Chapter II

The little white house on East Twenty-fifth Street was ablaze with light as Ralston eagerly mounted the low stoop and pressed the bell. The visitor knocked the slush from his overshoes, slapped the left pocket of his coat as if to make certain that something was still safely there, stepped quickly across the threshold when the butler opened the door, handed the man his hat, threw off his fur coat upon an ebony chair, and only paused, and that but for a moment, at the entrance of the drawing-room. He was a tall, clean-built, brisk young man, thoroughly American in type, with an alert face, which, if not handsome, was nevertheless agreeable and attractive--a man, in a word, whom one would not hesitate to address upon the street, provided the question was pertinent and the information essential.

It was clear from his manner that he was no stranger, but to-day there were more women than usual at Miss Evarts's Monday afternoon, and the lights and chatter seemed a bit confusing to one whose mind was charged with the importance of a newly acquired responsibility. Miss Evarts was an old friend of his mother's, who, somewhat to his amused annoyance, took it upon herself to assume toward him a sort of sisterly attitude, which allowed her the privileges of relationship without prejudice to a certain degree of elderly sentiment. Attendance upon her selectly Bohemian gatherings was a duty which he performed when in town, with a regularity attributable less to a regard for Miss Evarts herself than to the fact that Ellen Ferguson was usually to be found there presiding over the tea table and ready for a brisk walk uptown afterwards.

"Ha! There he is now!" exclaimed a middle-aged man, with iron-gray hair and pointed mustaches, as the newcomer parted the _portières_.

The group about the warrior turned with one accord and stared, at present teacups, in his direction.

"Good afternoon, ladies and soldier," said Ralston. "I am the torchbearer of war. Firing has begun. The searchlight on the Garden is leveled south--like the lance of the horseman on the tower in Irving's 'Legend of the Arabian Astrologer.'"

The colonel set down his cup and pulled his mustaches with a heavy frown. He took pains to let it be seen that he was overcome with conflicting emotions--that stern duty summoned him from home and dear ones, but that his heart was throbbing to avenge his country's honor. They all looked toward him as if expecting a few appropriate remarks. The colonel's hands trembled, the veins upon his forehead swelled, and he seemed about to speak. Then he did.

"You don't say!" he remarked.

There was a sigh of disappointment from the ladies, and in the hiatus which followed Miss Evarts shook hands with Ralston and introduced him to the others as "the newly appointed secretary, you know." Which, or what of, she did not disclose.

"I always thought Ralston was cast for a topliner," continued the hostess, as he modestly evaded their congratulations.

"It's about time I left the chorus," answered her guest, adapting his language to Miss Evarts's open predilection for the footlights.

"Kicked your way up?" inquired, in a hoarse voice, a stout lady of stage traditions, who was clad in a wall-paper effect of gay brocade.

"My dear Mrs. Vokes, don't judge everybody by your own professional experience," remarked a young lady in brown, whose aquiline features were accounted "perfectly lovely" by a large suburban, theater-going public.

"Come! Come!" interrupted Miss Evarts loudly. "Miss Warren, order yourself more humbly before your betters."

The two popular favorites glared at one another defiantly.

"Well, in any event, Colonel Duer, he'll soon be giving you your sealed orders," said Miss Evarts, thus disposing of a situation which might have become awkward.

"Not unless the colonel gets a transfer. I'm steering the navy, not the army," laughed Ralston.

"The man behind!" murmured Mrs. Vokes.

Ralston bowed. "Very good, Mrs. Vokes," said he. "Yes, too far behind!"

"The navy, of course," Miss Evarts corrected herself, letting fall a lump of sugar and following it with an attenuated rivulet of cream. "Just a drop, as usual?"

"Did you read the President's proclamation?" asked a young girl in a gray picture hat. "Wasn't it splendid?"

"Mr. Ralston will probably write the next one," interjected another.

"No, only correct the proof," amended the hostess.

"And point it with 'Maxims'?" ventured the Vokes, now restored to complete good humor.

