The Wages of Virtue Part 11

Carmelita loved a "gentleman" in the abstract, although she loved Luigi Rivoli in the concrete; adored aristocrats in general, in spite of the fact that she adored Luigi Rivoli in particular. To her experienced and observant young eye, Legionnaire Jean Boule and this young _bleu_ were of the same cla.s.s, the _aristocratico_ cla.s.s of _Inghilterra_; birds of a feather, if not of a nest. They might be father and son, so alike were they in their difference from the rest. So different even from the English-speaking Americano, so different from her Luigi. But then, her Luigi was no mere broken aristocrat; he was the World's Champion Wrestler and Strong Man, a great and famous Wild Beast Tamer, and--her Luigi.

"_Buona sera, Signor_," said Carmelita to Rupert. "_Siete venuto per la via di Francie?_" and then, in Legion-French and Italian, proceeded to comment upon the new recruit's appearance, his _capetti riccioluti_ and to enquire whether he used the _calamistro_ and _ferro da ricci_ to obtain the fine crisp wave in his hair.

Not at all a refined and ladylike maiden, and very, very far from the standards of Surbiton, not to mention Balham.

Reginald Rupert (to whom love and war were the two things worth living for), on understanding the drift of the lady's remarks, proposed forthwith "to cross the bar" and "put out to see" whether he could not give her a personal demonstration of the art of hair-curling, but--

"_Non vi pigliate fastidio_," said Carmelita. "Don't trouble yourself Signor Azzurro--Monsieur Bleu. And if Signor Luigi Rivoli should enter and see the young Signor on my side of the bar--Luigi's side of the bar--why, one look of his eye would so make the young Signor's hair curl that, for the rest of his life, the _calamistro_, the curling-tongs, would be superfluous."

"Yep," chimed in the Bucking Bronco. "I guess as haow it's about time yure Loojey's bright eyes got closed, my dear, an' I'm goin' ter bung 'em both up one o' these fine days, when I got the cafard. Yure Loojey's a great lady-killer an' recruit-killer, we know, an' he can talk a tin ear on a donkey. I say _Il parlerait une oreille d'etain sur un ane_. Yure Loojey'd make a hen-rabbit git mad an' bark. I say _Votre Loojey causer ait une lapine devenir fou et ecorcer_. I got it in fer yure Loojey. I say _Je l'ai dans pour votre Loojey_....

Comprenny? _Intendete quel che dico?_" and the Bucking Bronco drank off a pint of wine, drew his tiny, well-thumbed French dictionary from one pocket and his "Travellers' Italian Phrase-book" from another, cursed the Tower of Babel, and all foreign tongues, and sought words wherewith to say that it was high time for Luigi Rivoli "to quit beefin' aroun'

Madam lar Canteenair, to wipe off his chin considerable, to cease being a sticker, a sucker, and a skinamalink girl-sponging meal-and-money cadger; and to quit tellin' stories made out o' whole cloth,[#] that cut no ice with n.o.body except Carmelita."

[#] Untrue.

This young lady gathered that, as usual, the poor, silly jealous Americano was belittling and insulting her Luigi, if not actually threatening him. _Him_, who could break any Americano across his knee.

With a toss of her head and a contemptuous "Invidioso! Scioccone!" for the Bronco, a flick on the nose with the _krenfell_ flower from her ear for Rupert, a blown kiss for _Babbo_ Jean Boule, Carmelita flitted away, going from table to table to minister to the mental, moral, and physical needs of her other devoted Legionnaires as they arrived--men of strange and dreadful lives who loved her then and there, who remembered her thereafter and elsewhere, and who sent her letters, curios, pressed flowers and strange presents from the ends of the earth where flies the _tricouleur_, and the Flag of the Legion--in Tonkin, Madagascar, Senegal, Morocco, the Sahara--in every Southern Algerian station wherever the men of the Legion tramped to their death to the strains of the regimental march of "_Tiens, voila du boudin_."

"Advise me, Mam'zelle," said a young Frenchman of the Midi, rising to his feet with a flourish of his kepi and a sweeping bow, as Carmelita approached the table at which he and three companions sat, "Advise me as to the investment of this wealth, fifty centimes, all at once. Shall it be five glorious green absinthes or five _chopes_ of the wine of Algiers?--or shall I warm my soul with burning bapedi...?"

