Part 43 (2/2)

”Food and wine!”

”Yes, wine! We're thirsty!”

”And maybe women! I'd like to kiss a pretty maid servant!” Pilzer added, starting toward the hall.

”Stop!” cried Hugo, forcing his way in front of Pilzer.

He was like no one of the Hugos of the many parts that his comrades had seen him play. His blue eyes had become an inflexible gray. He was standing half on tiptoe, his quivering muscles in tune with the quivering pitch of his voice: a Hugo in anger! This was a tremendous joke. He was about to regain his reputation as a humorist by a brilliant display in keeping with the new order of their existence.

”We have no right in here! This is a private house!”

But the fever of their savagery--the infectious savagery of the mob--wanted no humor of this kind.

”Out of the way, you white-livered little rat!” cried Pilzer, ”or I'll p.r.i.c.k the tummy of mamma's darling!”

What happened then was so sudden and unexpected in Hugo that all were vague about details. They saw him in a catapultic lunge, mesmeric in its swiftness, and they saw Pilzer go down, his leg twisted under him and his head banging the floor. Hugo stood, half ashamed, half frightened, yet ready for another encounter.

Fraca.s.se, entering at this moment, was too intent on his mission to consider the rights of a personal difference between two of his company, though he heard and noted Pilzer's growling complaint that he had been struck an unfair blow.

”There's work to do! Out of here, quick! We are losing valuable time!”

he announced, rounding his men toward the door with commanding gestures. ”We are going in pursuit!”

Marta, who had observed the latter part of the scene from the shadows of the hall, knew that she should never forget Hugo's face as he turned on Pilzer, while his voice of protest struck a singing chord in her jangling nerves. It was the voice of civilization, of one who could think out of the orbit of a whirlpool of pa.s.sionate barbarism. She could see that he was about to spring and her prayer went with his leap. She gloried in the impact that felled the great brute with the liver patch on his cheek, which was like a birthmark of war.

After the men were gone she regretted that she had not gone to Hugo and expressed her grat.i.tude. She vaguely wondered if she should see him again and hoped that she might. The two faces, Hugo's and Pilzer's, in the instant of Hugo's protest and Pilzer's contempt, were as clear as in life before her eyes.

Then a staff-officer appeared in the doorway. When he saw a woman enter the room he frowned. He had ridden from the town, which was empty of women, a fact that he regarded as a blessing. If she had been a maid servant he would have kept on his cap. Seeing that she was not, he removed it and found himself in want of words as their eyes met after she had made a gesture to the broken gla.s.s on the floor and the lacerated table top, which said too plainly:

”Do you admire your work?”

The fact that he was well groomed and freshly shaven did not in any wise dissipate in her feminine mind his connection with this destruction. He had never seen anything like the smile which went with the gesture. Her eyes were two continuing and challenging flames. Her chin was held high and steady, and the pallor of exhaustion, with the blackness of her hair-and eyes, made her strangely commanding. He understood that she was not waiting for him to speak, but to go.

”I did not know that there was a woman here!” he said.

”And I did not know that officers of the Grays were accustomed to enter private houses without invitations!” she replied.

”This is a little different,” he began.

She interrupted him.

”But the law of the Grays is that homes should be left undisturbed, isn't it? At least, it is the law of civilization. I believe you profess, too, to protect property, do you not?”

”Why, yes!” he agreed. He wished that he could get a little respite from the steady fire of her eyes. It was embarra.s.sing and as confusing as the white light of an impracticable logic.

”In that case, please place a guard around our house lest some more of your soldiers get out of control,” she went on.

”I can do that, yes,” he said. ”But we are to make this a staff headquarters and must start at once to put the house in readiness.”

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