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Page 3
The old man was confused and his faded eyes filled. "For me,
mademoiselle?"
"Surely!"
"Thanks, mademoiselle, thanks! I saw _him_ when they brought him back
from St. Helena, and the Old Guard waded out into the Seine. Those
were days. Thanks, mademoiselle; an old soldier salutes you!" And the
time-bent, withered form grew tall.
Fitzgerald cleared his throat, for just then something hard had formed
there. Why, God bless her! She was the kind of girl who became the
mother of soldiers.
With her departure his present interest here began to wane. He
wondered who she might be and what part of his native land she adorned
when not gracing European capitals. Well, this was no time for
mooning. He had arrived from London the day proceeding, and was
leaving for Corfu on the morrow, and perforce he must crowd many things
into this short grace of time. He was only moderately fond of Paris as
a city; the cafes and restaurants and theaters amused him, to be sure;
but he was always hunting for romance here and never finding it. The
Paris of his Dumas and Leloir no longer existed. In one way or
another, the Louvre did not carry him back to the beloved days; he
could not rouse his fancy to such height that he could see D'Artagnan
ruffling it on the staircase, or Porthos sporting a gold baldric, which
was only leather, under his cloak. So then, the tomb of Napoleon and
the articles of clothing and warfare which had belonged to him and the
toys of the poor little king of Rome were far more to him than all the
rest of Paris put together. These things of the first great empire
were tangible, visible, close to the touch of his hand. Therefore,
never he came to Paris that he failed to visit the tomb and the two
museums.
To-day his sight-seeing ended in the hall of Turenne, before the
souvenirs of the Duc de Reichstadt, so-called the king of Rome. Poor,
little lead soldiers, tarnished and broken; what a pathetic history!
Abused, ignored, his childish aspirations trampled on, the name and
glory of his father made sport of; worried as cruel children worry a
puppy; tantalized; hoping against hope that this night or the next his
father would dash in at the head of the Old Guard and take him back to
Paris. A plaything for Metternich! Who can gaze upon these little
toys without a thrill of pity?
"Poor little codger!" Fitzgerald murmured aloud.
"Yes, yes!" agreed a voice in good English, over his shoulder; "who
will ever realize the misery of that boy?"
Fitzgerald at once recognized his justing opponent of the previous
hour. Further, this second appearance refreshed his memory. He knew
now where he had met the man; he even recalled his name.
"Are you not Karl Breitmann?" he asked with directness.
"Yes. And you are--let me think. Yes; I have it. You are the
American correspondent, Fitzgerald."
"And we met in Macedonia during the Greek war."
"Right. And you and I, with a handful of other scribblers, slept that
night under the same tent."
"By George!"
"I did not recall you when we bumped a while ago; but once I had gone
by you, your face became singularly familiar."
"Funny, isn't it?" And Fitzgerald took hold of the extended hand.
"The sight of these toys always gets into my heart."
"Into mine also. Who can say what might have been had they not crushed
out the great spirit lying dormant in his little soul? I saw Bernhardt
and Coquelin recently in _L'Aiglon_. Ah, but they play it! It drove
me here to-day. But this three-cornered hat holds me longest," with a
quick gesture toward the opposite wall. "Can't you see the lean face
under it, the dark eyes, the dark hair falling upon his collar? What
thoughts have run riot under this piece of felt? The brain, the brain!
A lieutenant at this time; a short, wiry, cold-blooded youngster, but
dreaming the greatest dream in the world!"
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