"Very sweet of you, Mrs. Vokes," said Ralston, recognizing the artificial dove of theatrical peace.

"You leave very soon, don't you, colonel?" asked Miss Evarts. "Is your kit-bag ready?"

"Yes, we leave by the Pennsylvania, at seven o'clock. The armory's a perfect bedlam. It looks as if every man in New York had collected all his worldly goods and chattels and dumped them on the tan bark," replied the colonel.

"The confusion must be something delightful. I suppose you have plenty of canned peaches?" inquired the brown girl innocently. "I understand that they are the staple food of heroes."

"They're certainly an indispensable stage property," admitted the colonel with something of an effort, recalling various evaporated valiants of the Cuban campaign.

During this profound discussion Ralston's eyes had been wandering from group to group, and at this moment the object of their search herself joined the party upon the other side of the table.

"Have another cup of tea, Ellen," urged Miss Evarts.

"I can't, positively, Aunt Bess," responded the girl; "I must go presently."

"How are things?" said the girl in brown, looking significantly at the colonel. "Have all your officers turned up?"

"Ye-es," he replied. "Constructively."

"Constructively?" persisted his inquisitor. "What a queer way to be present! Rather bad for an officer in a swell regiment to be dilatory, isn't it?"

"Every man has shown up," replied the rather nettled veteran, "except one, and he'll be along, all right."

"Oh, of course!" murmured the girl. "By the way, have you seen John Steadman? My cousin Fred, you know, is an officer in the same company, and he said last night at dinner that he hadn't seen him at the armory. Some one was mean enough to suggest that these ferocious military men aren't always 'warlike.'"

"There are no tin soldiers in my regiment," answered the colonel severely, turning for reënforcement to Mrs. Vokes.

Ellen Ferguson bit her lip, flashed a glance at the girl in brown and pulling her chinchilla boa into place departed with her nose in the air toward the next room. She paused for a moment to read the faded inscription, framed and hanging beneath an old cavalry saber on the opposite wall, then turning toward Ralston, raised her eyebrows inquiringly as if to ask how long he was going to occupy himself with fat old ladies and cheap actresses, and vanished. But the brown girl turned her guns on Ralston again before he could get away.

"I didn't know you had any drag at Washington," she remarked. "Who have you got on your staff--a senator or just a common garden M.C.?"

"Neither," he answered politely. "I don't know either of our senators, and I couldn't name a single congressman from the State."

"And then you have been away so long," added Miss Evarts. "Why, it's eight months, isn't it? If you ever had any pull I should think it would have faded away long ago."

"I was certainly the most surprised of all," said Ralston. "I haven't a blessed qualification for the job. I suppose the fact that I've just come from the Philippines and have seen something of the Asiatic Squadron may have had a little to do with it."

"For the navy as against the army, perhaps," said the brown girl. "But it doesn't explain your getting an appointment in the first place. You must be a politician in sheep's clothing."

"Well, to be perfectly frank," answered Ralston, seeing that he was in for it, "a year ago last September, when I was shooting out at Jackson's Hole, I ran across the President and saw something of him for a week or so. I was able to help him in a matter of no importance, and you know he isn't the kind that forgets anything. He's a good fellow!"

"Just like him," commented the young lady. "Now, why didn't he give it to my brother George, who got nervous prostration making stump speeches for him at the last election?"

"Oh, I admit it's entirely undeserved, but I must plead guilty to being glad of a branch office in the White House and of a chance to be one of the boys in the conning tower," answered Ralston.

"Well, you're only an assistant secretary, anyway," said the girl. "I'm green with jealousy as it is. But aren't you sorry not to be going with your old company?"

"Don't!" he exclaimed. "You make me feel as if I belonged to the Home Guard. Honestly, I'd rather be back with the regiment, but, you see, I had served my five years ages before you were born. I ought to give the younger fellows a chance."

"I see," said the girl. "When do you go?"

"To-morrow morning at ten. I reach Washington in time to dine at the White House."