"Four bottles of wine is what you want for Andre, Raoul, Leon, and yourself," was the reply. "Absinthe is the mamma and the papa and all the ancestors of _le cafard_ and you are far too young and tender for bapedi. It mingles not well with mother's milk, that...."

In the extreme corner of the big, badly-lit room, a Legionary sat alone, his back to the company, his head upon his folded arms. Pa.s.sing near, on her tour of ministration, Carmelita's quick eye and ear perceived that the man was sobbing and weeping bitterly. It might be the poor Gra.s.shopper pa.s.sing through one of his terrible dark hours, and Carmelita's kind heart melted with pity for the poor soul, smartest of soldiers, and maddest of madmen.

Going over to where he sat apart, Carmelita bent over him, placed her arm around his neck, and stroked his glossy dark hair.

"_Pourquoi faites-vous Suisse, mon pauvre?_" she murmured with a motherly caress. "What is it? Tell Carmelita." The man raised his face from his arms, smiled through his tears and kissed the hand that rested on his shoulder. The handsome and delicate face, the small, well-kept hands, the voice, were those of a man of culture and refinement.

"_I ja nai ka!_--How delightful!" he said. "You will make things right.

I am to be made _machi-bugiyo_, governor of the city to-morrow, and I wish to remain a j.a.panese lady. I do not want to lay aside the _suma-goto_ and _samisen_ for the _wakizas.h.i.+_ and the _katana_--the lute for the dagger and sword. I don't want to sit on a _tokonoma_ in a _yas.h.i.+ki_ surrounded by _karo_...."

"No, no, no, mon cher, you shall not indeed. See le bon Dieu and le bon Jean Boule will look after you," said Carmelita, gently stroking his hot forehead and soothing him with little crooning sounds and caresses as though he had really been the child that, in mind and understanding, he was.

John Bull, followed by Rupert, un.o.btrusively joined Carmelita. Seating himself beside the unhappy man, he took his hands and gazed steadily into his suffused eyes.

"Tell me all about it, Cigale," said he. "You know we can put it right.

When has Jean Boule failed to explain and arrange things for you?"

The madman repeated that he dreaded to have to sit on the raised dais of the Palace of a Governor of a City surrounded by officials and advisers.

"I know I should soon be involved in a _kataki-uchi_ with a neighbouring clan, and have to commit hara-kiri if I failed to keep the Mikado's peace. It is terrible. You don't know how I long to remain a lady. I want silk and music and cherry-blossom instead of steel and blood," and again he laid his head upon his arms and continued his low, hopeless sobbing.

Reginald Rupert's face expressed blank astonishment at the sight of the weeping soldier.

"What's up?" he said.

Legionnaire John Bull tapped his forehead.

"Poor chap will behave _more j.a.ponico_ for the rest of the day now. I fancy he's been an attache in j.a.pan. You don't know j.a.panese by any chance? I have forgotten the little I knew."

Rupert shook his head.

"Look here, Cigale," said John Bull, raising the afflicted man and again fixing the steady, benign gaze upon his eyes, "why are you making all this trouble for yourself? You know I am the Mikado and All-powerful!

You have only to appeal to me and the Shogun must release you. Of course you can remain a j.a.panese lady--and I'll tell you what, ma chere, ma pet.i.te fille j.a.ponaise, not only shall you remain a lady, but a lady of the old school and of the days before the accursed Foreign Devils came in to break down ancient customs. I promise it. To-morrow you shall shave off your eyebrows and paint them in two inches above your eyes. I promise it. More. Your teeth shall be lacquered black. Now cease these ungrateful repinings, and be a happy maiden once again. By order of the Mikado!"

Once again the voice and eye, and the gentle wise sympathy and comprehension of ce bon Jean Boule had succeeded and triumphed. The madman, falling at his feet, knelt and bowed three times, his forehead touching the ground, in approved geisha fas.h.i.+on.

"And now you've got to come and lie down, or you won't be fit for the eyebrow-shaving ceremony to-morrow," said Carmelita, and led him to a broad, low divan, which made a cosy, if dirty, corner remote from the bar.

