THE FOREIGN LEGION (photoplay Jitieqf THE RED MIRAGE Br I. A. R. WYLIE CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library PS 3545.Y52R3 1914 The foreign legioniphotoplay title of Th 3 1924 021 732 940 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021732940 THE RED MIRAGE A Universal-Jewel Production. The Foreign Legior}- Photoplay title of The Red Mirage. "GOODBYE, GABRIELLE— YOU HAVE OPENED MY EYES " THE FOREIGN LEGION PHOTOPLAY TITLE OF THE RED MIRAGE BY I. A. R. WYLIE AUTHOR OF FOUR SONS ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTOPLAY A UNIVERSAL-JEWEL PRODUCTION q£K^ NEW TORK GROSSET & DUNLAP P1JBI,I,SHERS All Rights Reserved Tte Boebs-Merrill Company CONTENTS CHAPTER PACr I No. 3112 1 n The Man She Left Behind Her 14 III The Fourth Floor Back ,25 IV The Great Law Comes Into Force . . . .37 V Mrs. Farquhar Explains 47 VI Colonel Destinn of the Legion 57 VII Richard Nameless 6S VIII Corporal Gotz Plays "Rule, Brittania'* . . .73 IX At the Villa Bernotto's 8& X It Is the Devil W^ho Drives 91 XI Justification lOJ XII A Grave Is Opened 108 XIII The Rising Tide 120 XIV Behind the Mosque 124- XV The Choice 132 XVI Dreams 148 XVII The End of Ramazan 160 XVIII Mrs. Farquhar 177 XIX In the Teeth of the Storm 187 XX The Return 199 XXI Masquerade 213 XXII The Last Offer , 226 XXIII FateDeodes 239 XXIV Atonement 254 XXV Toward Dawn 265 XXVI Kismet 279 XXVII The Oasis 291 THE RED MIRAGE THE RED MIRAGE CHAPTER I jsro. 3112 NIGHT lay on the desert. Terrible in its solitude, the great waste stretched out beneath an emerald darkness, its frozen billows of sand rolling on to the blank invisible horizon where all commingled in brooding mystery and silence. To the south there was more than silence — a spirit of watchfulness, a somber enigma, heavy with formless menace; to the north a veil had been let down, soon to be lifted, hiding a vague but living promise of the future. No moon; overhead uncounted myriads whose signals flashed down through the frosty atmosphere in cold ironic splendor. But they were signals without key, and it was not their light which hung over the trackless desolation. Out of the desolation itself a gray unearthly luminousness rose up and spread on over the hills, stealing beneath their shadows and throwing shadows where no corporal form was visible. No life, no moving thing — save to the south. From thence a dark line wound, itself out of the obscurity and came on without halt or hesitation, seeming to follow some unseen track between the silver ridges of the hills. It was scarcely possible to recognize them as human. They marched four deep, anyhow, yet mechanically and steadily, like drunken men kept to a straight path by a relentless, omnipotent will. I THE RED MIRAGE double beneath the burden of their knapsacks, their ; trailed by the strap, their heads bowed, their eyes fixed sightless, jaws set, they bore no semblance to military r save for the dogged persistency of their advance — their silence. A man stumbled and reeled against his ibor. There was a curse and a groan, but no more — no ment, no change in the shuffling step. A tortured crea- lulled by a narcotic, had been stung to momentary con- isness by a keener pang, that was all. Theirs was the by of despair. t the head of the column an officer strode on alone. ; was no weariness, no faltering, but the indomitable itself, the very symbol of the power which kept the :ed crowd silent and patient at his heels. Shoulders red, head erect, he pressed on, the sand eddying beneath tride, the semi-darkness magnifying his spare figure to jthing sinister and superhuman. A little to his right a ier kept pace beside a limping exhausted charger. He no more than a boy, delicate in build, with bloodshot in which glittered a curious, fascinated terror. From to time he looked back over his shoulder, passing his ue over his cracked and swollen lips, but he made no id, no plaint. Then suddenly he stumbled with a cry of jressible suffering. Silence there !" fie command grated brutally on the quiet. The leaders fie column in their torpor seemed not to hear, but the bent his head lower, like a dog cringing under the whip, lently he began to drop behind. With one swift, terri- glance at the blank faces of his comrades he shifted his )sack on to the saddle, then crept on again, hiding in the t shadow of the horse beside him. The action had been t and almost noiseless. The lonely officer turned his I a little. NO. 3112 3 "3708!" "My Colonel !" "Take this coward's place. Give him your rifle." "My Colonel !" It was Hke a smothered scream of agony. The sharply cut, impassive features under the kepi remained expression- less. "Add your knapsack — ^back to the column, you cur. Cor- poral, see that 31 12 keeps his place. Forward — ^march!" All was still again. Except for that stifled scream of protest, which seemed to linger like some ghost of sound on the still luminous air, there was nothing audible. The tramp of the thousand feet lost itself in the sand. An hour passed. Westward behind the darkness some- thing had begun to stir — ^the faint, scarcely perceptible movement of reawakened life. The veil was lifting, and from whence the horizon slowly revealed itself against the flaming dawn a pale glow spread out over the desert, chang- ing with roseate fingers the gray twilight to a transparent, fiery iridescence. A chill wind, which for a moment had whirled up the sand to tiny spiral columns, died down. In hushed expectancy the desert awaited the hour of her trans- figuration. The thud of galloping horses — a tremor which seemed to pass through the whole length and breadth of the weary column. A lieutenant marching at the side of his men swung round sharply on his heel. "Who goes there?" No answer. Something shot out of the blackness which still hung sullenly over the south, and sped up the thin long line to where the commanding officer held his post. He turned his face. The hard blue eyes under the heavy brows flittered as he lifted them to the increasing light. "Well?" ■4 THE RED MIRAGE The spahi drew rein sharply, dragging his foam-flecked animal to its haunches. With his flint-lock he pointed back into the shadow. "Arabs, my Colonel, Arabs to the southwest. Two hun- dred strong. They have followed all night. They will at- tack before the hour." The colonel shrugged his shoulders. His stride had not faltered. "They will not attack. It is too late. By nightfall we shall be in Sidi-bel-Abbes." The spahi drew his fluttering bumoose closer about him and set his horse to a walk. His bronzed features were sul- len with doubt and disappointment. "Sidi-bel-Abbes lies yet forty kilometers to the north." "We shall be there before nightfall." No one spoke. The spahi dropped back and, like some bird of ill-omen, hovered around the regiment, passing rest- lessly up and down the exhausted lines, his white teeth bared in a grin of malicious mockery. As he passed No. 3 1 12 he pulled up for an instant, his free hand stemmed insolently against his thigh. "Ah, mon bleu, what good spirits ! And what a nice little piece of luggage you have there ! When the sun rises it will help to keep you warm. Allah be praised !" The boy made no answer, but as though the taunt had awakened his mind to some terrifying presage of the fu- ture, he lifted his head and stared out westward. In a burst of golden splendor the red orb of the sun had risen above the horizon, and with its rising the night desert faded into an earthly paradise of color. Where there had seemed utter desolation there were now long stretches of waving grass, patches of green oasis where stately palms rose out of some hidden lake and silhouetted their leaves against the sapphire sky-line. And over all an atmosphere surcharged NO. 31 12 S with radiance, all warmth, all healing. The chill of the night softened, and yet on every haggard face, lifted for an in- stant to greet this resurrection of life, there was carved a speechless dread. The hours passed. The sun stood high above the crest of the sand-hills. It was no longer red, but a fierce merciless bronze. There was no longer life nor color; all — oasis, hills, that hidden promise that lay northward — ^had sunk in shimmering, stifling waves which beat down upon the sand and rose again in fierce reflection to the brazen skies of their creation. "The whole column — ^halt !" A shrill whistle, which yet sounded lifeless in the dead air. The men dropped where they stood. With their faces buried in their arms they lay inert, indifferent. Only the colonel remained standing. With a curt gesture he refused the flask which his adjutant courteously extended to him. "I thank you. One marches better on an empty stomach." "Surely you will use your horse now. Colonel ?" "No." For the first time the hard face softened as he turned and laid his gloved hand on the animal's neck. "The poor brute is done up already." "And you, my Colonel, are you never done up ?" "No." He glanced impatiently at his wrist-watch. "The ten minutes are over. Corporal Gotz — sound the advance." The man addressed sprang instantly to his feet. His greyhound's figure — slim, alert, without an ounce of super- fluous flesh, every inch hardened to wiry muscle — was drawn up with an ease the more remarkable in that herd of cowed exhausted vagabonds. The bronzed narrow-cut face would have been expressionless but for the scar run- ning diagonally from forehead to chin. It gave him the air of reckless nonchalance, which was heightened by the rather haughty eyes and the thin hard mouth under the close- 6 THE RED MIRAGE cropped mustache. He stood at the salute, the steel-gray eyes fixed coolly on the officer's storm-threatening features. "My Colonel, the men have marched since midnight ; they have not eaten for six hours." "Blow the whistle. The baggage is on ahead. We must be in Sidi-bel-Abbes to-night." "Yesterday we marched through the midday heat. Two men went mad and ran into the desert. They are dead by now." "Two bad soldiers. Give the signal, or by God — " For an instant they eyed each other in silence. It was curious that, despite the gulf of rank between them, they measured each other. Then the corporal turned heavily on his heel. "The whole column !" The signal passed from company to company. The inert bodies, galvanized to life by the indomitable will, reeled and staggered to their feet. Only 31 12, beneath his double burden, did not move. A sergeant hurrying up the line kicked him in the ribs. "Get up there !" A faint tremor passed through the prostrate body. The sergeant kicked again. "Name of thunder, will you get up ? Corporal Gotz, lend me a hand. We'll see what the colonel can do for this fine gentleman's son." They lifted him between them, the corporal using some tenderness. His own face had grown deadly white. "I believe the poor fellow is dying," he said in his broken French. "A double knapsack like that — " "Merde! A stimulant — I know them. There!" He flung the limp body down on a heap of stones. "See how you like that bed, my delicate one." NO. 3112 7 The colonel, bent over a map which his adjutant held spread out for him, turned sharply. "What's all this. Sergeant?" "A fine fellow who says he's tired, my Colonel. I told him to get up, and he cursed you and all the saints." Corporal Gotz's lips opened — closed again into a hard straight line. The colonel strode over to the motionless body. "Get up!" he said softly. A spasm passed like a wave over the narrow shoulders. The will was calling — ^this time in vain. No. 3 112 groaned and lay still. "A cur and a weakling. Leave him. Take his rifle. Corporal, We know these deserters' tricks. Perhaps a hyena will hurry him home — " "My Colonel, permit me to carry him — " "Silence, Corporal. 