The Portygee Part 58

He was snubbed immediately. "THAT," declared Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k, with decision, "is the only thing that makes him possible."

So Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k's welcome was whole-handed if not whole-hearted. And her husband's also was cordial and intimate. The only member of the Fosd.i.c.k household who did not regard the guest with favor was Googoo. That aristocratic bull-pup was still irreconcilably hostile. When Albert attempted to pet him he appeared to be planning to devour the caressing hand, and when rebuked by his mistress retired beneath a davenport, growling ominously. Even when ignominiously expelled from the room he growled and cast longing backward glances at the Speranza ankles. No, Googoo did not dissemble; Albert was perfectly sure of his standing in Googoo's estimation.

Dinner that evening was a trifle more formal than he had expected, and he was obliged to apologize for the limitations of his wardrobe. His dress suit of former days he had found much too dilapidated for use.

Besides, he had outgrown it.

"I thought I was thinner," he said, "and I think I am. But I must have broadened a bit. At any rate, all the coats I left behind won't do at all. I shall have to do what Captain Snow, my grandfather, calls 'refit'

here in New York. In a day or two I hope to be more presentable."

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k a.s.sured him that it was quite all right, really. Madeline asked why he didn't wear his uniform. "I was dying to see you in it,"

she said. "Just think, I never have."

Albert laughed. "You have been spared," he told her. "Mine was not a triumph, so far as fit was concerned. Of course, I had a complete new rig when I came out of the hospital, but even that was not beautiful.

It puckered where it should have bulged and bulged where it should have been smooth."

Madeline professed not to believe him.

"Nonsense!" she declared. "I don't believe it. Why, almost all the fellows I know have been in uniform for the past two years and theirs fitted beautifully."

"But they were officers, weren't they, and their uniforms were custom made."

"Why, I suppose so. Aren't all uniforms custom made?"

Her father laughed. "Scarcely, Maddie," he said. "The privates have their custom-made by the mile and cut off in chunks for the individual.

That was about it, wasn't it, Speranza?"

"Just about, sir."

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k evidently thought that the conversation was taking a rather low tone. She elevated it by asking what his thoughts were when taken prisoner by the Germans. He looked puzzled.

"Thoughts, Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k?" he repeated. "I don't know that I understand, exactly. I was only partly conscious and in a good deal of pain and my thoughts were rather incoherent, I'm afraid."

"But when you regained consciousness, you know. What were your thoughts then? Did you realize that you had made the great sacrifice for your country? Risked your life and forfeited your liberty and all that for the cause? Wasn't it a great satisfaction to feel that you had done that?"

Albert's laugh was hearty and unaffected. "Why, no," he said. "I think what I was realizing most just then was that I had made a miserable mess of the whole business. Failed in doing what I set out to do and been taken prisoner besides. I remember thinking, when I was clear-headed enough to think anything, 'You fool, you spent months getting into this war, and then got yourself out of it in fifteen minutes.' And it WAS a silly trick, too."

Madeline was horrified.

"What DO you mean?" she cried. "Your going back there to rescue your comrade a silly trick! The very thing that won you your Croix de Guerre?"

"Why, yes, in a way. I didn't save Mike, poor fellow--"

"Mike! Was his name Mike?"

"Yes; Michael Francis Xavier Kelly. A South Boston Mick he was, and one of the finest, squarest boys that ever drew breath. Well, poor Mike was dead when I got to him, so my trip had been for nothing, and if he had been alive I could not have prevented his being taken. As it was, he was dead and I was a prisoner. So nothing was gained and, for me, personally, a good deal was lost. It wasn't a brilliant thing to do.

But," he added apologetically, "a chap doesn't have time to think collectively in such a sc.r.a.pe. And it was my first real sc.r.a.p and I was frightened half to death, besides."

"Frightened! Why, I never heard anything so ridiculous! What--"

"One moment, Madeline." It was Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k who interrupted. "I want to ask--er--Albert a question. I want to ask him if during his long imprisonment he composed--wrote, you know. I should have thought the sights and experiences would have forced one to express one's self--that is, one to whom the gift of expression was so generously granted," she added, with a gracious nod.

Albert hesitated.

"Why, at first I did," he said. "When I first was well enough to think, I used to try to write--verses. I wrote a good many. Afterwards I tore them up."

"Tore them up!" Both Mrs. and Miss Fosd.i.c.k uttered this exclamation.

"Why, yes. You see, they were such rot. The things I wanted to write about, the things _I_ had seen and was seeing, the--the fellows like Mike and their pluck and all that--well, it was all too big for me to tackle. My jingles sounded, when I read them over, like tunes on a street piano. _I_ couldn't do it. A genius might have been equal to the job, but I wasn't."

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k glanced at her husband. There was something of alarmed apprehension in the glance. Madeline's next remark covered the situation. It expressed the absolute truth, so much more of the truth than even the young lady herself realized at the time.

"Why, Albert Speranza," she exclaimed, "I never heard you speak of yourself and your work in that way before. Always--ALWAYS you have had such complete, such splendid confidence in yourself. You were never afraid to attempt ANYTHING. You MUST not talk so. Don't you intend to write any more?"

Albert looked at her. "Oh, yes, indeed," he said simply. "That is just what I do intend to do--or try to do."

That evening, alone in the library, he and Madeline had their first long, intimate talk, the first since those days--to him they seemed as far away as the last century--when they walked the South Harniss beach together, walked beneath the rainbows and dreamed. And now here was their dream coming true.

Madeline, he was realizing it as he looked at her, was prettier than ever. She had grown a little older, of course, a little more mature, but surprisingly little. She was still a girl, a very, very pretty girl and a charming girl. And he--

"What are you thinking about?" she demanded suddenly.

He came to himself. "I was thinking about you," he said. "You are just as you used to be, just as charming and just as sweet. You haven't changed."

She smiled and then pouted.

"I don't know whether to like that or not," she said. "Did you expect to find me less--charming and the rest?"

"Why, no, of course not. That was clumsy on my part. What I meant was that--well, it seems ages, centuries, since we were together there on the Cape--and yet you have not changed."

She regarded him reflectively.

"You have," she said.

"Have what?"

"Changed. You have changed a good deal. I don't know whether I like it or not. Perhaps I shall be more certain by and by. Now show me your war cross. At least you have brought that, even if you haven't brought your uniform."

He had the cross in his pocket-book and he showed it to her. She enthused over it, of course, and wished he might wear it even when in citizen's clothes. She didn't see why he couldn't. And it was SUCH a pity he could not be in uniform. Captain Blanchard had called the evening before, to see Mother about some war charities she was interested in, and he was still in uniform and wearing his decorations, too. Albert suggested that probably Blanchard was still in service.

Yes, she believed he was, but she could not see why that should make the difference. Albert had BEEN in service.

He laughed at this and attempted to explain. She seemed to resent the attempt or the tone.

"I do wish," she said almost pettishly, "that you wouldn't be so superior."

He was surprised. "Superior!" he repeated. "Superior! I? Superiority is the very least of my feelings. I--superior! That's a joke."

And, oddly enough, she resented that even more. "Why is it a joke?" she demanded. "I should think you had the right to feel superior to almost any one. A hero--and a genius! You ARE superior."

However, the little flurry was but momentary, and she was all sweetness and smiles when she kissed him good night. He was shown to his room by a servant and amid its array of comforts--to him, fresh from France and the camp and his old room at South Harniss, it was luxuriously magnificent--he sat for some time thinking. His thoughts should have been happy ones, yet they were not entirely so. This is a curiously unsatisfactory world, sometimes.