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Page 56
* * * * *
In a glass case on the wall of my library hangs an antique bit of
harness which is my most precious piece of property. How its story came
about I do not even try to guess. As Philippe said the action of that
day took place on a very old battle-field. The shell which made the
sheltering crater doubtless dug up earth untouched for hundreds of
years. That it should have dug up the very object which was a tradition
in the Martel family and should have laid it in the grasp of a Martel
fighting for France with that tradition at the bottom of his mind seems
incredible. The story of the apparition of the Maid is incredible to
laughter, or tears. No farther light is to be got from the boy, because
he believes his story. I do not try to explain, I place the episode in
my mind alongside other things incredible, things lovely and spiritual,
and, to our viewpoint of five years ago, things mad. Many such have
risen luminous, undesirable, unexplained, out of these last horrible
years, and wait human thought, it may be human development, to be
classified. I accept and treasure the silver stirrup as a pledge of
beautiful human gratitude. I hold it as a visible sign that French blood
keeps a loyalty to France which ages and oceans may not weaken.
THE RUSSIAN
The little dinner-party of grizzled men strayed from the dining-room and
across the hall into the vast library, arguing mightily.
"The great war didn't do it. World democracy was on the way. The war
held it back."
It was the United States Senator, garrulous and incisive, who issued
that statement. The Judge, the host, wasted not a moment in
contradicting. "You're mad, Joe," he threw at him with a hand on the
shoulder of the man who was still to him that promising youngster,
little Joe Burden of The School. "Held back democracy! The war! Quite
mad, my son."
The guest of the evening, a Russian General who had just finished five
strenuous years in the Cabinet of the Slav Republic, dropped back a step
to watch, with amused eyes, strolling through the doorway, the two
splendid old boys, the Judge's arm around the Senator's shoulders,
fighting, sputtering, arguing with each other as they had fought and
argued forty odd years up to date.
Two minutes more and the party of six had settled into deep chairs, into
a mammoth davenport, before a blazing fire of spruce and birch. Cigars,
liqueurs, coffee, the things men love after dinner, were there; one had
the vaguest impression of two vanishing Japanese persons who might or
might not have brought trays and touched the fire and placed tiny tables
at each right hand; an atmosphere of completeness was present, one did
not notice how. One settled with a sigh of satisfaction into comfort,
and chose a cigar. One laughed to hear the Judge pound away at the
Senator.
"It's all a game." Dr. Rutherford turned to the Russian. "They're
devoted old friends, not violent enemies, General. The Senator stirs up
the Judge by taking impossible positions and defending them savagely.
The Judge invariably falls into the trap. Then a battle. Their battles
are the joy of the Century Club. The Senator doesn't believe for an
instant that the war held back democracy."
At that the Senator whirled. "I don't? But I do.--Don't _smoke_ that
cigar, Rutherford, on your life. Peter will have these atrocities.
Here--Kaki, bring the doctor the other box.--That's better.--I don't
believe what I said? Now listen. How could the fact that the world was
turned into a military camp, officers commanding, privates obeying,
rank, rank, rank everywhere throughout mankind, how could that fail to
hinder democracy, which is in its essence the leveling of ranks? Tell me
that!"
The doctor grinned at the Russian. "What about it, General? What do you
think?"
The General answered slowly, with a small accent but in the wonderfully
good English of an educated Russian. "I do not agree with the
Sena-torr," he stated, and five heads turned to listen. There was a
quality of large personality in the burr of the voice, in the poise and
soldierly bearing, in the very silence of the man, which made his slow
words of importance. "I believe indeed that the Sena-torr is
partly--shall I say speaking for argument?"
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