'This is not a regiment of babies — " "At least let me stay with him till it is all over. You can trust me. I give you my word of honor — " The sergeant laughed outright. Even the colonel's face relaxed in a grim smile. "The whole column — forward march!" He took his place at the head of the first company. Wordless, soundless, the column staggered into line. They were old men now, bent double, decrepit with suffering. As they passed the prostrate body of their boy comrade they swerved aside, but there was no pity or any emotion on their stony faces. All feeling was dead — only the will merciless and ruthless, worked on in them. Corporal Gotz alone stopped for an instant. He touched the inert hand, he whispered something. No. 31 12 lifted his head. A smile, terrible in its piteousness, twisted his cracked and bloody lips. "I thank you — ^yes — God bless you — " 8 THE RED MIRAGE He fell back. The column stumbled on into the blazing midday furnace. An hour later it had vanished over the quivering line of hills. No. 31 12 lay with his face buried in the sand. Night again. In the gaily lighted streets of Sidi-bel- Abbes the inhabitants were making good the long after- noon's siesta. Officer, soldier, Arab, Jew and Spaniard jos- tled one another on the pavement — a brilliant cohue of colors, in which every note of the scale was played from the red of the French uniform to the mellowed orange of the Arab burnoose — a cohue of emotions, too, perhaps, less visi- ble, no less real; contempt, superiority. European arro- gance, suspicion, hatred, contempt again veiled under stoic impassivity — the old eternal warfare between East and West. In the Cercle des Officiers the military band was play- ing a selection from some popular opera. Lanterns hung from the branches of the orange trees, lighting up the yel- low fruit and throwing a softened reflection on the tables be- neath. A dense, constantly changing crowd of idlers hung on the outer side of the barriers, listening and watching, their upturned faces revealing many t3rpes, many expressions. But in the brilliant laughter of the Spanish woman who flung back her dark head as she passed with the challenging assurance of conscious beauty, in the passionless curiosity of the Arab sheik, lingering a moment to study this scene of European revelry, there was some common feeling, some stifled emotion which was yet not far below the surface. A soldier wearing a French uniform but little known in France spat as he passed, jerking his thumb at the shadowy figures beneath the trees, and cursing in a language that was not French. An Algerian Jew glanced up an instant, and something of a smile glided over his gaunt hungry features. NO. 3113 9 Then he too passed on, his head bent in the habitual servi- tude of his race. "How picturesque it all is !" murmured the girl seated at one of the outer tables. "I could almost believe that I was living through one of the Thousand and One Nights ; couldn't you? There is a charm, too, something that one can not describe — d je ne sais quoi, n'est-ce pas?" < She spoke her French with an English accent which, curi- ously enough, was not disagreeable, and she lisped slightly but rather charmingly. The young officer opposite her nodded. He had seen the Jew pass and possibly the faint significant smile. His own expression was not pleasant. "The outside of the platter is not bad," he said irritably ; "but it's a beastly place for all that — full of cheats and thieves and scoundrels of all nationalities. If we did not keep such a firm hand over the pack — " He stopped short, having caught sight of his companion's face. She was un- doubtedly very pretty. The light above her made an aureole of her fair hair and cast shadows into her eyes, changing them to deep pools of innocent questions. Her features were small and childlike, but very sweet, pathetically deli- cate. Perhaps, unknown to her, the soft lace wrap had slipped from her shoulders, and against the darkness their white purity stood out in radiant contrast. She seemed something altogether ethereal; at least something far re- moved from the restless, fevered atmosphere around her. "What a boor I am! To-night everything is beautiful — even an old Hebrew. Do you know why. Mademoiselle Sylvia? I ought not to tell you perhaps, for you are Eng- lish. But to-night you must be a little French and under- stand. We are of hotter blood. Mademoiselle, and when we admire we speak out, and when we love — " He broke oS again. She bent her head, avoiding the eagerness of his his eyes, her frail fingers tightly interlocked. "You have lo THE RED MIRAGE been happy among us, Mademoiselle," he asked gently, "in spite of failure?" "Yes — I have been happy." "And to-morrow you go home to England — and it will be all over." She looked up frankly. "Why, Captain Arnaud, you are coming to England soon yourself, and then v/e shall meet again. My father has asked you, has he not? We both love and admire all things French. And then, you know, we are allies now — ^you won't forget that And allies hold together, don't they?" He laughed, a little at this feminine use of diplomatic relationship, a little out of sheer delight in the ingenuous color which spread over her forehead. "If you remember that we are allies I shall be content for the present. You will remember, won't you ?" He held out his hand. She took it laughingly, yet tremulously. "I won't forget. Captain Arnaud." "Mademoiselle — " Unconsciously he had picked up her ivory fan and opened it Something attracted his atten- tion. He held the delicate piece of feminine vanity to the light " 'From Richard Farquhar,' " he quoted under his breath. "May one ask — ^who is Richard Farquhar, Made- moiselle?" The color still dyed her cheeks. It deepened a little and her eyelids sank. Then she looked at him with naive straightness. "An old friend. Captain Amaud — ^what we call an old playfellow. We grew up together — like brother and sister. He is in the army. He gave me the fan just before I came abroad." "Ah !" He snapped the ivory toy together and handed it back to her. "An old playfellow ? Well, I shall be in Eng- land in a fortnight, and — " NO. 31 12 II The regimental band had suddenly subsided. In the dis- tance a trumpet had blared out a sonorous warning. Then came the roll of drums drawing rapidly nearer, ^he girl sprang to her feet. "What is that? Not an attack?" He laughed again and rose up beside her. In his dark close-fitting dolman his slight figure showed up v/ell enough to match the languid refinement of his features. "No, no, those days are over. We French have brought peace with us. Probably my regiment returning. Colonel Destinn swore he would do it." "Do what?" She had hurried to the balustrade and was peering eagerly down the long avenue. All heads were turned southward in idle curiosity. One or two of the officers at the little tables had also risen. Captain Amaud came and stood close beside her. "Colonel Destinn and Colonel d'Auvigne had a bet about it," he said. D'Auvigne has never got more than forty kilo- meters out of his own men. Destinn swore he would get fifty. He set off three days ago for a village one hundred and fifty kilometers south. If he is back to-night he has won his bet and I mine." She clapped her hands. "Oh, I hope you have won." "You should be a soldier's wife, Mademoiselle." She made no answer. The drums were now close at hand, and the loiterers swerved back on to the pavement, leaving a free lane for the passage of the troops. There was a hurriedness about the retreat that suggested fear or disgust, or both. "By heavens, it is Destinn ! Well done !" The first four drummers passed into the arena of light thrown by the high street lamp. Then came a man on 12 THE RED MIRAGE horseback. He rode alone, erect, sword drawn, the eagle features under the kepi composed, the overshadowed eyes fixed sternly ahead. Yet he saw the salutations from the terrace, and answered with curt military precision. Then came the men. Sylvia Omney drew back with a murmur of disappoint- ^ment. "Oh, what dreadful looking creatures ! So dirty and slov- enly!" Her silvery laugh rang out over the muffled tramp of marching feet. "Why, they're just a lot of scalawags !" "No, they don't look up to much just now," Arnaud ad- mitted grimly. "But they can march. They've done their fifty kilometers." "Yes, of course — ^how splendid! We ought to cheer them. Why don't we?" "We'd cheer all alone, I expect. The Foreign Legion isn't popular — and no wonder. They're just the scum of all nations — good enough to feed the desert. Thank heaven, I have only three years more of them." She was silent. The last bedraggled, limping line had passed into the darkness. The melancholy roll of drums died beneath the revived bustle of the street. Like a cahn sea broken for an instant by a passing vessel, the crowd drifted together into the old, softly eddying streana. The band picked up the broken thread of a waltz. "And Colonel Destinn — is he a foreigner, too?" Sylvia Omney asked slowly. "Somehow he did not look French, and the name is a strange one." "No one knows who he is — except perhaps the bigwigs. He might be anything. He can talk every living language except English. But he is a fine soldier and a good friend of mine. Perhaps one day you may get to know him better," She glanced up surprised, and for an instant they looked NO. 31 12 13 steadily at each other. Her lips were a little parted in child- ish breathless wonder. Then suddenly they quivered and her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Captain Arnaud, I am heartless and wicked. Just for a moment I was almost — quite happy. And after all — we have not yet found him — we may never find him." He bent down to her. His voice sank to a caress. "You will find him — ^perhaps. Mademoiselle, you and I — we will find him together. And you were happy. Will you tell me why?" Her head dropped. "Not now. Captain Arnaud — I can not — I do not know." He lifted her hand courteously to his lips. "In three weeks I shall be in England, Mademoiselle. Perhaps then you will tell me." He led her back to the lighted casino. The band had drifted into a sentimental intermezzo from the latest Italian opera. There was the sound of laughter and the clink of glasses. The kaleidoscope be- neath the electric lamp drifted on down the avenue to the Cafe d' Algiers, where champagne and vin d quatre sous flow in equal quantities according to the entrance chosen. And thirty kilometers to the south, on the border of the desert, No. 31 12 lay with his face buried in the sand. CHAPTER II THE MAN SHE LEFT BEHIND HER *• AND SO you have really made tip your mind, Richard?" x\. "With your consent, mother." Mrs. Farquhar sighed and tapped an impatient tattoo on the fender with her small, well-shod foot. "I wonder what sort of difference my consent or refusal would make?" she remarked petulantly. "A great deal — ^to me." "But it would not alter your action?" "I'm afraid it couldn't" "Well, then, it's as I say, my share in the matter has not the slightest real importance. You ask my consent as a matter of convention, and if I do not answer with the con- ventional 'yes' you will be perfectly content and marry, without it You might have spared me the farce." "It's not a farce ; as it happens, I want your consent It's true — I'll marry without it — ^but it will make all the differ- ence to my happiness." He put his head a little on one side and looked at her whimsically. "Really, mother, you are the last person to blame me for falling in love. It was you who taught me to adore the sex." She bit her lip and, refusing to meet his eye, stared down into the fire. But obviously the flattery had gone home. "You are very devoted to me, Richard. I don't know why." 14 THE MAN SHE LEFT BEHIND HER 15 "Perhaps because you are the most charming woman in the world — save one." "That's the first tactless thing you've ever said to me." "On the contrary, it is tactful, since it must convince you of my sincerity." She made no answer. But she glanced up at the tall Vene- tian mirror and her mouth relaxed. Possibly she realized that he was sincere and had all reason to be. She undoubt- edly possessed a charm which made it seem scarcely credible that the man beside her was her son. She was small but beautifully made, with a figure that a woman half her age might have envied, and that few women could have dressed with such exquisite realization of her own limitations. It did not matter that her features were insignificant, or that her white hair was somewhat obviously a wig. She pos- sessed the nameless quality which excuses everjrthing and has sent men in all ages from crime to great place and from great place to the gallows. Richard Farquhar bore her no resemblance, though it was conceivable that without the wig and the coating of powder she might have revealed a certain similarity of coloring. His hair was uncompromisingly black and very smooth, covering a well-shaped head. Well- shaped was, in fact, the word most descriptive of him, for he was not good-looking, not even the somewhat alarming blue eyes under the black brows being able to redeem a face otherwise characterized by high cheek-bones and what is commonly called lantern jaws. But both face and the broad- shouldered, narrow-hipped figure revealed race, also vigor and headstrong temperament, which a peculiar light in the eyes accentuated. At the moment his expression was gay, but it veiled excitement and something obstinately resolved. "You are a vain old woman !" he said lightly. "I believe you expected me to be dancing at your apron-strings in blind adoration all my life." i6 THE RED MIRAGE "I did nothing of the sort. I wanted you to marry — ^but not Sylvia Omney." "Why not Sylvia? The veriest place-hunter might be satisfied with her position. Heaven knows I don't care, but women — " "Don't generalize, for pity's sake. I don't care either — not for you. I wanted you to choose something different — that's all." He looked at her in unconcealed surprise. Possibly her tone was new to him. It was sharp and irritable; it