"That's as extraordinary a case as ever I came across," remarked John Bull to Rupert as they rejoined the Bucking Bronco, who was talking to the c.o.c.kney and the Russian twins, "as mad as any lunatic in any asylum in the world, and yet as absolutely competent and correct in every detail of soldiering as any soldier in the Legion. He is the Perfect Private Soldier--and a perfect lunatic. Most of the time, off parade that is, he thinks he's a gra.s.shopper, and the rest of the time he thinks he's of some remarkably foreign nationality, such as a Zulu, an Eskimo, or a Chinaman. I should very much like to know his story. He must have travelled pretty widely. He has certainly been an officer in the Belgian Guides (their Officers' Mess is one of the most exclusive and aristocratic in the world, as you know) and he has certainly been a Military Attache in the East. He is perfectly harmless and a most thorough gentleman, poor soul.... Yes, I should greatly like to know his story," and added as he poured out a gla.s.s of wine, "but we don't ask men their 'stories' in the Legion...."

Carmelita returned to her high seat by the door of her little room behind the bar--the door upon the outside of which many curious regards had oftentimes been fixed.

Carmelita was troubled. Why did not Luigi come? Were his duties so numerous and onerous nowadays that he had but a bare hour for his late dinner and his bottle of Chianti? Time was, when he arrived as soon after five o'clock as a wash and change of uniform permitted. Time was, when he could spend from early evening to late night in the Cafe de la Legion, outstaying the latest visitors. And that time was also the time when Madame la Cantiniere was not a widow--the days before Madame's husband had been sliced, sawn, snapped, torn, and generally mangled by certain other widows--of certain Arabs--away to the South. This might be coincidence of course, and yet--and yet--several Legionnaires who had no axe to grind and who were not jealous of Luigi's fortune, had undoubtedly coupled his name with that of Madame....

"An' haow did yew find yure little way to our dope-joint hyar?" the Bucking Bronco enquired of Mikhail Kyrilovitch, as he did the honours of Carmelita's "joint" to the three _bleus_ who had entered while John Bull was talking to the Gra.s.shopper.

"Well, since you arx, we jest ups an' follers you, old bloke, when yer goes aht wiv these two uvver Henglish coves," replied the c.o.c.kney.

The American regarded him with the eye of large and patient tolerance.

He preferred the Russians, particularly Mikhail, and rejoiced that they spoke English. It would have been too much to have attempted to add a working knowledge of Russian to his other linguistic stores.

Nevertheless, he would, out of compliment to their nationality, produce such words of their strange tongue as he could command. It might serve to make them feel more at home like.

"I'm afraid I can't ask yew moojiks ter hev a little caviare an' wodky, becos' Carmelita is out of it.... But there's cawfy in the sammy-var I hev no doubt," he said graciously.

The Russians thanked him, and Feodor pledging him in a gla.s.s of absinthe, promised to teach him the art of concocting _lompopo_, while Mikhail quietly sipped his gla.s.s of sticky, sweet Algerian wine.

Restless Carmelita joined the group, and her friend Jean Boule introduced the three new patrons.

"Prahd an' honoured, Miss, I'm sh.o.r.e," said the c.o.c.kney. "'Ave a port-an'-lemon or thereabahts?"

But Carmelita was too interested in the startling similarity of the twins to pay attention to the civilities and blandishments of the c.o.c.kney, albeit he surrept.i.tiously wetted his fingers with wine and smoothed his smooth and s.h.i.+ning "cowlick" or "quiff" (the highly ornamental fringe which, having descended to his eyebrows, turned aspiringly upward).

"_Gemello_," she murmured, turning from Feodor and his cheery greeting to Mikhail, who responded with a graceful little bow, suddenly terminated and changed to a curt nod, like that given by Feodor. As Carmelita continued her direct gaze, a dull flush grew and mantled over his face.

"_Cielo_! But how the boy blushes! Now is it for his own sins, or mine, I wonder?" laughed Carmelita, pointing accusingly at poor Mikhail's suffused face.

"Gawdstreuth! Can't 'e blush," remarked Mr. Higgins.

The dull flush became a vivid, burning blush under Carmelita's pointing finger, and the regard of the amused Legionaries.

"Corpo di Bacco!" laughed the teasing girl. "A blus.h.i.+ng Legionary! The dear, sweet, good boy. If only _I_ could blush like that. And he brings his blushes to Madame la Republique's Legion. Well, it is not _porta vasi a Samo!_"[#]

[#] Lit., "to carry coals to Newcastle."