Louisiana Lou Part 4

But, then, there are no Basques whom I could marry."

"I wouldn't suggest a Basque," said Doolittle. "But I believe there is one whom you could wed without compromising your intentions. Indeed, I believe the only chance you would have to marry him would be by telling him all about them. He is, or was, an American, it is true, but he has been French for many years and he is not a common soldier.

I refer to General de Launay."

"General de Launay!" repeated Solange wonderingly. "Why, he is a distinguished man, monsieur!"

"It would be more correct to say that he _was_ a distinguished man,"

said Doolittle, smiling at the recollection of the general as he had last seen him. "He has been demoted, as many others have been, or will be, but he has not taken it in good part. He is a reckless adventurer, who has risen from the ranks of the Legion, and yet--I believe that he is a gentleman. He has, I regret to say, taken to--er--drink, to some extent, out of disappointment, but no doubt the prospect of excitement would restore him to sobriety. And he has told me that he might marry--if it were made a sporting proposition."

"A sporting proposition! _Mon Dieu!_ And is such a thing their idea of sport? These Americans are mad!"

"They might say the same of you, it seems to me," said the banker dryly. "At any rate there it stands. The general might agree as a sporting proposition. Married to the general there should be no difficulty in securing pa.s.sage to America. After you get to America the matter is in your hands."

"But I should be married to the general," exclaimed Solange in protest. Doolittle waved this aside.

"The general would, I believe, regard the marriage merely as an adventure. He does not like women. As for the rest, marriage, in America, is not a serious matter. A decree of divorce can be obtained very easily. If this be regarded as a veritable _mariage de convenance_, it should suit you admirably and the general as well."

"He would expect to be paid?"

"Well, I can't say as to that," said Doolittle, smiling as he thought of De Launay's oil wells. "He might accept pay. But he is as likely to take it on for the chance of adventure. In any event, I imagine that you are prepared to employ a.s.sistance from time to time."

"That is what the money is for," said Solange candidly. "I have even considered at times employing an a.s.sa.s.sin. It is a regrettable fact that I hesitate to kill any one in cold blood. It causes me to shudder, the thought of it. When I am angry, that is a different matter, but when I am cold, ah, no! I am a great coward! This General de Launay, would he consider such employment, do you think?"

"Judging from his reputation," said Doolittle, "I don't believe he would stop at anything."

Solange knew something of De Launay and Doolittle now told her more.

Before he had finished she was satisfied. She rose with thanks to him and then requested the general's address.

"I think you'll find him," he referred to a memorandum on his desk, "at the cafe of the Pink Kitten, which is in Montmartre. It is there that he seems to make his headquarters since he resigned from the army."

"Monsieur," said Solange, gratefully, "I am indeed indebted to you."

"Not at all," said Doolittle as he bowed her out. "The pleasure has been all mine."

CHAPTER III

A SPORTING PROPOSITION

Louis de Launay, once known as "Louisiana" and later, as a general of cavalry, but now a broken man suffering from soul and mind sickness, was too far gone to give a thought to his condition. Thwarted ambition and gnawing disappointment had merely been the last straw which had broken him. His real trouble was that strange neurosis of mind and body which has attacked so many that served in the war. Jangled nerves, fibers drawn for years to too high a tension, had sagged and grown flabby under the sudden relaxation for which they were not prepared.

His case was worse than others as his career was unique. Where others had met the war's shocks for four years, he had striven t.i.tanically for nearly a score, his efforts, beginning with the terrible five-year service in the _Legion des Etrangers_, culminating in ever-mounting strain to his last achievement and then--sudden, stark failure! He was, as he had said, burned out, although he was barely thirty-nine years old. He was a man still young in body but with mind and nerves like overstrained rubber from which all resilience has gone.

His uniform was gone. Careless of dress or ornamentation, he had sunk into roughly fitting civilian garb of which he took no care. Of all his decorations he clung only to the little red rosette of the Legion of Honor. Half drunk, he lolled at a table in a second-cla.s.s cafe. He was in possession of his faculties; indeed, he seldom lost them, but he was dully indifferent to most of what went on around him. Before him was stacked a respectable pile of the saucers that marked his indebtedness for liquor.