re- vealed her suddenly as an old woman. There were lines about her mouth and eyes which the powder failed to con- ceal. He turned away to a contemplation of the firelight. "I think I must be rather like my father," he said thought- fully. "I don't remember him, and I have never seen any- thing of his save an old letter to you. You remember — ^you gave it to me? I carry it about with me because in some queer way I feel its analogy with my own character. Here it is." From his breast pocket he took out an old letter cov- ered with yellow faded writing and unfolded it. "It gives me a queer feeling, too, when I read it," he went on slowly. "I might have written it myself — ^to the woman I loved. He must have loved you madly, mother. One feels in every line that you were a religion to him — ^that he would have sold himself, body and soul — " "Don't !" she interrupted sharply, angrily. Then she gave a shrill, unsteady little laugh. "How tactless you are this afternoon, Richard ! One doesn't rake up dead things like that. It isn't nice — it isn't kind to an old woman. I — I don't want to remember — now after all these years. ' Surely I have earned the right to forget?" There was something of appeal in her voice that he either did not hear or did not understand. He took her white jeweled hand and lifted it to his lips. THE MAN SHE LEFT BEHIND HER 17 "I am sorry. I only wanted to explain that I think I love as he loved. I must give everything — everything. It seems to me only right that it should be so. When a woman loves she gives everything, does she not, more than we know, perhaps, and a man who gives less is a dishonest merchant — a cur, a cheat. I do not wish to be indelicate, but that is what, more than mere morality, has kept me straight as regards women, the thought of the future — " She broke in again with her high, tremulous laugh. "My poor Richard! Yes, you are like him — ^very like him. But if it's the wrong woman — what then ?" "Of course, it must not be the wrong woman," he said slowly. "But my father chose rightly, as I know I have chosen. I have chosen a woman after his own heart — • Sylvia is like you, mother." "Sylvia is like me?" She lifted her faded, still beautiful eyes to his face. "Yes, I suppose she is — ^what men call a womanly woman. God help men from what they call womanly women. Well" — she turned away with a careless, almost contemptuous movement of the shoulders — "I can't save you. Take my blessing, Richard. That's what you want, isn't it ?" "Thank you. I may bring Sylvia to see you ?" "Of course. Sylvia and I get on very well. We under- stand each other." She took up her evening cloak. "You are going round there now, I suppose ?" "Yes. She has been back a fortnight, and this has been my first chance of seeing her. We have been frightfully busy lately." "I know— one of the war office spasms. Has anything been heard of the brother?" "I don't think so. But I shall hear to-night." "Cut his throat probably." She glanced back at him with a curious little smile in her colorless face. "All the same, i8 JHE RED MIRAGE Sylvia is lucky. I am rather proud of you myself, RicBard. You are the only man I know who dresses in perfect taste without looking a vulgar noodle. Good night." "Good night, dear." Still she hesitated. The smile had died from her face. "By the way, Captain Sower called this afternoon. He asked you to come round to-night. He is having some friends — " "I know. I'm not one of them, though." "He's your senior, Richard. It isn't wise for an army man to make enemies. If I might ask it as a favor — ^please go this once." He frowned slightly. "You have always had a weakness for Sower — ^I can't imagine why. He is a baptized little Jew whose father's trade lies hidden in murky obscurity, and whose presence in the regiment is as curious as it is undesirable. But since you wish it, I'll drop in for a few minutes after I have seen Sylvia. Perhaps you're right about him." "Yes, yes, I'm right. Thank you, Richard. I am anxious for your career — ^that's alL And I have a queer feeling that Sower might make a difference. Good night, dear, good night." She kissed him hurriedly as he held the door open for her, and for an instant she looked up into his face with a curious half-tender, half-whimsical grimace. Then she was gone. An hour later Richard Farquhar entered the Omneys' drawing-room. In spite of the brilliant lights and warm colors, it was a somewhat comfortless apartment, neither in good nor bad taste, but merely characterless. No one could have told what sort of man had furnished it or now lived in it. The crowd, composed partly of recognized so- ciabilities and partly of artistic strivers, helped to complete the impression of indecision, Farquhar found his host by THE MAN SHE LEFT BEHIND HER 19 the fireside, a somewhat lone figure with the white thin face of a man never wholly at rest. He greeted Farquhar eager- ly and nervously. "Yes, yes, we've been back a fortnight. I'm glad to see you. In these days one never knows half the people who come. The place is just a sort of hotel, where your acquaintances bring their friends and you pay the bill. We — I expected you before — " "I have been kept at Aldershot," Farquhar answered, his eyes scanning the sea of faces. "I came my first free eve^ ning. I can't tell you how keen I have been to see you both again — and to hear your news." The elder man seemed to shrink together. He glanced nervously over his shoulder, and his face was gray and sunken. "There is no news, Farquhar. We traced him to Mar- seilles, and then followed a wrong scent over to Oran and farther south. It all came to nothing — ^the wrong fellow all the time. It broke me up. I was ill at some God-for- saken place, and when I was fit to move I found the detect- ives were in the Fiji Islands. I've lost hope — all hope, Farquhar." "He will come back," the other suggested. "No, no ; he was reckless and obstinate and — a bit of a coward. He couldn't face the disgrace — ^he left that to us — and he couldn't face me. I dare say I was harsh — ^but I swear I didn't deserve this. And now I have to lie and pre- tend and play this confotmded comedy. People — the few who believe — will tell you that my son is sheep-farming in Australia. Farquhar, what in heaven's name possesses a man to want children? Mine have been a curse — " "You have your daughter," was the sharp interruption. The banker glanced at the man beside him. The thin bronzed face was slightly flushed, and there was a fire in the passionate eyes which seemed to cause the observer a new 20 THE RED MIRAGE emotion. He turned away, his thin features twisted into a wry smile. "Yes — I have Sylvia — naturally she is a great comfort. But she is young — ^you must always remember that, and one must judge youth by other standards. We must not expect too much." "One might expect: everything of Sylvia," Farquhar re- sponded gravely. Again the swift anxious glance swept over his face. "Ah, yes, you are young yourself. Well, I suppose you want to see her ; I won't detain you. You will find her in the library, looking out some old prints for a well-inten- tioned futurist. We have become artistic, you know." If there was a covert sneer in the last words Farquhar was not in a position to notice it, for he had already begun to cross the room. One or two people spoke to him, but he answered absently, and they did not detain him. A pair of heavy tapestry curtains separated the so-called library from the drawing-room. He pushed them softly aside and entered. Sylvia Omney stood at the long oak table beneath the subdued cluster of electric light, her head bowed, her back toward him. She did not seem to hear his entrance, for she did not move, and he did not seek to call her attention. He remained motionless in the shadow, his hand still holding the curtain, his dark head thrown back as though in arrested contemplation of a masterpiece. And, indeed, the heavy somber background of oak and tapestry seemed to exist only to frame and relieve her soft white splendor, the rare perfec- tion of her lines and attitude. Perhaps it flashed across the man who watched her, fresh as he was from the vision of erratic emancipation, that there was womanhood itself, the mysterious sacred thing that no man has ever truly realized nor, in his basest moods, been able to debase. Here, in the THE MAN SHE LEFT BEHIND HER 21 midst of these relics from an older sterner age, she stood for him as a personification, a revelation of what had been and of what was passing away beneath the stormy changes of his generations. He hesitated, conscious that he held the great, if fleeting, moment of a man's life, when he stands before the vision of his ideal and believes that it is real and his own. A minute passed in this silent abstraction. Then he lifted his eyes to the mirror opposite her. He saw her face. Even that downcast profile startled him. She was not looking at the great folio which lay spread out before her, but staring sightlessly into the shadows, her cheeks bathed in color, her lips parted in breathless anticipation. A moment later she lifted her hands to her face, and he saw that she trembled. He knew then that she was conscious of his presence, and that that same awe and dread of their dawning happiness held her as it had held him in paralyzed waiting. "Sylvia," he said brokenly. She did not turn. She looked up, and in the glass their eyes met. The color had fled, leaving her whiter than the dead purity of her dress; her jaw had dropped. For an in- stant it seemed to him that a veil had been torn from her face, leaving it piteously distorted. "Sylvia !" he repeated in a changed tone. She turned then with a little stifled gasp. Her hand with the lace handkerchief had flown to her lips in an instinctive effort at concealment. "Oh," she said under her breath. "You ! Oh, Richard !" He strode across the room to her side. He seized her hands and kissed them in a stormy outbreak of passion which seemed to terrify her. She shrank from him, vainly trying to free herself. "Oh, Richard — don't — ^you must be more careful — we are not alone — ^there are people — " 22 THE RED MIRAGE He laughed up at her. His eyes were alight. The sub- dued flicker of recklessness, never wholly absent, blazed up- in defiance of her white timidity. "I know there are people — ^hundreds of them — some- where down in that dull old world which we've left miles beneath. We don't need to bother about them — ^we're all alone, where I swear no one has been before. My dear, my dear, those wretched weeks I To have to go about with an indifferent face, drill idiots into a belated patriotism, dress decently, and all the time with one's brains flower-gathering God knows where. Yes, I dare say, I am a little mad. I feel it — I'm glad of it. It's good to be mad like this — " Suddenly her expression penetrated his intoxication. He stopped short. "Sylvia— you're not ill?" he said roughly. She shook her head, half smiling, half tearful. "You may not care what people think, but I do — all nice women do. We are not properly engaged. You forget that." He nodded, his eyes fixed on her half-averted face. "Perhaps you are right — ^women are diiferent. In their love and in their religion they seek the outward visible signs. I wouldn't have it otherwise — ^it all helps to make one realize the inward beauty of it all. Unconsciously I may have thought as you do — I have brought the visible signs with me." He put his hand to his pocket and drew out a small case, which he opened and placed on the table before her. "That is my first gift," he said simply. As though drawn against her will she turned. Her eyes rested on the ring in its cold gray setting, and their pupils dilated with an amazed involuntary displeasure. It was a single flawless emerald, square cut and set in a narrow band of sapphire. Farquhar took it from its case and held it out to her. "You don't understand. It can't be just now. It's as THE MAN SHE LEFT BEHIND HER 23 though we were rejoicing in the midst of a terrible grief. Surely you have heard ?" "I know that your brother has not been found," he an- swered earnestly. "I know that he was — is very dear to you. Why should that come between us now?" "Because — " She made a little feeble gesture of despair, and then went on breathlessly. "It's not for myself, Rich- ard. There is my father to be considered, Robert's loss has broken his heart. He is ill — ^you must have seen that — I can't tell him that I am going to leave him — " "I don't ask it of you. I shall be patient I shall wait a year — ^two years, but you can't keep me on the outside of your life while I wait. You belong to me — ^you gave your- self to me. I don't claim more than you gave — I wouldn't claim that much if I saw it was not for your happiness — > and now I hold you above my life, my honor — " "Oh, hush ! hush !" She looked at him with terrified, be- seeching eyes. "Please don't say that — I don't want to hear it, Richard. It sounds so — ^wild and mad, and your eyes frighten me. Be reasonable and gentle — dear." The hard lines of violence smoothed themselves from his face as if by a miracle. With an almost feminine tender- ness he took her icy hand between his own and chafed it. "Forgive me — I think I have a devil in me, Sylvia, a little black fiend that drives me — ^well, to the very devil, in fact. Once or twice I could have done something desperate — just to rid myself of my own thoughts of you. I thought of losing you, dear." He stopped, his eyes narrowing as though at some vision which he could not fully face. "If I lost you — " he repeated slowly under his breath. "Sylvia, what is the matter ?" He looked at her more intently, and then, with a sudden flash of perception. "Something has happened — out there in Algiers. What ?" 