Ailsa Paige Part 25

But the boy in his zouave uniform was beside himself with excitement and pride, and he embraced her, laughing, and then began to walk up and down the room gesticulating.

"I couldn't stand it any longer, and they let me go. I'm sorry for mother, but look at other men's mothers! They're calling for more and more troops every week! I knew everybody would have to go, and I'm mighty fortunate to get into father's regiment-And O Ailsa! It is a fine regiment! We're drilling every minute, and now that we've got our uniforms it won't be long before our orders come--"

"Stephen-does your mother--"

"Mother knows I can't help it. I do love her; she knows that perfectly well. But men have got to settle this thing--"

"Two hundred thousand are getting ready to settle it! Are there hot enough without you?-your mother's only son--"

"Suppose everybody thought that way, where would our army be?"

"But there are hundreds of regiments forming here-getting ready, drilling, leaving on boats and trains every day--"

"And every regiment is composed of men exactly like me! They go because the Nation's business is everybody's business. And the Nation's business comes first. There's no use talking to me, Ailsa. I've had it but with father. He saw that he couldn't prevent me from doing what he has done. And old Lent is our major! Lord, Ailsa, what a terrible old man for discipline! And father is-well he is acting as though we ought to behave like West Pointers. They're cruelly hard on skylarkers and guard runners, and they're fairly kicking discipline into us. But I'm willing. I'm ready to stand anything as long as we can get away!"

He was talking in a loud, excited voice, pacing restlessly to and fro, pausing at intervals to confront Ailsa where she sat, limp and silent, gazing up at this slender youth in his short blue jacket edged with many bell-b.u.t.tons, blue body sash, scarlet zouave trousers and leather gaiters.

Presently old Jonas shuffled in with Madeira, cakes, and sandwiches, and Stephen began on them immediately.

"I came over so you could see me in my uniform," he explained; "and I'm going back right away to see mother and Paige and Marye and Camilla." He paused, sandwich suspended, then swallowed what he had been chewing and took another bite, recklessly.

"I'm very fond of Camilla," he said condescendingly. "She's very nice about my going-the only one who hasn't snivelled. I tell you, Ailsa, Camilla is a good deal of a girl... . And I've promised to look out for her uncle-keep an eye on old Lent, you know, which seems to comfort her a good deal when she begins crying--

"Oh... I thought Camilla didn't cry."

"She cries a little-now and then."

"About her uncle?"

"Certainly."

Ailsa looked down at her ringless fingers. Within the week she had laid away both rings, meaning to resume them some day.

"If you and your father go, your office will be closed, I suppose."

"Oh, no. Farren will run it."

"I see... . And Mr. Berkley, too, I suppose."

Stephen looked up from his bitten seedcake.

"Berkley? He left long ago."

"Left-where?" she asked, confused.

"Left the office. It couldn't be helped. There was nothing for him to do. I was sorry-I'm sorrier now--"

He checked himself, hesitated, turned his troubled eyes on Ailsa.

"I did like him so much."

"Don't you like him-still?"

"Yes-I do. I don't know what was the matter with that man. He went all to pieces."

"W-what!"

"Utterly. Isn't it too bad."

She sat there very silent, very white. Stephen bit into another cake, angrily.

"It's the company he keeps," he said-"a lot of fast men-fast enough to be talked about, fas.h.i.+onable enough to be tolerated-Jack Ca.s.son is one of them, and that little a.s.s, Arthur Wye. That's the crowd-a horse-racing, hard-drinking, hard-gambling crew."

"But-he is-Mr. Berkley's circ.u.mstances-how can he do such things--"

"Some idiot-even Berkley doesn't know who-took all those dead stocks off his hands. Wasn't it the devil's own luck for Berkley to find a market in times like these?"

"But it ended him... . Oh, I was fond of him, I tell you, Ailsa!

I hate like thunder to see him this way--"

"What way!"

"Oh, not caring for anybody or anything. He's never sober. I don't mean that I ever saw him otherwise-he doesn't get drunk like an ordinary man: he just turns deathly white and polite. I've met him-and his friends-several times. They're too fast a string of colts for me. But isn't it a shame that a man like Berkley should go to the devil-and for no reason at all?"

"Yes," she said.

When Stephen, swinging his crimson fez by the ta.s.sel, stood ready to take his leave, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

After he departed Colonel Arran came, and sat, as usual, silent, listening.

Ailsa was very animated; she told him about Stephen's enlistment, asked scores of questions about military life, the chances in battle, the proportion of those who went through war unscathed.

And at length Colonel Arran arose to take his departure; and she had not told what was hammering for utterance in every heart beat; she did not know how to tell, what to ask.

Hat in hand Colonel Arran bent over her hot little hand where it lay in his own.

"I have been offered the colonelcy of a volunteer regiment now forming," he said without apparent interest.

"You!"

"Cavalry," he explained wearily.

"But-you have not accepted!"

He gave her an absent glance. "Yes, I have accepted... . I am going to Was.h.i.+ngton to-night."

"Oh!" she breathed, "but you are coming back before-before--"

"Yes, child. Cavalry is not made in a hurry. I am to see General Scott-perhaps Mr. Cameron and the President... . If, in my absence-" he hesitated, looked down, shook his head. And somehow she seemed to know that what he had not said concerned Berkley.