A Soldier of the Legion | Page 3

to marry for years yet--a man who'd make her leave the stage. She
has the air of expecting the limelight to follow her everywhere through
life, and I'm sure Max Doran's gorgeous mother wouldn't let her
daughter-in-law go on acting, even if Max didn't mind."
"Max would mind. He'd never stand it," Max's brother officer informed
the girl who had been to New York. "Though he's so simple in his
manner, he's proud, I guess. But whether she's nineteen or twenty-nine,
I don't see how Billie could do better than take Max Doran, unless she
could snap up an English duke. And they say there aren't any unmarried
ones going at present. She'd be an addition to this post as a bride,
wouldn't she?"
"Ye-es," answered the girl, giving wonderful dramatic value to her
pause.
Just then the reign of the "Merry Widow" came to an end, and as soon
after as could be, the "Tango Trance" began. The band had practised it
in Miss Brookton's honour; and it had been ordered as the first dance
after her arrival. The aunt sat down, and Billie Brookton began
"tangoing" with Max Doran. They were a beautiful couple to watch;
but of course people had to keep up the farce of dancing, too. This was
not, after all, a theatre. One was supposed to have come for something
else than to stare at Billie Brookton without paying for a place.

"Your pearls," she whispered, as she and Doran danced the tango
together, taking graceful steps which she had taught him during the
fortnight they had known each other. "How do they look?"
"Glorious on you!" he answered. "And the ring has come. I telegraphed,
you know. It's what you wanted. I was able to get it, I'm happy to say.
Oh, Billie, can it be possible that I shall have you for mine--all mine? It
seems too wonderful to be true."
"I've promised, haven't I?" She laughed half under her breath, a pretty,
tinkling laugh. "Honour bright, Max dear, you're the first man I ever
said 'yes' to. I hope I shan't be sorry!"
"I won't let you be sorry," whispered Max. "I'll do everything to make
you so happy you'll forget the theatre."
"If anything or anybody could make me do that, it would be you," she
answered, under cover of the music. "I believe you must be very
fascinating, or else I--but never mind---- Now let's stop dancing and
you'll show me the ring. I'm engaged for the next--and I can't wait till
you and I have another together."
Max took her to sit down at an end of the room uninfested by
chaperons. No one at all was there. He had the ring in some pocket, and,
by dint of sitting with his "back to the audience," hoped to go through
the sacred ceremony without being spied upon. The ring Billie had
asked for was a famous blue diamond, of almost as deep a violet as a
star-sapphire, and full of strange, rainbow gleams. It had belonged to a
celebrated actress who had married an Englishman of title, and on her
death it had been advertised for sale. Billie Brookton, who "adored"
jewels, and whose birthstone conveniently was the diamond, had been
"dying for it." "She was not superstitious," she said, "about dead
people's things." Now the blue diamond, with a square emerald on
either side, and set in a band of platinum, was hers. She took it between
thumb and finger to watch the sparks that came and went, deep under
the sea-like surface of blue. As she looked at the ring, Doran looked at
her eyelashes.

Never, he thought, could any other woman since the world began have
had such eyelashes. They were extraordinarily long and thick, golden
brown, and black at the tips. The Omallaha girl who had been to New
York thought that Billie Brookton herself had had more to do than
heaven in the painting of those curled-up tips. But such a suggestion
would have been received with contempt by Max Doran, who at the
threshold of twenty-five considered himself a judge of eyelashes. (He
was not; nor of a woman's complexion; but believing in himself and in
Billie, he was happy.) Miss Brookton had a complexion nearly as white,
and it seemed to him--more luminous, more ethereal, than the string of
pearls he had given her a month in advance of her birthday. She said it
would be her twenty-third, and Max had been incredulous in the nicest
way. He would have supposed her to be nineteen at the most, if she had
not been so frank.
"Now, if you've looked at the ring enough off your finger, will you let
me put it on?" he begged. "I'll make a wish--a good wish: that you