"There is just one thing about it," replied the Commandant. "We cannot give our decorations around wholesale. The King wishes to keep them choice by keeping them rare. Now it really will not do to add two more decorations to your little group. Two of your women have already received them. This was a brave piece of work—one of the bravest I ever saw. It deserves a ribbon. It shall have a ribbon, if I can reach the King. But two ribbons, no. It cannot be."
"Ah, you don't need to tell me that," returned Hilda. "I know that. One decoration is quite enough. But that decoration, if granted, must go to Smith."
The highest honor in the gift of the King of the Belgians was being conferred: a Red Cross worker was about to be made Chevalier of the Order of Leopold. Doubtless one would rather be decorated by Albert than by any other person in the world. It was plain already that he was going down into history as one of the fabulous good rulers, with Alfred and Saint Louis, who had been as noble in their secret heart as in their pride of place. It was fitting that the brief ceremony should be held in Albert's wrecked village of Pervyse, with shell pits in the road, and black stumps of ruin for every glance of the eye. For he was no King of prosperity, fat with the pomp of power. He was a man of sorrows, the brother of his crucified people.
But the man who was about to be honored kept getting lost. The distinguished statesmen, officers, and visiting English, formed their group and chatted. But the object of their coming together was seldom in sight. He disappeared indoors to feed the wasted cat that had lived through three bombardments and sought her meat in wrecked homes. He was blotted out by the "Hilda" car, as he tinkered with its intimacies. No man ever looked less like a Chevalier, than Smith, when discovered and conducted to the King. Any of the little naval boy officers standing around with their gold braid on the purple cloth, looked gaudier than Smith. He looked more like a background, with his weather-worn khaki, and narrow, high-hitched shoulders, than like the center-piece in a public performance.
There came a brief and painful moment, when the King's favor was pinned upon him.
"The show is over, isn't it?" he asked.
Hilda smiled.
"I suppose you'll go and bury the medal in an old trunk in the attic," she said.
Smith walked across to the car, and opened the bonnet. The group of distinguished people had lost interest in him. Hilda followed him over.