The Spaniard again obeyed. Tavernay pushed open the door of an inner room.
"You are drunk," he said. "You must not be seen in this condition by your fellow-soldiers. Go in and lie down!"
The Spaniard stared at his officer stupidly, tottering upon his limbs. Then he staggered into the Captain's room. Tavernay turned back to Stretton and a ghost of a smile crept into his face.
"C'est du theater," he said, with a little shrug of the shoulders. "But what would you have, monsieur?" And he spoke to Stretton as to an equal. "You are astonished. It is very likely not your way in your-fishing-boats," he continued, with a chuckle. Stretton knew very well that he meant "army." "But there is no Foreign Legion amongst your--fishermen." He laughed again; and gathering up his papers dismissed Stretton to the tailor's. But after Stretton had taken a few steps across the parade, Tavernay called him back again. He looked at him with a very friendly smile.
"I, too, enlisted at Marseilles," he said. "One can rise in the Foreign Legion by means of these"--and he touched lightly the medals upon his breast. This was Tony Stretton's introduction to the Foreign Legion.
CHAPTER XVII
[CALLON LEAVES ENGLAND]
Spring that year drew summer quickly after it. The lilac had been early in flower, the days bright and hot. At nine o'clock on a July morning Callon's servant drew up the blinds in his master's room and let the sunlight in. Lionel Callon stretched himself in bed and asked for his letters and his tea. As he drank the tea he picked up the letters one by one, and the first at which he looked brought a smile of satisfaction to his face. The superscription told him that it was from Millie Stretton. That little device of a quarrel had proved successful, then. He tore open the envelope and read the letter. Millie wrote at no great length, but what was written satisfied Callon. She could not understand how the quarrel had arisen. She had been thinking over it many times since it happened, and she was still baffled. She had not had a thought of hurting him. How could she, since they were friends? She had been hoping to hear from him, but since some time had passed and no word had reached her, she must write and say that she thought it sad their friendship should have ended as it had.
It was a wistful little letter, and as Callon laid it down he said to himself, "Poor little girl"; but he said the words with a smile rather than with any contrition. She had been the first to write--that was the main point. Had he given in, had he been the one to make the advance, to save her the troubled speculations, the sorrow at this abrupt close to their friendship. Millie Stretton would have been glad, no doubt, but she would have thought him weak. Now he was the strong man. He had caused her suffering and abased her to seek a reconciliation. Therefore he was the strong man. Well, women would have it so, he thought, with a chuckle, and why should he complain?
He wrote a note to Millie Stretton, announcing that he would call that afternoon, and despatched the note by a messenger. Then he turned to his other letters, and amongst them he found one which drove all the satisfaction from his thoughts. It came from a firm of solicitors, and was couched in a style with which he was not altogether unfamiliar.