IV
He came straight to the consulate, and I was so glad to see him that I sat him down in front of the sideboard and left orders that I was at home to no one. We had been class-mates and room-mates at college, and two better friends never lived. We spent the whole night in recounting the good old days, sighed a little over the departed ones, and praised or criticized the living. Hadn't they been times, though? The nights we had stolen up to Philadelphia to see the shows, the great Thanksgiving games in New York, the commencements, and all that!
Max had come out of the far West. He was a foundling who had been adopted by a wealthy German ranchman named Scharfenstein, which name Max assumed as his own, it being as good as any. Nobody knew anything about Max's antecedents, but he was so big and handsome and jolly that no one cared a hang. For all that he did not know his parentage, he was a gentleman, something that has to be bred in the bone. Once or twice I remember seeing him angry; in anger he was arrogant, deadly, but calm. He was a god in track-linen, for he was what few big men are, quick and agile. The big fellow who is cat-like in his movements is the most formidable of athletes. One thing that invariably amused me was his inordinate love of uniforms. He would always stop when he saw a soldier or the picture of one, and his love of arms was little short of a mania. He was an expert fencer and a dead shot besides. (Pardon the parenthesis, but I feel it my duty to warn you that nobody fights a duel in this little history, and nobody gets killed.)
On leaving college he went in for medicine, and his appearance in the capital city of Barscheit was due obviously to the great medical college, famous the world over for its nerve specialists. This was Max's first adventure in the land of gutturals. I explained to him, and partly unraveled, the tangle of laws; as to the language, he spoke that, not like a native, but as one.
Max was very fond of the society of women, and at college we used to twit him about it, for he was always eager to meet a new face, trusting that the new one might be the ideal for which he was searching.
"Well, you old Dutchman," said I, "have you ever found that ideal woman of yours?"
"Bah!"—lighting a pipe. "She will never be found. A horse and a trusty dog for me; those two you may eventually grow to understand. Of course I don't say, if the woman came along—the right one—I mightn't go under, I'm philosopher enough to admit that possibility. I want her tall, hair like corn-silk, eyes like the cornflower, of brilliant intellect, reserved, and dignified, and patient. I want a woman, not humorous, but who understands humor, and I have never heard of one. So, you see, it's all smoke; and I never talk woman these times unless I'm smoking,"—with a gesture which explained that he had given up the idea altogether. "A doctor sees so much of women that he finally sees nothing of woman."
"Oh, if you resort to epigrams, I can see that it's all over."
"All over. I'm so used to being alone that I shouldn't know what to do with a wife." He puffed seriously.
Ah! the futility of our desires, of our castles, of our dreams! The complacency with which we jog along in what we deem to be our own particular groove! I recall a girl friend of my youth who was going to be a celibate, a great reformer, and toward that end was studying for the pulpit. She is now the mother of several children, the most peaceful and unorative woman I know. You see, humanity goes whirring over various side-tracks, thinking them to be the main line, till fate puts its peculiar but happy hand to the switch. Scharfenstein had been plugging away over rusty rails and grass-grown ties—till he came to Barscheit.
"Hope is the wings of the heart," said I, when I thought the pause had grown long enough. "You still hope?"
"In a way. If I recollect, you had an affair once,"—shrewdly.
I smoked on. I wasn't quite ready to speak.
"You were always on the hunt for ideals, too, as I remember; hope you'll find her."
"Max, my boy, I am solemnly convinced that I have."
"Good Lord, you don't mean to tell me that you are hooked?" he cried.
"I see no reason why you should use that particular tone," I answered stiffly.
"Oh, come now; tell me all about it. Who is she, and when's the wedding?"
"I don't know when the wedding's going to be, but I'm mighty sure that I have met the one girl. Max, there never was a girl like her. Witty she is, and wise; as beautiful as a summer's dawn; merry and brave; rides, drives, plays the 'cello, dances like a moon-shadow; and all that,"—with a wave of the hand.
"You've got it bad. Remember how you used to write poetry at college? Who is she, if I may ask?"
"The Honorable Betty Moore, at present the guest of her Highness, the Princess Hildegarde,"—with pardonable pride.
Max whistled. "You're a lucky beggar. One by one we turn traitor to our native land. A Britisher! I never should have believed it of you, of the man whose class declamation was on the fiery subject of patriotism. But is it all on one side?"
"I don't know, Max; sometimes I think so, and then I don't."
"How long have you known her?"
"Little more than a month."
"A month? Everything moves swiftly these days, except European railway cars."
"There's a romance, Max, but another besides her is concerned, and I can not tell you. Some day, when everything quiets down, I'll get you into a corner with a bottle, and you will find it worth while."
"The bottle?"
"Both."
"From rumors I've heard, this princess is a great one for larks; rides bicycles and automobiles, and generally raises the deuce. What sort is she?"
"If you are going to remain in Barscheit, my boy, take a friendly warning. Do not make any foolish attempt to see her. She is more fascinating than a roulette table."
This was a sly dig. Max smiled. A recent letter from him had told of an encounter with the goddess of Monte Carlo. Fortune had been all things but favorable.
"I'm not afraid of your princess; besides, I came here to study."
"And study hard, my boy, study hard. Her Highness is not the only pretty woman in Barscheit. There's a raft of them."