24 THE RED MIRAGE She did not answer. She was not even looking at him. Following her glance, he turned slowly on his heel. A man who had stood hesitating on the threshold now came toward them, his hand extended. "Forgive me. Miss Omney. I interrupted, but I under- stood that I should find you here, and I could not wait. You see, I am punctual to the hour and to the day." He spoke in English, with a faint accent that was not dis- pleasing. Richard Farquhar drew back. The vehemence' had vanished from his manner, leaving him curiously at ease. Sylvia Omney glanced at him, swiftly, with an al- most childish appeal and fear. "Richard, this is Captain Arnaud. We met out in Al- giers. Captain Arnaud — ^this is Mr. Farquhar." Both men bowed. The Frenchman smiled with cordial recognition. "I have heard your name often, Mr. Farquhar. You are what is called an old playfellow, are you not — a privileged position ?" For an instant Farquhar waited, his eyes fixed on the girl's white face. She did not look at him or speak. "Indeed most privileged." He picked up the emerald ring and slipped it carelessly back into his pocket. CHAPTER ni THE FOURTH FLOOR BACK CAPTAIN ROBERT SOWER had never b'een tailed a drawing-room soldier, and this in spite of the fact that he had many detractors, and himself owned up frankly to a wealmess for a quiet unstrenuous existence. He was indeed somewhat persistent with this form of self -denuncia- tion, which served to weary his enemies and make their accusation too obvious to be effective, while, on the other hand, his deeds loudly denied his words. When he was in town he kept open house, and it became gradually a custom to such of his comrades as were in the vicinity to congregate in the luxuriously appointed smoking-room, smoke his cigars, and drink his wine — ^which procedure they were, for the most part, young enough to consider both economical and friendly. On the evening when Captain Desire Amaud entered the softly lighted apartment, four men were seated round the card-table smoking and chatting and apparently taking their game none too seriously. Sower himself stood by the log- fire warming his hands and exchanging desultory remarks with a man whom the indefinable something stamped as a civilian. As Anjaud's name was announced, Sower turned round and advanced with hospitably extended hand. "My good fellow, dehghted to see you. I was half afraid the fog had swallowed you up. Let me get the introduc- tions over. Preston, Hardy, St. Qair, Benson — all of my regiment — Captain Amaud of the French Army." By what 25 26 JHE RED MIRAGE appeared to be a slip he passed over the elderly man by the fireside, and the latter made no move to repair the omis- sion. Arnaud glanced at him curiously, and then came over to the fire. "It is pleasant to See you again, Sower," he said. "The St. Petersburg days might be a hundred years old. But you do not seem to have changed. Or is it that you take your surroundings with you?" Sower laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "I was always a luxurious fellow," he said apologetically; and then, as though dismissing the subject, "You're late. Where have you come from ?" "From the Omneys'. I believe you know them. I met them out in Algiers. Practically I owe my present visit tq their kindness." "Their kindness?" with significant emphasis. Captain Arnaud smiled into the fire. "Miss Omney is very charming — " he said. "And wealthy. Am I to congratulate?" Arnaud put his hand to his little fair mustache, but he did not answer directly, though his smile might have counted as an answer. "I have just met a comrade of yours," he remarked in- stead, "a somewhat unusual character for an Englishman — hot-headed, with admirable nerve — a certain Farquhar, if you know him." "Richard Farquhar?" "Yes, I believe that is the name. Who is he?" The man by the fireside shifted his position and glanced up. By mere chance Sower was looking in his direction, and their eyes met for an instant. "A lieutenant in my regiment," Sower answered quietly. "Quite promising ; served out in South Africa. His father was colonel at one time, but threw up his commission rather THE FOURTH FLOOR BACK a^ suddenly and went abroad. They say he was killed lion- hunting, but there was a good deal of talk at the time. He was expected to do something big — something in the gun- ner line, you know." "Ah!" Amaud's restless eyes had wandered from the fire to the distant card-table, where the four younger men were now playing with a listless interest. "Well, I do not suppose we shall often meet. Otherwise I might be nervous. He looks a fire-eater, and I fancy he has no reason to love me. He and Miss Omney are great friends, is it not so ?" Sower pushed the cigar box along the mantelpiece. "Help yourself. No, I should not call them great friends. Miss Omney's brother was a kind of David to Farquhar's Jonathan — " "And it was David who mistook the broad path for the narrow ?" "Exactly. There was a scandal, of course, a dishonored check and a bolt. Gambling, I believe. Old Charles Om- ney has the reputation of a hard man. Like most hard articles he has broken up under the first blow." Amaud was silent a moment, his delicate nervous face overclouded with some unpleasant reflection. He was still watching the players, and his cigar had been allowed to go out The man in the armchair lifted his head. "Gambling always seems to me the last resort of daring minds from the deadly security of modern life," he ob- served sententiously. He spoke for the first time, and Amaud glanced at him quickly and almost with appreciatioiL "You may be right. One has the feeling sometimes of stifling." He laughed C3ntilcally, and the older man rose. It was noticeable for the first time that he limped. "All Frenchmen gamble," he said, "either with their lives, 28 THE RED MIRAGE other people's lives, their honor, or somebody else's honor. Will you not take a hand ?" Arnaud hesitated with something of his first frigidity of manner, but there were nervous feverish patches of color in his pale face. "I beg your pardon — I did not catch your name?" he said coldly. "Lowe — Stephen Lowe, at your service." Arnaud returned the formal little bow. "I shall be delighted." They turned toward the table. Sower laughed signifi- cantly. "Be careful, Arnaud; remember the adage 'Lucky in love—' " It was at that moment that the door opened and Farqu- har entered. For no obvious reason his appearance caused a moment's awkward silence. Sower left his sentence un- finished. The four men looked up curiously from their game. He returned their glance with a tight-lipped smile on his white face that was not altogether agreeable. He had, in fact, the look of a man who has been drinking hard, but has somehow managed to retain a dangerous self-pos- session. There was no trace of hesitancy in his manner as he answered Sower's belated welcome, but instead a not easily defined shade of insolence. "Good evening, Sower. Captain Arnaud, if I mistake not. I had hardly expected the pleasure. Preston, you ought to be in bed. Gambling, too, by all the gods. With Lowe as prospective banker! May Heaven preserve your fleece. Sower, a brandy in the name of comradeship." The two subalterns glanced uneasily at each other across the table. Captain Sower was not a man to stand on the respect due to superior rank — on the contrary, in private life he was at pains to forget it — and Farquhar had the iTHE FOURTH FLOOR BACK 29 reputation of a coming man, and was therefore privileged. Nevertheless his manner had been aggressive. Sower ap- peared to notice nothing. "Help yourself," he said hospitably, "and sit down. You look queer. Anjrthing wrong ?" Farquhar made no answer. He sank down into the prof- fered chair and, having poured out half a tumbler of brandy from the decanter at his elbow, stared moodily into the firelight Sower watched him cautiously. Between the two men there was a dissimilarity which amounted to a dis- sonance. Sower was the better looking. English people, unaccustomed to distinguish, called him handsome if some- what Italian in coloring. Foreigners recognized the all- betraying curve about the nostrils, the somewhat animal brown eyes, and traced his name back to its origin. "You look ill, Farquhar," he repeated after a moment. "Can I do anything for you?" Farquhar looked up. "Ever been drunk?" he asked abruptly. "No. I've never been tempted that way. Have you?" "Not yet I'm thinking of trying it." He threw back his head with a laugh. Sower tossed his cigar end into the fender. "I shouldn't if I were you," he said coolly. "We have inspection to-morrow afternoon." He went over to the card-table and stood there watch- ing the changes of fortune with a languid good-humored interest. Lowe held the bank and had prospered. But he remained cool and apparently indiflferent. Farquhar returned to his fixed comtemplation of the fire- light. During the hour that passed he did not move, ex- cept to replenish the glass beside him. He drank steadily and obstinately, the fine mouth under the short black mus- tache drawn into a line of uncontrollable disgust. No one 30 THE RED MIRAGE spoke to him. The men round the card-table had not moved. Sower remained standing, watching without com- ment. Lowe took no notice of him. He worked with the swift accuracy of a born croupier. "Twenty-nine, gentlemen !" Arnaud's hands, resting on the table, twitched nervously, but he did not look up. Preston pushed his chair violently back. "I'm cleaned out," he said. "You'll have to get on with- out me. I'm cleaned out, I say." Sower laughed good-naturedly. "You young fool — ^I ought to have stopped you. You'll have to go carefully for a bit, my son." Preston seemed not to hear him. He went over to the fireside and stood there with his back turned, his head bent. He did not notice Farquhar, who looked up as though raised from his deliberate lethargy by some painful sound. The boy's round unformed face was wet. "Hullo— Preston!" He started violently. "Oh, you, Farquhar — I didn't know you were there. For God's sake don't look at me — I'm a fool — ^but I'm cleaned out. Two hundred pounds at a sitting — all my allowance — " He broke off. Farquhar shifted his position so that he faced the card- table. His eyes were dangerous. "I say, this is a damned gambling hell," he said clearly. The tension snapped. The haggard faces beneath the shaded light were lifted in dazed incredulity. Amaud stag- gered to his feet like a man shaken out of stupor. 