“To go to Antwerp, Brussels, Mons, Charleroi, Maubeuge, Dinant, Namur, Liége,” I translated aloud, “to look for his sister.”
Months later Mr. Solslog came again. “There is a gentleman in the reception room waiting for monsieur: an American gentleman——” Leon shrugged his shoulders expressively, spread out his palms, and went on in a rapid whisper: “He asked for monsieur. Nothing else could I understand. He has waited for monsieur four hours, and he talks, talks to himself always!”
From the hall I heard a steady gentle voice talking, talking, talking. “Mr. Solslog,” I hailed him. The voice stopped. He must have stepped swiftly from the thick carpet to the tiled floor of the hall, for he came like a man running.
“You-all here, suh,” he asked, without an interrogative lift to the question. “Let me—let me hold on to your hand for a minute. I—I’m right glad to see you. They’ve just—I’ve just got out.” He gathered his voice and breath for a tremendous effort. His next sentence came like a blast of prophecy. “Oh, may God damn the Germans!” he screamed.
“Leon,” I shouted, “bring brandy, quick!”
“Oh, no, suh; not for me. I don’t use it.” Mr. Solslog gently released my hands and walked beside me into the reception room. His face was whiter than before, the lines in it deeper, and the pathetic, patient eyes stranger than when I had seen him last; but the fever fit of passion passed and left him calm as usual.
“I haven’t found my sistah—it isn’t that,” he explained in his slow, drawling voice. “I’ve jist got out of prison here in Antwerp, suh. I told the German officer if I ever see him again I’ll kill him. I’m going to kill him if I ever see him again. I’m going to——”
“Yes, yes,” I said soothingly. The monotonous recitative I had heard on first entering the house had begun.
“I told him I’d kill him, I’d kill him, suh, kill him, I’d kill him——”