Arms and the Woman Part 18

He wore an eyegla.s.s, through which he surveyed me rather contemptuously.

"What is your name, fraulein?" he asked turning to Gretchen.

"Gretchen," sweetly.

"And what is the toll for a kiss?"

"Nothing," said Gretchen, looking at me. The lieutenant started for her, but she waved him off. "Nothing, Herr Lieutenant, because they are not for sale."

I moved closer to the bar.

"Out for a const.i.tutional?" I asked, blowing the ash from the live coal in my pipe.

"We are on his Majesty's business," with an intonation which implied that the same was none of mine. "Gretchen, we shall return to-night, so you may lay two plates at a separate table," with an eye on me. He couldn't have hated me any more than I hated him. "Then, there is no way of getting a kiss?"

"No," said Gretchen.

"Then I'll blow you one;" and Gretchen made a pretty curtesey.

I nearly bit the amber stem off my pipe. They were soon gone, and I was glad of it.

"Herr Jack is angry," said Gretchen.

"Not at all," I growled. "What right have I to be angry?"

"Does Herr Jack wish Gretchen always to be sad?"

"Certainly not: but sometimes your joy is irritating. You are sad all day, then some strangers come, and you are all smiles. Your smiles do not come in my direction as often as I should like."

"Well, then, look at me," said Gretchen.

The smile would have dazzled an anchorite, let alone a man who didn't know whether he loved her for certain, but who was willing to give odds that he did!

"Gretchen!" I cried, starting toward her.

But with a low laugh she disappeared behind the door. Gretchen was a woman. As a man must have his tobacco, so must a woman have her coquetry. It was rather unfair of Gretchen, after what I had promised.

It was like getting one in a cage and then offering sweetmeats at a safe distance.

It now became a question of a.n.a.lysis. So I went to the river and sat down in the gra.s.s. A gentle wind was stirring the leaves, and the sunbeams, filtering through the boughs, fell upon the ground in golden snowflakes. What was Gretchen to me that I should grow jealous of her smiles? The night before I could have sworn that I loved her; now I was not so sure. A week ago all the sunshine in the world had come from Phyllis's face; a shadow had come between. Oh, I knew the symptoms. They were not new to me. They had visited me some five years back, and had clung to me with the tenacity of a creditor to a man with expectations. When a man arrives at that point where he wants the society of one woman all to himself, the matter a.s.sumes serious proportions. And a man likes to fall in love with one woman and continue to love her all his days; it is more romantic. It annoys him to face the fact that he is about to fall in love with another. In my case I felt that there was some extenuation. Gretchen looked like Phyllis. When I saw Gretchen in the garden and then went to my room and gazed upon the likeness of Phyllis, I was much like the bachelor Heine tells about--I doddered.

The red squirrel in the branches above me looked wisely. He was wondering how long before the green burrs would parch and give him their brown chestnuts. I was contemplating a metaphysical burr. I wanted to remain true to Phyllis, though there wasn't any sense in my doing so. Had Gretchen resembled any one but Phyllis I never should have been in such a predicament. I should have gone away the day after my arrival. Here I was going into my second week. My a.s.sistant in London was probably worrying, having heard nothing from me during that time. As matters stood it was evident that I could not be true either to Phyllis or Gretchen, since I did not know positively which I loved.

I knew that I loved one. So much was gained. I wanted to throw up a coin, heads for Phyllis, tails for Gretchen, but I couldn't bring myself to gamble on the matter. I threw a stick at his squirrelship, and he scurried into the hole in the crotch of the tree. A moment later he peered at me, and, seeing that nothing was going to follow the stick, crept out on the limb again, his tail bristling with indignation.

"If it hadn't been for Gretchen," said I, "you would have been a potpie long ago."

He must have understood my impotence, for he winked at me jeeringly.

A steamer came along then, puffing importantly, sending a wash almost at my feet. I followed it with my eye till it became lost around the bend. Over there was Austria and beyond, the Orient, a new world to me.

"If I could see them together!" I mused aloud.

The squirrel c.o.c.ked his head to one side as if to ask: "Austria and Turkey?"

"No," said I, looking around for another stick; "Phyllis and Gretchen.

If I could see them together, you know, I could tell positively then which I love. As it is, I'm in doubt. Do you understand?"

The squirrel ran out to the end of the limb and sat down. It was an act of deliberation.

"Well, why don't you answer?"

I was startled to my feet by the laughter which followed my question.

A few yards behind me stood Gretchen.

"Can't you find a better confidant?" she asked,

"Yes, but she will not be my confidant," said I. I wondered how much she had heard of the one-sided dialogue. "Will you answer the question I just put to that squirrel of yours?"

"And what was the question?" with innocence not feigned.

"Perhaps it was, Why should Gretchen not revoke the promise to which she holds me?"

"You should know, Herr," said Gretchen, gently.

"But I do not. I only know that a man is human and that a beautiful woman was made to be loved." Everything seemed solved now that Gretchen stood at my side.

But she turned as if to go.

"Gretchen," I called, "do not go. Forgive me; if only you understood!'"

"Perhaps I do understand," she replied with a gentleness new to me.

"Do you remember why I asked you to stay?"

"Yes; I was to be your friend."

"This time it is for me to ask whether I go or stay."

"Stay, Gretchen!" But I was a hypocrite when I said it.

"I knew that you would say that," simply.

"Gretchen, sit down and I'll tell you the story of my life, as they say on the stage." I knocked the dead ash from my pipe and stuffed the bowl with fresh weed. I lit it and blew a cloud of smoke into the air.

"Do you see that, Gretchen?"

"Yes, Herr," sitting down, the s.p.a.ce of a yard between us.

"It is pretty, very; but see how the wind carries it about! As it leaves my throat it looks like a tangible substance. Reach for it and it is gone. That cloud of smoke is my history."

"It disappears," said Gretchen.