When the cheerful murmur of his neighbors suddenly died away, he looked around, half resentfully, to note the entrance of a woman.

"What is it?" he asked, irritably, of a French soldier near him.

The Frenchman was smiling and answered without taking his eyes from the woman, who was now moving down the room toward them.

"Morgan _la fee_," he answered, briefly.

"Morgan--what the deuce are you talking about?"

"It is Morgan _la fee_," reiterated the soldier, simply, as though no other explanation were necessary.

De Launay stared at him and then shifted his uncertain gaze to the figure approaching him. He was able to focus her more clearly as she stopped to reply to the proprietor of the place, who had hastened to meet her with every mark of respect. Men at the tables she pa.s.sed smiled at her and murmured respectful greetings, to which she replied with little nods of the head. Evidently she was a figure of some note in the life of the place, although it also seemed that as much surprise at her coming was felt as gratification.

She presented rather an extraordinary appearance. Her costume was the familiar one of a French Red Cross nurse, with the jaunty, close-fitting cap and wimple in white hiding her hair except for a few strands. Her figure was slender, lithe and graceful, and such of her features as were visible were delicate and shapely; her mouth, especially, being ripe and inviting.

But over her eyes and the upper part of her face stretched a strip of veiling that effectually concealed them. The mask gave her an air of mystery which challenged curiosity.

De Launay vaguely recalled occasional mention of a young woman favorably known in the hospitals as Morgan _la fee_. He also was familiar with the old French legend of Morgan and the Vale of Avalon, where Ogier, the Paladin of Charlemagne, lived in perpetual felicity with the Queen of the Fairies, forgetful of earth and its problems except at such times as France in peril might need his services, when he returned to succor her. He surmised that this was the nurse of whom he had heard, setting her down as probably some attractive, sympathetic girl whom the soldiers, sentimental and wounded, endowed with imaginary virtues. He was not sentimental and, beholding her in this cafe, although evidently held in respect, he was inclined to be skeptical regarding her virtue.

The young woman seemed to have an object and it was surprising to him.

She exchanged a brief word with the maitre, declined a proffered seat at a table, and turned to come directly to that at which De Launay was seated. He had hardly time to overcome his stupid surprise and rise before she was standing before him. Awkwardly enough, he bowed and waited.

Her glance took in the table, sweeping over the stacked saucers, but, behind the veil, her expression remained an enigma.

She spoke in a voice that was sweet, with a clear, bell-like note.

"Le General de Launay, is it not? I have been seeking monsieur."

"Colonel, if mademoiselle pleases," he answered. Then suspicion crept into his dulled brain. "Mademoiselle seeks me? Pardon, but I am hardly a likely object----"

She interrupted him with an impatient wave of a well-kept hand.

"Monsieur need not be afraid. It is true that I have been seeking him, but my motive is harmless. If Monsieur Doolittle, the banker, has told me the truth----"

De Launay's suspicions grew rapidly. "If Doolittle has been talking, I can tell you right now, mademoiselle, that it is useless. What you desire I am not disposed to grant."

Mademoiselle caught the meaning of the intonation rather than any in the words. Her inviting mouth curled scornfully. Her answer was still bell-like but it was also metallic and commanding.

"Sit down!" she said, curtly.

De Launay, who, for many years had been more used to giving orders than receiving them, at least in that manner, sat down. He could not have explained why he did. He did not try to. She sat down opposite him and he looked helplessly for a waiter, feeling the need of stimulation.

"You have doubtless had enough to drink," said the girl, and De Launay meekly turned back to her. "You wonder, perhaps, why I am here," she went on. "I have said that Monsieur Doolittle has told me that you are an American, that you contemplate returning to your own country----"

"Mademoiselle forgets or does not know," interrupted De Launay, "that I am not American for nearly twenty years."

"I know all that," was the impatient reply. She hurried on. "I know _monsieur le general's_ history since he was a legionnaire. But it is of your present plans I wish to speak, not of your past. Is it not true that you intend to return to America?"

"I'd thought of it," he admitted, "but, since they have adopted prohibition----" He shrugged his shoulders and looked with raised eyebrows at the stack of saucers bearing d.a.m.ning witness to his habits.

She stopped him with an equally expressive gesture, implying distaste for him and his habits or any discussion of them.