"It's Fate!" the girl half whispered. "But what Fate? What does it all mean?"
"I've been asking myself that question," Max said, "and I can't find an answer—yet."
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE STATION PLATFORM
They dined together in a glass-fronted restaurant opening out on to the terrace, and Sanda was sweet, but absent-minded. Max could guess where her thoughts were, and almost hated Stanton. How could the man let some wretched engagement, with a few French officers, keep him from this poor little girl who adored him? How could Stanton let her go alone to meet her unnatural father (it was thus that Max thought of Colonel DeLisle) when as her one-time guardian he might have taken her to Sidi-bel-Abbés himself, and persuaded his old friend, DeLisle, to be lenient. All that Max had heard against the explorer came back to him, and he was ready to believe Stanton the cruel and selfish egoist that gossip sketched him. Poor Sanda!
Miss DeLisle had meant to finish her long journey as she had begun it, second-class; but Max persuaded the girl to let him take for her a first-class ticket, with coupé lit, in a compartment for women, as far as the station where at dawn they must change for Sidi-bel-Abbés. She was surprised at the smallness of the price, but did not suspect that she owed her new friend anything more substantial than gratitude for all the trouble he had taken for her comfort.
Max himself went second-class, packed in with seven men who would have thought opening the window a symptom of insanity.
One of the seven was the man with whom Sanda DeLisle had chatted on board the General Morel at dinner. He was the hero of the compartment, for he was going to Sidi-bel-Abbés to fight a boxing match with the champion of the Legion, a soldier named Pelle. Four of the travellers (three men of Algiers and a youth of Sidi-bel-Abbés) were accompanying the French boxer, having met him at the ship.
Dozing and waking, Max heard excited talk of la boxe and the coming event. He was vaguely interested, for he had been the champion boxer of his regiment—a hundred years ago!—but he was too weary in body and mind to care much about a match at Sidi-bel-Abbés. When he was not trying to sleep, he was mentally composing a letter to his colonel, with discreet explanations, and a justification of his forthcoming immediate resignation from the army: or else a written explanation of his farewell to Billie, following up the telegram; or thinking out business directions to Edwin Reeves. Suddenly, however, as he was dully wondering how best to send the heiress to New York without going back himself, a name spoken almost in his ear had the blinding effect of a searchlight upon his brain.