A Soldier of the Legion | Page 2

like Ellsworth should possess him. His
family was high up in the "Four Hundred" in New York. He had as
much money as, with all his boyish extravagances and wild generosity,
he knew what to do with. He was exceedingly good to look at, in the
dark, thin, curiously Latin style to which he seemed to have no right.
He was a rather popular hero in the --th, for his polo, a sport which he
had introduced and made possible at Fort Ellsworth, and for his boxing,
his fencing, and his marksmanship. He had been graduated fourth in his
class at West Point three years before, so that he might have chosen the
engineers or artillery; but the cavalry was what he preferred; and here
he was at old Fort Ellsworth, enjoying life hugely and so well helping
others to enjoy life that every one liked him, no one was jealous or
grudged him what he had.
There he stood, this "show young man," well-groomed and smart in his
full-dress uniform of second lieutenant of cavalry, the stripes and
splashes of yellow suiting his dark skin: a slim, erect figure, not very
tall, but a soldier every inch of him, though the wide-apart blue eyes
gave the square-chinned face a boyish air of wistfulness, even when he
smiled his delightfully childlike, charming smile. Girls glanced at him
as they swung past in their partners' arms, noticing how tense was the
look on the brown face, and how the straight eyebrows--even blacker
than the smooth dark hair--were drawn together in expectant
concentration.
Suddenly the door opened. The curtain-raiser was over. The drama of
the evening was about to begin.
It seemed wonderful that the band could keep presence of mind to go
on playing the "Merry Widow," instead of stopping short with a gasp
and crash of instruments, to start again with the "Tango Trance," her
dance in "Girls' Love."
She flashed into the ballroom like a dazzling fairy thing, all white and
gold and glitter. Because she knew that--so to speak--the curtain would
ring up for her entrance, and not an instant before, in the fondness of
her heart for young officers she had not even delayed long enough to

change the dress she wore as the Contessa Gaëta in the third act of
"Girls' Love." The musical comedy had been written for her. In it she
had made her first almost startling success two years ago in London,
where, according to the newspapers, all young men worth their salt,
from dukes down to draymen, had fallen in love with her. She had
captured New York, too, and now she and her company were rousing
enthusiasm and coining money on their tour of the larger Western
cities.
The Gaëta dress looked as if it were made of a million dewdrops turned
to diamonds and sprinkled over a lacy spider-web; the web swathing
the tall and wandlike figure of Miss Billie Brookton in a way to show
that she had all the delicate perfections of a Tanagra statuette.
Despite the distraction of her entrance, followed by that of the little
gray lady engaged as her aunt, the musicians had the self-control to go
on with their "Merry Widowing," irrelevant as it now seemed. The
dancers went on dancing, also, though the dreaded dimness of
extinction had fallen upon even the brightest, prettiest girls, who tried
to look particularly rapturous in order to prove that nothing had
happened. They felt their partners' interest suddenly withdrawn from
them and focussed upon the radiance at the door. No use ignoring that
Radiance, even if one had in self-defence to pretend that it didn't matter
much, and wasn't so marvellously dazzling after all!
"There goes Mr. Doran to welcome her--of course!" said an Omallaha
girl lately back from New York. "I wonder if they really are engaged?"
"Why shouldn't they be?" her partner generously wanted to know. (He
was married.)
"Well, for one thing, she doesn't seem the sort of woman who'd care to
give up her career. She's so self-conscious that she must be selfish, and
then--she's older than he is."
"Good heavens, no! She doesn't look nineteen!"
"On the stage."

"Or off, either."
"Anyhow, some people in New York who know her awfully well told
me that she'd never see twenty-nine again. An actress of twenty-nine
who can't look nineteen had better go into a convent! Though, when
you notice, her mouth and eyes are hard, aren't they? What would Max
Doran's wonderful mother say if her son married Billie Brookton?"
"Miss Brookton's father was a clergyman in Virginia. She told me so
herself," said the married partner.
"She would---- Oh, I don't mean to be catty. But she must have a
background that's a contrast--like that aunt of hers. I don't believe she'd
want