'T)id you speak, Farquhar?" Sower asked quietly. Farquhar did not move. "Yes, I said this was a damned gambling hell. I may THE FOURTH FLOOR BACK 31 add that you are a damned scoundrel. You have let this boy ruin himself. You are his superior officer here as well as on the field. He is in your house. Ask your friend there to return his lOU's on the spot, or I promise you we two shall be explaining matters at headquarters to-morrow morning. You know what that means, I fancy." There was no answer for a minute. All five men looked instinctively at Sower, waiting for his next move. The cloud of suffocating passions had lifted, leaving a rank, bitter-tasting reality. Sower recovered his calm good-na- ture with unaffected ease. "Farquhar, you are undoubtedly the worse for my brandy," he observed. "Also you may be thankful that I do not choose to assume my military position toward my guests. At the same time, I believe there is some reason in your madness. I even admit frankly that I have been careless. I had no idea the stakes had been so high — as you know, I am entirely ignorant of cards. Lowe, I should be glad if you would return Mr. Preston's note of hand. I shall settle with you myself for your loss. I trust now I have rectified matters that Farquhar will see fit to apolo- gize — if not now, at least when he is sufficiently recovered." Richard Farquhar rose leisurely to his feet. There was no trace of unsteadiness in his steps as he crossed the room, but it was obvious that Sower had not overstated his con- dition, "I do not suppose that even when I have recovered I shall see things differently," he said, turning his white, ironically smiling face for a moment to the motionless group. "Come along, Preston." They went, down the stairs together. From somewhere in the purlieus of Sower's expensive respectability a clock chimed six, but it was still dark. A dense veil of fog hung 32 THE RED MIRAGE over the blurred and sickly lamplights, and Farquhar stood for a moment as though suddenly at a loss. Preston touched him on the elbow. "I want to thank you, Farquhar," he said shyly. "I feel as though you had awakened me oat of an awful nightmare. It was decent of you—-" "H'm, yes— I don't know. Make a point of not dream- ing, Preston. It's a bad practise. Either one gets night- mare or the dream is too good, and the reality shows up a trifle dull by comparison. Either way one's balance is inclined to get upset. I believe morning is knocking about somewhere, though I can't find it." The boy hesitated, trying to discern the face of the man beside him through the yellow obscurity. "I— don't like to leave you like this — " "Oh, that's all right — ^you know Providence is accredited with a peculiar regard for persons in my condition. My room is somewhere in the neighborhood. If I'm not at inspection you'll remember about my nervous breakdown, won't you?" This time Preston made no further attempt to detain him, and he went on down the street with something of a blind man's unfailing sense of locality. He had not far to go, a by-street bringing him to a quiet unpretentious house which his instinct again recognized. He produced a latch-key, considered it with the same hard, ironical smile, and then slipped it into the lock. Inside all was inky ob- scurity. He felt for the electric switch. But here his in- stinct seemed to have deserted him. He stumbled instead against the first step of the stairs, touched something that was warm and living, and in the recoil struck his head against a treacherous overhanging shelf. "I beg somebody's pardon," a quiet voice said through the subsequent silence. "I'm afraid I've killed somebody." THE FOURTH FLOOR BACK 33 Then the light was switched on. Farquhar saw before him a small person, dowdily dressed, with a small thin face under a small hat. He took his hand from his head and considered it. "No very serious damages, I fear. But I was-^shall we say upset — ^before, and now my brain seems to have broken off all communication with my legs. Give me an arm up to my room, will you? There's a good old soul. I don't want to spend the remainder of the morning on your stairs." She obeyed instantly and with some adroitness. "It's that ridiculous hat-rack," she said. "It blocks up the whole halL I have often spoken to Mrs. Ferrief about it." "You — " He stopped short, withdrawing his arm and leaning against the banisters. "I thought— really I must be far gone — I thought you were Mrs. Ferrier." "Oh, no ; I rather wish I was. I'm the fourth floor back." "Well, I don't know who the fourth floor back is exactly, but I know I have taken an unwarrantable liberty-^" "Rubbish. Give me your arm again." "I protest—" "Don't. You are not in a condition to offer resistance. This is your room, isn't it?" She pushed open a door on the first floor and turned on the light. "It doesn't look very cheerful, I confess. Plush furniture should always be shrouded in decent obscurity. But Mrs. Ferrier has no taste. Sit down in that sofa over there. Its bark is no doubt worse than its bite. I'll have the fire going in a ipinute." fie looked at her in weary, half-amused perplexity. "I don't know what you mean. I can't allow this sort of thing. It's not right that a young lady — " *I'm not a lady — at least, not by circumstance. As tc 34 THE RED MIRAGE my youth', you're not certain of it at this very minute, and down-stairs you called me 'a good old soul.' Anyhow, I don't care. You are ill. I don't know whether I have made you ill or whether you were ill before, but you look ghastly. Sit down." He obeyed, tossing his coat and hat on to the nearest chair, and sat listlessly with his head in his hands. From a long way off he heard her soft rapid movements. The){ were curiously soothing, and presently he looked up again, urged by an idle wonder. But apparently she had forgotten his existence. Hatless, with sleeves rolled up to her elbows, she knelt before the fire, engaged in a quiet but determined struggle with a rusty and refractory kettle. The red glow on her face and, above all, the removal of the ancient hat revealed her in a new light if it did not solve the enigma of her personality. Her age was not to be guessed. The brown hair, parted in the middle and strained back over her ears, inclined to a defiant waviness, and her features, somewhat too sharp, were young enough in themselves. But their expression was not youthful. It was too reso- lute, too uncompromising, too careworn, and her dress, though scrupulously neat, had no touch of girlish taste or vanity. Presently she got up from her knees. "In two minutes you will have your tea," she announced in the ruthless tones of a professional nurse. "Would you like sugar?" "Yes, thanks. It's unspeakably kind of you. Might I ask how you knew all these tea-things existed?" "Instinct Besides, military men are like old maids— they always have everything that could possibly be of some use in various improbable contingencies." "You knew I was a military man ! Instinct again?" "No. Mrs. Ferrier told me. She tells me all about her lodgers. I suppose the fourth floor back may take a per- ,THE FOURTH FLOOR BACK 35 missible interest in the dining-room. How is your head now ?" "Better — " For the first time she turned and looked him full in the face, and he broke off blankly. Either she was young, or she had conserved in those two clear, steady eyes all that is youthful and all that is splendid in youth. She was smiling, and inexplicably her frank pleasure seemed to goad him out of his heavy indifference. He sprang up with a rough laugh. "Wliy, you're actually not bad-looking in your queer way," he stammered, "and I called you a 'good old soul' ! Merciful heavens, what a fool I am to care about anything — as though anything mattered — ^here — " She must have seen the insane devil in his white drawn face, but she did not flinch. She stood there, kettle in hand, and looked at him. "Sit down. I would like to spare you the trouble of com- ing up the stairs to apologize when you have recovered." For a long second they stared at each other in challenging silence. Had she wavered, the rekindled fury in him must have gained the upper hand. But her composed self-confi- dence was absolute. He sank back groaning. "I am a cur," he said under his breath. "Oh, no, you're not a cur. You are or were drunk. It's not a nice word, but I'm afraid I'm too busy to think out pretty ways of expressing myself. There's your tea." She placed the cup fearlessly at his elbow. "Please drink it at once." He obeyed. * "You're quite right," he said simply. "I was drunk. I would like you to believe that it's for the first time." "I know." "Do you?" "Habit is obvious." She leaned against the arm of the sofa and studied him with folded arms and perplexed brows. 36 THE RED MIRAGE "I wondet why there was a first tihie. Forgive me, but look- ing after you has cost me a charity French lesson with an old professor who can only find time for me between seven and eight. You see, I am bent on self-improvement — con- sequently I feel justified in replenishing my store of wisdom at your expense. People who drink are either stupid or — " "Or what?" " — they want to forget things." He smiled a little. "Isn't that asking?" "Yes, it is, but I don't expect an answer. I am just won- dering. Now lie down. Your head is aching furiously I have no doubt, and probably you have work in front of you like other mortals. I have some eau-de-Cologne up-stairs. 'Don't jeer. I am going to fetch it." "Wait a minute. Won't you tell me your name ?" She put her head a little on one side. "Gabrielle — Gabrielle Smith. Not very euphonious, is it ? But one's baptism is the first occasion where the great law concerning the sins of the fathers comes into operation. Now—" "And won't you tell what you are ?" "That's a large question. I wish I knew myself. Offi- cially I am anj^ing from a traveling companion to an un- satisfactory nursemaid, in either case out of job. Is that what you meant?" He closed his eyes wearily. "I don't know — ^you have been awfully decent — it all seems rather like a grotesque, gigantic dream from which I can't wake up — " His voice died away. When she came back with her eau-de-Cologne bottle and a handkerchief he was asleep. CHAPTER IV THE GRRA.T LAW COMES INTO FORCE WHEN Richard Farquhar awoke from his heavy sleep it was broad daylight. The fog had lifted and a pale winter sunshine poured in on to the plush furniture and re- vealed it in all its native hideousness. He looked at every- thing in turn, like a man trying to assure himself of his own reality. Then he got up and rang the bell. By the time his summons was answered he had smoothed his hair into order and slipped a dressing-gown over the all-betraying evening clothes. Mrs. Ferrier eyed him with large and comfortable satisfaction. "Did you ring, sir?" "Yes. I want my breakfast, please. And I have a con- fession to make. I didn't get home — ^till six this morning, and — ^and I was in a corresponding condition. A — a young lady was kind enough to help me up-stairs and lend me these things. I should be glad if they were returned with my thanks and compliments." Mrs, Ferrier picked up the rug. Her mouth was pursed. "Why — ^it's Miss Smith's," she said severely. "I've a good mind to give notice — " "Because she helped me up-stairs ? Good heavens, I sup- pose you'd throw stones at the good Samaritan. Don't be a fool, Mrs. Ferrier. If she goes I go, and there's an end of the matter. You can go now. In all probability I shall be in town again to-night. No — ^leave these things there ; I'll give them back to her myself." 37 38 THE RED MIRAGE He dressed, and by midday was on duty. Those who had witnessed the scene on the preceding night glanced at him curiously, but his face betrayed nothing — ^neither weariness nor the self-disgust usual on such occasions. They saw he had changed, but the change was indefinable. They saw also that, whatever else had happened, he had not apolo- gized to Sower. The two men exchanged the curtest and most perfunctory greeting. By seven o'clock he stood again in the Omneys' library, this time alone. The emptiness of the room seemed to re- veal something that he had never noticed before — a curious, chilling lack of sincerity. The tapestries, the old oak furni- ture unveiled themselves as relics debased by a blind un- feeling power to a place that was not theirs. Their very genuineness seemed to stand in question. Farquhar turned from the contemplation of their sordidness to the door. It had opened quietly, and Sylvia Omney stood on the thresh- old waiting. She was simply dressed in a dark clinging material which set off more perfectly the fair sweetness of her features. "You wanted to speak to me, Richard?" "Yes ; it was good of you to come. I know I hadn't the right to ask. I behaved vilely last night." She looked up into his face with an innocent wonder. "Did you ? I didn't see it. I only thought that you were just as I had always believed you to be — ^generous and chiv- alrous and loyal." "Yes, but afterward. It isn't chivalry only to act decently to a woman's face. Afterward I let my love for you turn me into a mad beast. It was an insult to your goodness. And for that I want you to forgive me." "Why, then, I forgive you, Richard." He bent his head. "Thank you. And I have something more to say." THE GREAT LAW COMES INTO FORCE 39 "And I to you, Richard." He still held her hand, and with a grave courtesy he led her to the great armchair by the fire. She sat there, her head bent like a frail flower, and he turned away from her for a moment, his face colorless, "I want to tell you that I know," he went on quietly. "I thought it would save you trouble if I told you. One has a fine instinct in these things, and last night I felt suddenly that I had gone out of your life. It hurt unbearably for the time." "Only for the time?" She had looked up quickly, but he did not see the childish disappointment in her eyes. Nor did he answer, and her head drooped again. Her hands lay in her lap tightly inter- locked. "I ought to ask you to forget," she said gently. His hand rested on the mantelpiece, and she saw with an inward shrinking that it was clenched and white as marble. "You may be right, Sylvia. In our days we sacrifice the ideal to what we take to be the reality. Generations ago a man went out into the world with a woman's glove as his device and herself as his inspiration. It did not matter that she