A Soldier of the Legion | Page 5

Chicago."
"I'll wire the moment I can," Max assured her. "You know the address
in New York?"
"Oh, yes, everybody knows the beautiful Mrs. Doran's address. I'll
write or telegraph every day. My heart will be with you."
He squeezed her hand so desperately that she could have screamed with

pain from the pressure of the blue diamond. But with touching
self-control she only smiled a strained, sympathetic little smile. And
Max had forgotten all about the ring!
"Thank you, my beautiful one, my angel," he said. And Billie's large
brown eyes (so effective with her delicate dark brows and rippling
yellow hair) gave him a lovely look. She had been called many things
by many adoring men, but perhaps never before an "angel." Max Doran
was very young, in some ways even younger than his years.
"Good-bye," she murmured. "But no--not 'good-bye.' That's a terrible
word. Au revoir. You'll come to me when you can, I know. I shall be in
Chicago a fortnight. But if you can't leave Mrs. Doran, why, in six
weeks I shall be in New York."
"Don't speak of six weeks!" he exclaimed. "It's like six years. I must see
you before that. But--my mother is before everything just now."
They bade each other farewell with their eyes. Then he took her to Mrs.
Liddell, the small gray aunt, and hardly was Billie seated when Major
Naylor dashed up to claim her for Gaëta's waltz in the first act of "Girls'
Love."
After that, things happened quickly with Max Doran. He seemed to
dream them, and was still in the dream, tearing toward Chicago in a
special train whose wheels rushed through the night in tune with that
first-act music from "Girls' Love."
CHAPTER II
THE BLOW
The name that signed the telegram was that of Mrs. Doran's lawyer and
man of business. It was that also of Max Doran's old-time chum, Grant
Reeves, Edwin Reeves' son. And when Max stepped out of the limited
in the Grand Central Station of New York, among the first faces he saw
were those of the two Reeveses, who had come to meet him. He shook
hands with both, warmly and gratefully with Grant. He had never been
able really to like his friend's father. But it was to him he turned with

the question: "How is she?"
The elder, tall, thin, clean-shaven, with carrot-red hair turning gray, had
prominent red eyebrows over pale, intelligent eyes that winked often,
owing to some weakness of the lids, which had lost most of their lashes.
This disfigurement he concealed as well as he could with rimless
pince-nez, which some people said were not necessary as an aid to
eyesight. They were an aid to vanity, however; and the care Edwin
Reeves bestowed on his clothes suggested that he was a vain as well as
a clever man.
The son was a young and notably good-looking copy of his father,
whose partner in business he had lately become. They were singularly
alike except in colouring, for Grant was brown-haired and brown-eyed,
with plenty of curled-back lashes which gave him an alert look.
Both men started forward at the sight of Max, Grant striding ahead of
Edwin and grasping Max's hand, "I had to come, old chap," he said,
with a pleasant though slightly affected accent meant to be English. "I
wanted just to shake hands and tell you how I felt."
"Thank you, Grant," said Max. "Is she--is there hope?"
"Oh, there's always hope, you know; isn't there, governor?"
Grant Reeves appealed to his father, who had joined them. "Who can
tell? She's wonderful."
Edwin Reeves took the hand Max held out, and then did nothing with it,
in the aloof, impersonal way that had always irritated Max, and made
him want to fling away the unresponsive fingers. Now, however, for
the first time in his life he did not notice. He was lost in his desire for
and fear of the verdict.
"It would only be cruel to raise his hopes," the father answered the son.
"The doctors (there are four) say it's a miracle she's kept alive till now.
Sheer will-power. She's living to see you."

Max was dumb, his throat constricted. And then, there was nothing to
say. Something deep down in him--something he could not bear to
hear--was asking why she should suddenly care so much? She had
never cared before, never really cared, though in his intense admiration
of her, almost amounting to worship, he had fought to make himself
believe that she did love him as other mothers loved their sons. Yet his
heart knew the truth: that she had become more and more indifferent as
he grew up from a small boy into a young man. Since he went to West
Point they had spent very