"Poor fellow!" said some of the kind hearts amid the finery. "He looks pretty homesick."
"Such a handsome boy, too. You must take him out in the German, Floy."
"Oh, he can't go to the German," said Miss Floy, who had reached the mature age of thirteen. "None of the plebs can. And he's only a candidate, yet. Besides, I don't care much for any man that doesn't wear chevrons."
And the mother laughed and repeated the smart saying to her next neighbour.
If there arose in the mind of Charlemagne Kindred an instant resolve to wear chevrons, at whatever cost, you must not think hardly of him. These pretty, airy creatures wield a powerful sceptre and their silken cords are strong.
How the people crowded in! They sat where they could, and stood where they shouldn't. They grouped themselves round the old trees, and made a strong background to the iron seats. Officers, civilians, matrons, girls—and candidates. Little children dropped down on the green edge of the parade ground, and at last grown-up and hard-pushed people sat there, too. Then an imposing police sergeant came along, waving them off with his black wand. And the people jumped up, growling and frowning, and, as soon as they saw his back, dropped down again.
As for Magnus, the whole thing seemed to wind him up in tightening cords of tension. He was outside now, but to-morrow at this time he would be in; caught and bound and caged behind a cordon of regulations. Assigned a place, turned over to duties which he could in no wise quit or change. Not to see home again for two long years.
Should he do it? Or should he, in these last hours of freedom, set himself free for good? Take the first train for the West, and leave all his great prospects behind him, and the chevrons and shoulder-straps to someone else? Thoughts came and went, surged and rolled back; and the whistle of each train, as it flew by, just made the confusion deeper. "Come!" they seemed to say. "Come-m-me-me!"
Meantime the review went on; the citizen actors showed how they could not march and the cadets how they could; and this last part was so fine that Magnus fairly forgot himself and his trouble. Round the great square they went; the grey and white lines moving like some one elastic thing. Corners made no break, hot sunbeams seemed unnoticed. So they marched round; first slow, then fast; and then began the double-timing.
How beautiful it was! Privates in their glancing lines; cadet officers leading on, and running backwards or forwards with equally unerring footsteps. Heading all, the Commandant. Years had passed away since he learned the double-quick; and the supple boy had changed into the grey-haired man; but his foot never faltered, his step never lagged. The white-plumed blue uniform led on the grey with a gallantry it was pretty to see. Magnus watched the whole with deepest admiration; down to the last bit of timeful running with no music to mark it off.