was as high above him and as inaccessible as the stars. Wolfram and Elizabeth — do you remember? Heaven knows" — ^he gave a short awkward laugh — "I am no Wolfram, dear ; but that is the part I am to play. I don't suppose Wolfram could forget or even tried to. He knew better than to tear out the best in him. I know better. Things remain as they were." "I am to marry Captain Amaud," she said, with a note of defiance in her low voice. "That can make no difference. I take you with me al- ways. You understand?" "Yes," she said. 40 THE RED MIRAGE "Then good-by." She must have felt that he was bringing up his last re- serve of self-control, yet she rose impulsively with out- stretched hands, her brown eyes filled with tender reproach, "Richard, you are going, and you not even asked me for my explanation!" "That's true." He smiled faintly. "I had forgotten. Now that I realize that you have ceased to care, the rea- son why is, after all, of less importance — " "But I do care !" she interrupted with passionate convic- tion. "I care for you more than I have ever done. Can't you feel that? Oh, how shall I ever make you understand. Richard, how is a woman, brought up as I have been, to rec- ognize love from friendship ? She lives in her little narrow circle with nothing serious in her life but her dreams, and long before love comes to her she is in love with love. And when a man whom she honors, who is perhaps her dearest friend, brings her his own awakened feeling, how can she tell that what she feels is only a reflection, a thing that would have responded to any great appeal? You under- stand, Richard?" "Yes," he said. "Good-by, Richard. Forgive me — and God bless you." He turned abruptly and left her without answer. Outside a gray twilight already shrouded the pompous square and hid its bald lines, beneath the veil which only London knows how to cast over her own ugliness. West- ward the dim glow of massed lights began to rise, half- threateningly, half-luringly, above the horizon of the house- tops, and in the distance, drifting through the magic-colored atmosphere, sounded the dull roar of a world that never sleeps nor rests from its vain quest after its unknown pur- pose. Richard Farquhar stood and listened. All over — < done with — finished. THE GREAT LAW COMES INTO FORCE 41 Above the immediate silence there sounded the note of a bugle, and after that the long-drawn-out wail of bagpipers. Some regiment on the march homeward. Richard Farqu- har lifted his head and listened with new emotion stirring in his blood. It came down to him through the ages, the call of fighters to the fighting man, the command of that power which is sometimes merciless, sometimes merciful — duty. That much was left. Richard Farquhar turned and went homeward. As he entered and saw Robert Sower standing by the fire- side, his gloved hands behind his back, his whole attitude expressive of a cool self-certainty, his very pulses seemed to stop and then break into a hammering gallop of triumph. He closed the door sharply, and Sower turned. "Well ?" Farquhar said quietly. *'I have come for your apology." "Then you have come on a fruitless errand." Statement and answer followed sharp on each other's heel. A tremor seemed to pass over Sower's body. The brown, slightly protruding eyes flickered- But he answered quietly, even amicably. "I am your superior officer. You insulted me grossly and I may say, unjustly. Recognizing your condition at that time, I showed a forbearance of which this visit is a further proof. I ask no more of you than that you should withdraw your words before the company in which they were uttered." "You ask more than I shall perform." It sounded as though somewhere in the room steel had rasped against steel. Suddenly and terribly Sower's self- restraint broke down. "I am the Jew, am I not— the son of a Jew ? — ^Very well — now I shall act like one !" He began to pace the room with sfiort feverish steps. "I am 42 THE RED MIRAGE going to tell you something no one has ever heard before. Only three people know it, and they have held their tongues — your mother and Major Mowbray. No — don't interrupt. You can't silence me with these damned eyes of yours. You've got to listen. You don't remember your father, do you? He was in India when you were a child, and your mother does not speak very often of him. You see, how well I know things. But you are very proud of him — and rightly. He was a brilliant soldier and something of an in- ventor. He invented a gun that, though it would be twenty years old now, would still rank head and shoulders above anything we have. It was unfortunate that he spent more than he had and gambled with what he did not possess. The British government was as usual dilatory and parsi- monious. Colonel Farquhar offered his invention to a for- eign power. My father knew everything. I was a young subaltern at the time. My father felt it his duty to inform the authorities. Previous to this he and Colonel Farquhar had been intimate. As a last act of friendship he warned your father of his purpose. Your father murdered him. "My father lived a few hours," Sower went on deliber- ately. "He was a Jew, but he was a great man. He held your father in his power. He could have had his pound of flesh. He had mercy. He let your father go — on three con- ditions. The first condition was that he withdrew his offer to the foreign power, the second that he resigned his com- mission, the third that he left the country. These things he did." "My father died in Africa," Farquhar said. "So I have been told." There was a long silence. Sower studied the younger man out of the corner of his eyes. There was something he did not fully understand — a phase of humanity that did not fit in with his carefully-drawn-up catalogue. This red-hot THE GREAT LAW COMES INTO FORCE 43 temperament grown suddenly cold frightened him. It was like handling an unknown explosive. "Your father signed a confession in front of witnesses. You will understand that in view of the circumstances it was felt necessary to have some hold over him. Here is the paper." Farquhar accepted the neatly folded document and ■took it nearer to the light. He read it carefully without any trace of emotion. "I understand." He held the paper thoughtfully, as though weighing it. "Of course it is obvious that this is of great value to me. How much do you want ?" "I am in no need of money. It is your career or mine," he said. "You must go. Half an hour since I would have been satisfied with an apology." "I see. I am to resign my commission." "That's my request." Farquhar nodded. "I give you my word of honor that I shall send in my papers to-night in return for this letter." "I accept your word. The letter is in your hands." Farquhar started slightly and then smiled. "Ah, I might have burned it. You are a man of remark- able discernment. Well, our bargain is closed. I dare say I have to thank you for your long silence in this matter. But virtue is its own reward. Good night." Sower took up his hat from the table. He frowned at his own hand, which shook. "You are confoundedly cool about it all," he said. "One would think you didn't care." The door closed. Farquhar went back to his writing- table. He did not tear up the yellow faded letter, but propped it against a bronze candlestick and sat there staring at it with blank eyes. Then he began to write. He wrote 44 THE RED MIRAGE four letters. One was to the war office. When he had finished he opened a drawer and took out an army revolver, which he examined and then loaded carefully. He switched off the electric lamp. There was now no light in the quiet room save the dull reflection from the dying fire. He went over to the hearth and stamped his father's confession into the embers. He drew himself up and faced his own drear, ghostly reflection in the looking-glass. It gave him a last satisfaction to see that his hand was steady. The polished barrel winked like an evil silver eye in the reflected firelight. "Mr. Farquhar — are you there ?" His hand still lifted, frozen by surprise into immobility, he saw in the glass opposite him that the door had opened. Against the dimly lighted passage outside he recognized the neat silhouette of a woman's figure. The next instant the room was flooded with light. "Oh, 1 beg your pardon. It was so quiet and dark I did not know you were in. I came for my eau-de-Cologne — " She stopped. He had turned instantly, but not in time. Her eyes rested on his hand. "Oh!" she said under her breath. She closed the door and came quietly across the room till she stood opposite him. "What were you going to do, Mr. Farquhar?" He threw back his head. He was still very young, and in a minute more he had counted on facing the mysteries of life and death. His face was ghastly in its rigid resolve and dread. "I don't think it's much good lying to you. Miss Smith," he said, with a short laugh. "No." She nodded. "You were going to kill yourself. I have seen that before. My father blew out his brains. It was an act of sudden madness. Money drove him mad. Is it money with you ?" "No. I have lost everything." JHE GREAT LAW COMES INTO FORCE 45 "May I ask— what?" "I can't tell you." "Oh, I understand. Our griefs are never quite all our own. Usually they are handed down to us." He started uneasily. "How did you know that?" "Oh, my friend, don't we all bear the curse-mark on us in one way or another? We have to try and live it down as best we can." "Without hope?" "There is always the light ahead." "I don't understand—" She turned to him with an expression that was new to him. The small thin face seemed illuminated with an inward fire. "There is a light somewhere," she said, and her voice rang with stern enthusiasm. "It must exist — and if it does not exist jve must light it ourselves, with our own hands, with our own ideals. We must have it or believe in it." His hand, resting on the mantelpiece, relaxed. The re- volver rang against the marble. "You say that," he said harshly — ^"you. who have not had a square meal for a fortnight!" She threw back her head. "Who dared tell you that?" "Never mind. I know it." She said nothing, but the color died out of Her cheeks. He turned from her and buried his face in his arms, and there was a little silence. Then he felt her hand on his shoulder. "Do you think I should have the courage or the mean- ness to tell you to go on if I did not know in my own body what going on meant? Disgrace, poverty, loss — I know them all. But one can't throw down one's weapons 46 THE RED MIRAGE in the first skirmish. I haven't, and you shan't. Promise me. I am not going to leave you till you do." He lifted his head and looked at her with grim eyes. "You are rather splendid, Miss Smith," he said gravely. "No, not more so than hundreds of other women. Do you promise?" "Yes," he said. He held out his hand, and she gave him hers. He noticed for the first time that it was white and unusually beautiful in shape. She saw the wonder in his eyes and drew back. "Thank you. I believe that your life will be of use some day to yourself or another. I dare say I shall be even glad that I helped to save it. Good-by." "I may see you again — " "We may meet again, but I think not. I have a job, and am going abroad soon. May I take this with me as t souvenir?" She had picked up the revolver from the mantelpiece, and their eyes met. "Be careful — it is loaded." "I know. I have handled a revolver before now. May I have it?" "Yes," he said simply. He held the door open for her, and she passed out into the gloomy landing. A lighted candle stood on the table, and she picked it up and held it over her head. "There is no electric light on the fourth floor back," she said grimly. "You take your light with you," he answered. She looked at him with a quizzical good humor. "Pretty, but not practical," she said. "Good night." CHAPTER V MRS. FARQUHAR EXPLAINS ""VT'OU know, I really congratulate you both," said Mrs. -I- Farquhar cheerfully. "Some people are against mixed nationalities in marriage, but that's not my idea at all. The great attraction of marriage is that it's a plunge in the dark, and the deeper and darker the plunge the more attractive it is. There, I hope you will be very happy." She kissed Sylvia Omney on either cheek, and the girl looked at her with her warm eyes full of remorse and un- spoken appeal. "It is good of you," she said rather unsteadily. "You have been such a friend to me — and I was afraid — " "You were afraid that I was as silly as Richard? My dear, Richard is far too intense, and intense people are a bore. Captain Arnaud, be kind to her in that nasty stufify Sahara of yours." The young officer bowed. London had not agreed with him. He looked pale and haggard, and the eyes behind the fair eyelashes were furtive and somewhat bloodshot. "I am armed with the best will a man can have," he said with grave sincerity, "I hope to make even the