"I'll paddle close to the shore," with a smile.
"By the way, I'll wake you up Thursday."
"How?"—lazily.
"A bout at Müller's Rathskeller. Half a dozen American lads, one of whom is called home. Just fixed up his passports for him. You'll be as welcome as the flowers in the spring. Some of the lads will be in your classes."
"Put me down. It will be like old times. I went to the reunion last June. Everything was in its place but you. Hang it, why can't time always go on as it did then?"
"Time, unlike our watches, never has to go to the jeweler's for repairs," said I owlishly.
Max leaned over, took my bull-terrier by the neck and deposited him on his lap.
"Good pup, Artie—if he's anything like his master. Three years, my boy, since I saw you. And here you are, doing nothing and lallygagging at court with the nobility. I wish I had had an uncle who was a senator. 'Pull' is everything these days."
"You Dutchman, I won this place on my own merit,"—indignantly.
"Forget it!"—grinning.
"You are impertinent."
"But truthful, always."
And then we smoked a while in silence. The silent friend is the best of the lot. He knows that he hasn't got to talk unless he wants to, and likewise that it is during these lapses of speech that the vine of friendship grows and tightens about the heart. When you sit beside a man and feel that you need not labor to entertain him it's a good sign that you thoroughly understand each other. I was first to speak.
"I don't understand why you should go in for medicine so thoroughly. It can't be money, for heaven knows your father left you a yearly income which alone would be a fortune to me."
"Chivalry shivers these days; the chill of money is on everything. A man must do something—a man who is neither a sloth nor a fool. A man must have something to put his whole heart into; and I despise money as money. I give away the bulk of my income."
"Marry, and then you will not have to," I said flippantly.
"You're a sad dog. Do you know, I've been thinking about epigrams."
"No!"
"Yes. I find that an epigram is produced by the same cause that produces the pearl in the oyster."
"That is to say, a healthy mentality never superinduces an epigram? Fudge!" said I, yanking the pup from his lap on to mine. "According to your diagnosis, your own mind is diseased."
"Have I cracked an epigram?"—with pained surprise.
"Well, you nearly bent one," I compromised. Then we both laughed, and the pup started up and licked my face before I could prevent him.
"Did I ever show you this?"—taking out a locket which was attached to one end of his watch-chain. He passed the trinket to me.
"What is it?" I asked, turning it over and over.
"It's the one slender link that connects me with my babyhood. It wag around my neck when Scharfenstein picked me up. Open it and look at the face inside."
I did so. A woman's face peered up at me. It might have been beautiful but for the troubled eyes and the drooping lips. It was German in type, evidently of high breeding, possessing the subtle lines which distinguish the face of the noble from the peasant's. From the woman's face I glanced at Max's. The eyes were something alike.
"Who do you think it is?" I asked, when I had studied the face sufficiently to satisfy my curiosity.
"I've a sneaking idea that it may be my mother. Scharfenstein found me toddling about in a railroad station, and that locket was the only thing about me that might be used in the matter of identification. You will observe that there is no lettering, not even the jeweler's usual carat-mark to qualify the gold. I recall nothing; life with me dates only from the wide plains and grazing cattle. I was born either in Germany or Austria. That's all I know. And to tell you the honest truth, boy, it's the reason I've placed my woman-ideal so high. So long as I place her over my head I'm not foolish enough to weaken into thinking I can have her. What woman wants a man without a name?"
"You poor old Dutchman, you! You can buy a genealogy with your income. And a woman nowadays marries the man, the man. It's only horses, dogs and cattle that we buy for their pedigrees. Come; you ought to have a strawberry mark on your arm," I suggested lightly; for there were times when Max brooded over the mystery which enveloped his birth.
In reply he rolled up his sleeve and bared a mighty arm. Where the vaccination scar usually is I saw a red patch, like a burn. I leaned over and examined it. It was a four-pointed scar, with a perfect circle around it. Somehow, it seemed to me that this was not the first time I had seen this peculiar mark. I did not recollect ever seeing it on Max's arm. Where had I seen it, then?
"It looks like a burn," I ventured to suggest.
"It is. I wish I knew what it signifies. Scharfenstein said that it was positively fresh when he found me. He said I cried a good deal and kept telling him that I was Max. Maybe I'm an anarchist and don't know it,"—with half a smile.
"It's a curious scar. Hang me, but I've seen the device somewhere before!"
"You have?"—eagerly. "Where, where?"
"I don't know; possibly I saw it on your arm in the old days."
He sank back in his chair. Silence, during which the smoke thickened and the pup whined softly in his sleep. Out upon the night the cathedral bell boomed the third hour of morning.
"If you don't mind, Artie," said Max, yawning, "I'll turn in. I've been traveling for the past fortnight."
"Take a ride on Dandy in the morning. He'll hold your weight nicely. I can't go with you, as I've a lame ankle."
"I'll be in the saddle at dawn. All I need is a couple of hours between sheets."
As I prodded my pillow into a comfortable wad under my cheek I wondered where I had seen that particular brand. It was a brand. I knew that I had seen it somewhere, but my memory danced away when I endeavored to halter it. Soon I fell asleep, dreaming of somebody who wasn't Max Scharfenstein, by a long shot.