They walked up and down the deck, shoulder to shoulder, like old comrades. Last night there had been so many matters more pressing and more important, that they had forgotten such trifles as names. Now they introduced themselves to each other, though Max had an instant's hesitation before calling himself Doran. To-morrow, or even to-day, he might learn that which would part him forever from the name and all that had endeared and adorned it for him.

"Do you know what I've been calling you?" the girl asked, half ashamed, half shyly friendly, "'St. George.' Because you came and saved me from the dragon of the sea that I was afraid of. And that was appropriate, because St. George is my patron saint. I was born on his day, and one of my names is Georgette, in honour of him, and of my father, who is Georges: Colonel Georges DeLisle. My French aunts call me Georgette, for him. My Irish aunts call me 'Sanda,' for my mother, who was Corisande, and I like being 'Sanda' best."

She was frank about herself, as if to reward Max for his St. George-like vigil, telling him details of her life in Ireland and France, and how it had come about that Richard Stanton, her father's friend, had informally acted as her guardian when she was a child. Somehow, finding her so simple and outspoken, so kindly interested in him, Max could not bear, on his part, to build up a wall of reserve. He gave the name that had always been his: and though he did not tell her the whole story of his quest, he said that he was in search of a person to whom, if found, all that had been his would belong. "But you needn't pity me," he added quickly. "I'm used to the idea now. I shall lose some things by being poor, but I shall gain others."

She gave him a long look, seeing that he wanted no sympathy in words, and that it would jar on him if she tried to offer it. "Yes, you'll gain others," she echoed. "It must be splendid to be a man. I wonder--if things go as you think--will you stay and seek your fortune in Algeria?"

Seek his fortune in Algeria! Max could not answer for a second or two.

Again he seemed to hear Grant Reeves's rather affected voice speaking far off as if in a gramophone: "Perhaps you won't want to come back to America."

When Grant had said that, Max had resolved almost fiercely that nothing on earth should keep him from going back as quickly as possible. If Grant or Edwin Reeves had calmly advised his seeking a new fortune in remote Algeria, he would have flung away the proposition with pa.s.sion; but when Sanda DeLisle quietly made the suggestion, it was different.

America lay behind him in the far distance, where the sun sets. His face was turned to the east, and Algeria was near. The girl whom he had been able to help and protect was near, also. And she would be in Algeria. If he hurried home to America he would never see her again. Not that that ought to matter much! They were s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing each other in the night.

Yet--they had exchanged signals. Max had a queer feeling that they belonged to each other, and that, if it were not for her, he would be hideously, desperately homesick at this moment, almost homesick enough to turn coward and go back with his errand not done. Curiously enough, he felt, too, that she had somewhat the same feeling about him. Silently they were helping each other through a crisis.

"I hadn't thought of staying in Algeria," he answered her at last. "I don't suppose I shall stay. But--I don't know. Just now my future's hidden behind a big cloud."

"Like mine!" cried Sanda DeLisle. "Does it comfort you at all to know there's some one here, close to your side, who's walking in the dark, exactly as you are?"

It was the thought that had hovered, dim and wordless, in his own mind.

"Yes, it does comfort me," he said. "Though I ought to be sorry that things aren't clear for you. They will be, though, I hope, before long."

"And for you," she added. "I wish we could exchange experiences when we've found out what's going to become of us. I wish you were going on to Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"I wish I were," Max said, and he did actually wish it.

"Will you write and tell me what happens to you?" she rather timidly asked.

"I should like to. It's good of you to care."

"It's not good, but I _do_ care. How could I help it, after all you've done for me?"

"You'll never know what it was to me to have the chance. And will you write what your father's verdict is? If you should be going back, perhaps I----"

"Oh, I shall not be going back!" the girl cried, with sharp decision.

"But I'll write. And I shall never forget. If men disappoint me--though I hope, oh, _so_ much, they will not--I shall remember one loyal friend I have made. After last night and to-day, we couldn't be _less_ than friends, could we? even though we never hear from each other again."

"Thank you for saying that. I feel it, too, more than you can," Max a.s.sured her. "But since we're to be friends, will you let me help you all I can, and see you again on sh.o.r.e, before we go our separate ways?

Let me find out about your train, and take you to it, and so on; and perhaps you'll dine with me, if there's time before you start."

"How good you are!" She gave him one of those soft, sweet glances, which, unlike Billie Brookton's lovely looks, were prompted by no conscious desire to charm. "But you will be so busy with your own affairs!"

"Not too busy for that. I don't suppose it will be very difficult to get at what I've come for. I shall soon know--one way or the other. I may have to go on somewhere else, but one day won't matter. I can give myself a little indulgence, if it's for the last time."

So they settled it. Max was to be "St. George" and keep off dragons for a few hours more.

The _General Morel_ was supposed to do the distance between Ma.r.s.eilles and Algiers in twenty-four hours, but on this trip she had an unusually good excuse to be late. The storm had delayed her, and every one was thankful that it was only half-past three when the s.h.i.+p steamed into the old "pirate city's" splendid harbour.

Max Doran and Sanda DeLisle stood together watching the Atlas mountains turning from violet blue to golden green, and the cl.u.s.tered pearls on hill and sh.o.r.e transform themselves into white domes. The two landed together, also, and Sanda let Max go with her in a big motor omnibus to the Hotel Saint George, the hotel of her patron saint, whose name Max remembered well because of postcards picturing its beautiful terrace and garden, sent him long ago by Rose when he was a cadet at West Point.

They discovered that the first train in which Sanda could leave for Sidi-bel-Abbes would start at nine o'clock that evening, so the proposed dinner became possible; and Sanda, by the advice of Max, took a room at the hotel for the rest of the day, inviting him to have tea with her on the terrace at five, if he were free to come back.

He waited until the girl had disappeared with a porter and her hand-luggage, and then inquired of the concierge whether the Hotel-Pension Delatour still existed. He put the question carelessly, as though it meant nothing to him, adding, as the man paused to think, that he had looked in vain for the name in the guide-book.

"Ah, I remember now, sir," said the concierge. "There used to be a hotel of that name, close to the old town--the Kasbah; quite a little place, for _commercants_, and people like that. Why, yes, to be sure! But the name has been changed, five or six years ago it must be. I think it is the Hotel-Pension Schreiber now."

"Oh, and what became of Delatour?" Max heard himself ask, still in that carefully careless tone which seemed to his ears almost too well done.

"I'm not sure, sir, but I rather think he died. Yes, now I recall reading something in _La Depeche Algerienne_, at the time. He'd been a brave soldier, and won several medals. There was a paragraph, yes, with a mention of his family. He came from the aristocracy, it said. Perhaps that's why he didn't turn out a good man of business. Or maybe he drank too much or took to drugs. These old retired soldiers who've seen hard fighting in the South often turn that way."