Sa- hara bearable." He took Mrs. Farquhar's extended hand and bowed over it gallantly. Five minutes later she ran down the stairs to her son's library. It was a neglected room, which he only used on rare state occasions. The old weapons hanging on the walls had belonged to his father, and the whole atmosphere 47 48 THE RED MIRAGE seemed impregnated with the spirit of a dead, if powerful, personality. Mrs. Farquhar closed the door with a chuckle of trium- phant malice. "They're gone at last," she said. "I assure you there isn't a more surprised woman in England than dear Sylvia. Shg came expecting to find me with ashes on my head in- stead of a wig, and I laughed in her face." Richard Farqu- har turned from the window where he had been standing, and her eyes grew suddenly grave. "My dear, you're not breaking your heart over her, are you ?" "No." He came slowly into the room. "I might have done so, but fate has given me something else to come to grief over. I've had a quarrel with Sower." She said nothing, and he went on gently: "You were quite right about him, mother. He was dangerous. I have resigned my commission. That was his price for my father's name." Still Mrs. Farquhar did not speak. She sat down in the great leather chair by the fireplace, her white jeweled hands resting on the arms, her eyes large with something that was half pain, half fear. She looked up at him, and the wild childish horror in her eyes touched him to an amazed pity. "Mother, I don't want to hurt you, but you must. I have a right now to know." "Yes, yes." She put her hands to her white-powdered cheeks. "Yes, yes, of course. There isn't much. It was in this room, Richard. He came home one night and said he had killed a man. I — it was awful! — ^He had no blood on him, Richard, but one felt he had blood all over; it was in his eyes, and — He said it was all right — no one could touch him, but he had to go — for always. And then he cursed me — and then he fell on his knees — ^here — ^by MRS. FARQUHAR EXPLAINS 49 this chair — ^and buried his face in my lap — and cried. It was awful, Richard — a man like that — ^to cry." Her voice cracked, and became thin and broken like an old worn-out instrimient. "Then he went away — ^and one day a man came to me and told me he was dead — ^but I never knew. I always believed I should know." He knelt beside her, and taking her hands between his own, soothed them like a child's. There was something in the action curiously at variance with his expression, which was hard and reckless. "And Mowbray — and Sower?" "They both knew. Mowbray worshiped your father. He never showed by word or look that he was partner in the ugly secret. But Sower — " She turned her faded frightened eyes to him. "I never understood that, Richard, I never understood why he shielded us. It frightened me. Only once he spoke of it. He said he would never make use of the power — ^unless we made him. But it was his father who had been — murdered. It wasn't natural, Rich- ard, it wasn't natural that he should forgive." "No," he agreed sternly; and then after a moment's silence: "And my father — ^was there no reason — ^had he no explanation?" With a sudden vigorous movement she freed herself and stood up, her clenched jeweled hands pressed against her breast, her eyes grown suddenly electric. "I was the excuse," she said fiercely. "And I was ex- cuse enough." "You?" He also had risen, and as they stood there facing each other, the subtle resemblance of temperament seemed to blaze through their features like some inward fire, changing all physical dissimilarity to a convincing like- ness. *Yes. .You don't understand, Richard— you are too 50 THE RED MIRAGE young. But it is women like myself who drive men to such things. We are educated to be professional vampires, and the more brains we have the more deadly we are." She gave a short ironical laugh. "Don't you want to curse me?" "No," he answered simply. "I don't curse you any more than I believe my father does if he is alive. If he is alive I am going to find him, and if I find him, I shall tell him that I honor and love him. There was a wrong to be righted, and he did his best." He went to the door and there turned and looked at her. "If I find my father is there any message that I may give him — from you ?" he asked. "Tell him that that night he won me," she said with defiance. "Tell him that in the brief interludes when I dare to think I know that I love him. Tell him that." Richard Farquhar bowed and went out. Half an hour later he reached his club. Captain Sower, he was informed, had just left with Mr. Preston and a strange gentleman. Whereupon Farquhar turned in his tracks and drove straight to Preston's lodgings. His purpose was now two- fold, and fired by a white-hot fury of indignation. In the "strange gentleman" he had recognized Lowe, and Preston was a fool with a following of other fools. For in that moment Farquhar had ceased to be a man overshadowed by his own black destiny. He was once more and for the last time the officer upon whose shoulders rested the honor of a regiment, the great unity which he served. It was a curious group of men that confronted him as he hesitated on the threshold. That which he had expected was not there. Evidently a card game had been in full swing but had been violently interrupted. The cards lay scattered on the square green table beneath the electric light, and there was a pile of untouched, apparently forgot- ten money. Both Sower and Lowe were present, together MRS. FARQUHAR EXPLAINS 51 ■with Preston and one other man whom Farquhar did not recognize. They stood far apart from one another, as though divided by some hidden antagonism — Sower by the fire- side, where he maintained an attitude of easy good nature, touclied indefinably with regret; Lowe and the stranger kept to the shadow on opposite sides of the room. Preston was standing next the table, his hands resting clenched on the polished edge, his young boyish face gray and drawn- looking. As Farquhar saw him the spirit of tension became definite, an almost visible occupant of the quiet room. And yet is was Arnaud's face which Farquhar saw first and last. Here was Sylvia Omney's future — a white-lipped man, whom some violent emotion had made temporarily old and haggard. He had been seated by the card-table, but now looked up, and for an instant they watched each other in open hatred and distrust. Preston turned. "Oh, it's you, Farquhar," he said husk- ily. "I wasn't expecting you, but I'm half glad you've come. This is a beastly business. Shut the door, there's a good fellow." Farquhar obeyed. He came forward, and his eyes passed swiftly from one silent figure to the other. And again it was Arnaud's face which fascinated him. "What has happened ?" he asked. No one answered for a moment. Preston drew himself up, "We were having a quiet game," he said, as though each word were torn from him by force — "Arnaud, Lowe and I — ^when this gentleman and Captain Sower arrived. It seems there's been a leakage somewhere. I can't explain. I hardly understand myself. Mr. Forth, perhaps you'll be good enough — " The man addressed bowed. His clean-shaven face was expressionless. 52 THE RED MIRAGE "The duplicate plans of Captain Sower's new aero-gun have been stolen," he said tersely. "They were in Cap- tain Sower's possession, and he was instructed to give full information to the younger officers under his command. Various incidents led him to believe that the secret had not been properly kept. He put the matter into my hands, and I've followed the clue he gave me — here." He paused, stoically unconscious of the almost theatrical tension which his silence caused. Farquhar glanced about him. His own pulses were beating faster. "Well?" It was Lowe who had broken the intolerable silence. He had never for an instant lifted his eyes from the face of the man seated beneath the light, and now he took a step forward as though to meet the answer. Arnaud looked up with a twitching smile. He put his hand to his fcreast pocket and drew out a thin sheaf of transparent paper and laid it on the table. "Le voila!" he said. For a full minute no one spoke a word. Each man's at- tention vras centered on the silent deadly witness against the honor of one among them. Then Farquhar looked up and met Arnaud's eyes. He read there more than mere bravado — a nerveless hideous fear, the panic-stricken appeal of a man who has trembled for days on the brink of ruin and feels the ground slipping beneath him. And this was Sylvia Omney's future ! Farquhar turned involuntarily to Lowe. A faint ironical smile played around the man's hard mouth. It was the merest shadow, but it bespoke a purpose triumphantly accomplished. "Captain Arnaud has saved a great deal of trouble," he observed brutally. Still Arnaud did not move. His white hands lay para- lyzed in front of him, and his eyes had become blank and stupid-looking, like those of an animal which is being done MRS. FARQUHAR EXPLAINS 53 to death". Richard Farquhar took a step nearer and, picking up the papers, held them as though weighing them. "Wait a minute. Don't be in such a hurry. I take the responsibility for this business." They stared at him. He was still weighing the papers and smiling rather wryly. Sower shrugged his shoulders. "Are you drunk again, my good fellow?" "No, not this time. I merely state that I accept all re- sponsibility. That sounds clear enough, doesn't it?" He was thinking of Sylvia at that moment, and Preston's stricken cry of horror sounded dull and far off. "You! What do you mean, Farquhar? You weren't such a fool as to show them to him ?" "No, I wasn't such a fool, Preston." "My God, what do you insinuate ? I won't believe it. It's Intolerable — impossible. Say you didn't — didn't sell them, Farquhar !" "Captain Arnaud will explain," was the answer. Arnaud rose slowly to his feet. He was staring across the table into Farquhar's face, stupidly, incredulously, and when he spoke it was in the monotone of a man under a hypnotic command. "They were offered me," he said. "Lieutenant Farquhar offered them to me. I disliked it ; but I am a good French- man, and the temptation was too great. I bought them. I can only add — that I regret — " He stammered and broke off with a real helplessness. Farquhar turned from him to Sower. The latter's fea- tures had assumed a mask of ironical acceptance. "In that case there is no more to be said," he observed coolly. "We can now credit Mr. Farquhar's statement." Farquhar bowed. "Thank you," he said simply. Preston crossed the room and flung open the door with a 54 THE RED MIRAGE cold deliberation. "Gk)od-by, Farquhar. I hope you have decency enough left to know what to do." For a short space which seemed an eternity Farquhar hes- itated. The scorn and bitterness in the boy's eyes had stung him. An hour ago he had been half a hero, and now was nothing, beneath even contempt. Then he, too, bowed. "I resigned my commission this morning," he said. "God be thanked for that." The door closed on him. The click of the lock sounded to him like the snapping of a cord, casting him adrift from everything that had hitherto been the very integral part of his life. He went down the narrow stairs into the street. It was one of those rare, respectable backwaters where a bus is unknown and a taxi an event. Everything was quiet. In the distance the rumble of traffic sounded like the sullen roar of an ocean. Farquhar stood hesitating. Some one touched him on the arm. He turned and saw Amaud — a new Arnaud grown calm, almost indifferent. He was smoking, and the faint reflection from his cigar lighted up the white composure of his features. "I want to speak to you for a moment," he said. "I want to ask you — why you did that ?" Farquhar made no answer, and he went on deliberately : "You are not mad. You do not love me. You have good reason to hate me." "You are to be Miss Omney's husband. She chose you in preference to myself. My feelings toward her have not changed. I considered it my business to defend you. If you had been her brother I should not have done more or less." Arnaud burst out laughing. "You mean toi say that to save a woman's happiness — forgive the conceit — ^you have thrown up position and Honor?" "I believe more has been done for less," was the calm MRS. FARQUHAR EXPLAINS 55 answer. "In any case the sacrifice was not so great as it may seem. Nor am I quite the hackneyed hero of romance, destroying himself in generous self-sacrifice. I had lost practically everything before. What remained I chose to lose in my own way." "It wasn't all for myself. There was niy fiancee — " "I understand." "I was pretty desperate, and not so cool when Lowe came with his second offer. You can guess what that was. My friendship with Sower made it' easy, and some- how he unconsciously made it easier. I hadn't much sense of shame about it. Compared to betraying one's own