"Oh, but he mustn't, Bronson."
"I can't say 'mustn't' to him, Miss," Bronson reported dismally. "You'd better see what you can do—"
But when Jean arrived, the General was gone!
"We'll drive out through the country," the old man had told his chauffeur, and had settled back among his cushions, his cane by his side, his foot up on the opposite seat to relieve him of the weight.
And it was as he rode that he began to have a strange feeling about that foot which no longer walked or bore him lightly.
How he had marched in those bygone days! He remembered the first time he had tried to keep step with his fellows. The tune had been Yankee Doodle—with a fife and drum—and he was a raw young recruit in his queer blue uniform and visored cap—.
And how eager his feet had been, how strongly they had borne him, spurning the dust of the road—as they would bear him no more—.
There were men who envied him as he swept past them in the rain, men who felt that he had more than his share of wealth and ease, yet he would have made a glad exchange for the feet which took them where they willed.
He came at last to one of his old haunts, a small stone house on the edge of the Canal. From its wide porch he had often watched the slow boats go by, with men and women and children living in worlds bounded by weather-beaten decks. To-day in the rain there was a blur of lilac bushes along the tow path, but no boats were in sight; the Canal was a ruffled gray sheet in the April wind.
Lounging in the low-ceiled front room of the stone house were men of the type with whom he had once foregathered—men not of his class or kind, but interesting because of their very differences—human derelicts who had welcomed him.