Several of the women arose and the group about the table gradually drifted away. The crowd was thinning out. Ralston, knowing very well that Ellen would be waiting for him, mumbled something to Miss Evarts and escaped.

"Well!" he exclaimed, entering the other room, and seizing her hands as she stood with her back to the fire. "Pretty good, isn't it?"

"I should say it was!" she cried delightedly. "Why, Dick, it's the chance of your life. If you make good only a little bit you may get anywhere. It's perfectly splendid! I'm so glad!"

Genuine pleasure shone in her eyes. Ralston's heart beat faster. Of course she cared for him. She must care for him. There was a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood-- He stepped closer and bent his head toward hers.

"Nell--" he began.

But she apparently was not listening, and the glad look had quickly given place to another. He paused, wondering at the change. Her dark eyes, with their Oriental, upturned corners, were half veiled and her high-arched brows were contracted in a frown. He drew back and pulled out his cigarette case.

"Dick," she cried suddenly, "I want to tell you something! I'm sorry to bother you when you're so happy, and I'm so proud of you, but I'm terribly worried about something."

"Dear! Dear!" laughed Ralston, striking a match and seeing that his opportunity had somehow vanished. "What's up? Been losing at bridge?"

She smiled faintly.

"Don't make fun of me," she replied. "No, I'm really bothered." She put her hand to her forehead and pushed back her hair. "I'm afraid one of my friends isn't-- Oh, I don't know how to explain it!"

A momentary suspicion flashed across his mind.

"Do you think I ought to go to the front?" he asked, relieved.

She gave a little laugh.

"You? What a goose! Of course not!"

Ralston experienced a shock of disappointment.

"What is it, then?"

"Dick," said she in quick, subdued tones, "I can't help speaking about it, and you're the best friend I've got. It's about John."

Ralston moved uneasily.

"John Steadman?"

"We're old friends, you know."

"Yes, I remember."

"I don't suppose you've seen him?"

"Not since I came back. Before that, often."

Ellen again passed her hand wearily across her forehead and turned abruptly away from the fire. The action was unconscious, involuntary. He had never associated Ellen with Steadman.

"What is it?" he asked sympathetically.

"Oh, nothing definite. Only he's been a little irregular of late. I haven't seen him for over a week. I don't think anybody has."

"He's a captain in the Twelfth, isn't he?"

"Yes. O Dick! You heard what that spiteful Warren girl said about tin soldiers?"

"Of course. Nonsense!"

"I can't help it. It's _Honor_, you know!"

"You mean you think he mayn't turn up?"

"I can't--I won't think that."

"But he hasn't?--and they're beginning to talk?"

"You heard for yourself."

"Oh, _that_!"

"Some people never live down less."

"But if he does turn up, why there's an end to it," he said.

"But why isn't he here?" she cried.

"How do I know? He may be on a business trip."

"Of course I thought of that," she replied.

"Oh, he'll be there, all right, when the time comes."

She began arranging her furs. One thing Ralston always admired about her was her care in dress. He did not know how few clothes she really had. She seemed always elegantly, if not luxuriously, clad.

They strolled slowly toward the door.

"Well," he said, "I'm awfully sorry you're upset. I'm sure he'll turn up all right. A man couldn't afford not to. Don't worry. If there was anything that I could do, no matter what, you know I'd be glad to do it for your sake, Ellen."

"Thank you, Dick. I know that," she answered.

"Well, good-by," said he. "Say good night to Miss Evarts for me, will you? I've got to run. I'm late for dinner as it is."

She gave him her hand and he held it for a moment. As he did so he looked her full in the face.

"Ellen," said he, "tell me something. Do you care about--Steadman?"

She turned her head slightly from him before replying. Then she looked back again and answered hesitatingly:

"I think--I care."

As she spoke the words she withdrew her hand. Then she flushed and her eyes brightened.

"Dick," she said slowly, in a voice that trembled a little, "I _know_ I care."

The _portières_ fell behind him. Mechanically he put on his overcoat and left the house, pausing for a moment at the top of the steps. A little smile hovered on his lips, but his eyes were very sad.