country it seemed a clean business. Do you under- stand?" "Fairly well." "And I let you bear the brunt. How does that strike you?" "Panic — ^the instinct of self-preservation. I counted on it. The future will be different." "How do you mean?" Farquhar turned round and faced him with deliberate significance. "It must be," he said. "As for me, I am done for. Though no one will speak of what has happened, the fact remains. By right I should put a bullet through my brains. It is what they expect of me. But I am not going to. I have another purpose. Let me explain. Miss Omney believes in you and so do I — ^to some extent. I am suf- ficiently in S3^mpathy with you to credit the sincerity of your feelings. Am I justified?" Arnaud met his eyes full. "You are." "Well, that is what I believe. But I have paid too high a price to quit this globe before seeing that I get what I 56 THE RED MIRAGE bargained for. I hold you in pawn, Captain Arnaud, for your wife's happiness. If you fail her, if you risk her faith in you a second time, I sHall not hesitate to act" He lifted his hat ceremoniously and passed along the narrow street to the great thoroughfare beyond. CHAPTER VI COLONEL DESTINN OF THE LEGION ATH'IN-VOICED chime from some tower in Sidi- bel-Abbes announced the hour — four o'clock. Colonel Destinn looked up. From where he sat he could see the barrack-yard, and beyond, the bald-faced build- ing opposite to the great stretch of ocher plain rolling on in unbroken monotony to the horizon. A little to the right an Arab mosque lifted its white minarets against a back- ground of burning saffron. Colonel Destinn sat with his chin in his hand and frowned out of the open window. The midday heat had burned the sky to a yellow scroll, which hung oppressively over the panting lifeless country. In the narrow, meanly furnished room the atnaosphere had remained stifling. Colonel Destinn's guest drew back into the thin patch of shadow. Colonel Destinn himself smiled, and the thin lips under the iron-gray mustache became indescribably ruthless. "Yes, you are quite right, Mr. Lowe," he was saying in his suave French. "I have something to sell — something quite valuable, in fact But I do not choose to sell it to you, that is all." Stephen Lowe glanced up. His deformity was vpry ob- , vious at that moment. He looked old, and physical ex- ' haustion had stamped out the last trace of beauty from his thin features. "Why not?" he asked. 57 58 THE RED MIRAGE "Is not that my affair? For one thing, I prefer not to deal with the middleman." "I am not the middleman in this case." "Indeed! You are acting in your own interests?" "In one sense — ^yes." Colonel Destinn brushed a speck of dust from his dol- man. His slate-gray eyes flashed with a moment's amuse- ment. "Am I to understand that you bought your information ?" "At a high price." "Then I can only express my sympathy. You were un- warrantably cheated." He rose, and Lowe had no choice but to rise also. "I have made you an indefinite offer. Colonel Destinn," he said. "One day I may come with something different and perhaps then you will reconsider what you have said. No life can be bound up definitely anywhere, not even in a desert. Colonel Destinn." The ofiicer did not answer, appeared even to have for- gotten his guest's existence. Stephen Lowe went out, closing the door softly behind him. To the man at the window came the sound of an irregular, dragging step on the stone passage, the challenge of a sentry, and then nothing more but the drone of the flies around the fiery circle of sunlight on his writing-table. He sat down again, his clenched hands stretched out in front of him, his chin resting on his chest. So he remained while the circle of sunlight shifted eastward, up along the white wall, vanish- ing at last into shadow. Some one tapped at Colonel Destinn's door. "If you please, my Colonel, yesterday's batch from Oran." Colonel Destinn lifted his head. COLONEL DESTINN OF THE LEGION 59 "It is welL You will accompany me, Corporal. How many ?" "Fifty." "We shall need them." He picked up his kepi and led the way down the passage, the corporal following close beside him, his features com- posed in military indifference. In the center of the yard a line of men had been drawn up. Neither the violent abuse of the sergeant nor the comments of a pale-faced lieutenant, much less the uni- forms, had been able to transform them into soldiers. Only one thing was common to them all — ^misfortune. It was written in every haggard face in every language of despair, from reckless defiance to sullen resentment and stoic resignation. Colonel Destinn read the language with the rapidity of custom. Before each recruit he stopped an instant, bis hard eyes picking out the broken refinement of the prodigal from the brutality of fugitive crime. And at each he jerked out an imperative question. "Your name?" "Johann Harding, my CokmeL" "Profession?" "Doctor." "Sergeant, keep an eye on him. He will sham like the devil, or poison you. And this man?" There was a slight, scarcely perceptible change in the inflection of his voice, a note of something that might have been surprise or even more than that — ^uneasiness. The man whom he con- fronted held himself with a cool undisturbed dignity. "No. 4005, my Colonel." "I did not ask for your number. Your name?** "Richard." "Have you no surname?*' 6o THE RED MIRAGE "No." Destinn glanced at the lieutenant, who, after a hurried glance to his note-book, shrugged his shoulders. "No. 4005 — calls himself Richard Nameless, my Colo- nel." "A nom de guerre, I presume. Your last profession ?" "Traitor." "You are English?" "I am nothing." There was a troubled pause. The man had answered fluently in French, without hesitation and without inso- lence. And yet his easy self-confidence jarred in that atmosphere of cowed and broken humanity, and was by contrast almost a challenge. The momentary interest died out of Colonel Destinn's eyes, leaving a cold anger. "That fellow is dangerous," he jerked back over his shoulder, and passed on. Corporal Gotz hesitated an instant before the man thus summarized. He measured him, and the recruit answered the keen deliberate gaze with the same steadfastness. A mutual recognition had been acknowledged ; steel had rung against steel. Then suddenly the recruit's fiery blue eyes focused themselves on something beyond, and their ex- pression — that of a man started into an instant's self-be- trayal — caused the corporal to turn sharply. A rare vision had appeared in the dull colorless square. The iron gates had been opened, and against the back- ground of the green avenue beyond there stood a woman — a slender beautiful woman, such as but few of the lost degraded inhabitants of those white walls had ever seen. She came slowly toward them, the lace sunshade framing the lovely golden head, her soft muslin dress revealing each movement as something exquisitely balanced, abso- lutely free and confident in its youthful grace and health. COLONEL DESTINN OF THE LEGION 6i "Colonel Destinn," she said, "I hope you are not angry with me. I have come to find my husband." He lifted his hand reluctantly but instinctively to his kepi. "I heard that Captain Amaud's wife had arrived/' he said roughly. "Permit me to inform you that Captain Ar- naud left the barracks half an hour ago, also that you have no business here and are interfering with my business. The sentry should not have let you pass." "He did not want to," she explained, "but I told him that I knew you and that you would be furious if he re- fused." "Whereby, Madame, you overstepped the limits of truth." "Pardon me, I do know you. But since I intrude, I will make good my retreat. Good evening, my Colonel." She turned her back on him and began to walk with untroubled dignity toward the gate. For an instant he hesitated, then overtook her. "I have a word to say to the sentry," he said significantly. "I will accompany you. You say you know me. I have not seen you before." "That is quite possible; but I have seen you." They had reached the gate and she stopped and looked up at him. "Do you want to know when?" "I am interested, I confess." "It was about a year ago at night-time. I was sitting under the trees in the Cercle des Officiers, listening to the band. I remember it was rather dark, except for the lanterns, and the faces of the natives had made me nervous. Then came a bugle call and I was really frightened. I thought it was an Arab uprising or something; instead you rode past — at the head of your regiment." 62 THE RED MIRAGE "I remember," he said, his face full of hard triumph. "It was the night I won my wager— one hundred and fifty kilometers in three days." He was silent a moment, driving his spurred heel into the sandy gravel. Then he looked up at her. "Why did you come to Algiers?" he said abruptly. "Why, above all, did you come to Sidi-bel-Abbes ? What is there for a tourist to see there? Sand and vineyards, and then sand again." "I was not a (»urist. I came on a mission — to find my brother." "Your brother?" "He was lost," she said almost in a whisper. "He had done wrong — and my father is a stem man — ^he ran away — and we were afraid. We followed him to Algiers, and then we lost trace. We ne-ver found him." The tears had gathered in her dark eyes. "Colonel Destinn — ^I do not know why I tell you all this. It is silly of me. I loved him more than anything else in the world. You won't understand — " He laughed roughly. "Oh, Madame, even I tmderetand loss." "You? I thought — " She stopped with her eyes on his blanched face. "Oh, Colonel, I am so sorry. Somehow I didn't think of you like that—" His curt gesture interrupted her. "Madame, we have grown too serious. A poet of yours said that loss is common to the race. I can only hope that your loss may be mended." "And yours. Colonel," she said softly. "Mine can never be mended, Madame. I am too old. Permit me." He passed through the gate with her and helped her into the w^ting carriage. "Do you know it is twenty years since I last spoke to an Englishwoman?" COLONEL DESTINN OF THE LEGION 63 "And was she — as nice as I am?" "She was a little like you — and very beautiful" "You could have expressed yourself more prettily. Never mind. By the way, you do not speak English, Colonel?" "No," he answered absently, "I do not speak English." "I must give you lessons. Coachman — homa Au revoir. Colonel!" "Au revoir, Madame," He stood at the salute until he had tost sight of the small sweet face under the parasol. A couple of Chas- seurs d'Afrique gave him the careless military greeting of French soldiers as they swaggered past, but he did not see them. A young Arab with a sprig of jasmine tucked gracefully behind his ear drew his burnoose closer around him with the aristocratic contempt of his racai Colonel Destinn remained sightless and indifferent Meanwhile in the exercise yard the lieutenant had grown weary of his charge. The colonel would not return, he declared, and the stupid formality of inspecting this miser- able pack might surely come to an end. "Right about turn — forward — ^march!" The long line shidHed awkwardly round, those to whom the French language was a closed book following the lead of the more fortunate. But the man who called himself Richard Nameless had not moved. He stood there rigid, his hands clenched at his sides, his eyes fixed on the iron gates as though they barred his vision from some- thing at once terrible and beautiful. The sergeant strode down upon him. "Now then, you dog, didn't you hear? Has one got to speak to you always in your dirty English before you un- derstand? We will see who is the master here — ^you — " Without a sound his victim reeled back into the corporal's 64 THE RED MIRAGE arms. The corporal held him a moment, and then, laying him gently on the ground, bent over him. "That was a clever blow, Sergeant Bertrand," he said ironically. The other gave a short tremulous laugh. "Ah, yes, I can box. He will not move for an hour or two — the swine of an Englishman. He would have killed me. But I was too much for him. A mad Englishman! Well, we will see if we can not knock the madness out of him. Off with you, you cowards. Dismiss !" They scattered like sheep before the savage barking of a dog, throwing shy hunted glances at the quiet figure on the gravel. Colonel Destinn, on his way to his own quarters, turned abruptly and came nearer. "What's all this?" he asked curtly. The sergeant drew himself up to the salute. "Insubordination, my Colonel. Four thousand and five refused to obey orders. He threatened to kill me. I was obliged to knock him down — ^as you see." "Quite right. Let us see what a week in the cells will do for him. A dangerous fellow — ^but good-looking — ^yes, good-looking — " He hesitated a moment, frowning as at some passing recollection — ^and then went indifferently on his way. : P :0 '-. ft. 3: o NX -. o dS go S w fa p^ '-Ti w