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The Blue Curtains
by
Poor Bottles! One look was enough. There was no chance of his attaining the blessed haven of disillusionment. In five seconds he was farther out to sea than ever. When she knew that he had seen her she dropped her eyes a little–he saw the long curved lashes appear against her cheek, and moved forward.
“How do you do?” she said softly, extending her slim, cool hand.
He took the hand and shook it, but for the life of him could think of nothing to say. Not one of the little speeches he had prepared would come into his mind. Yet the desperate necessity of saying something forced itself upon him.
“How do you do?” he ejaculated with a jerk. “It–it’s very cold, isn’t it?”
This remark was such an utter and ludicrous fiasco that Lady Croston could not choose but laugh a little.
“I see,” she said, “that you have not got over your shyness.”
“It is a long while since we met,” he blurted out.
“I am very glad to see you,” was her simple answer. “Now sit down and talk to me; tell me all about yourself. Stop; before you begin–how very curious it is! Do you know I dreamed about you last night–such a curious, painful dream. I dreamed that I was asleep in my room–which indeed I was–and that it was blowing a gale and raining in torrents–which I believe it was also–so there is nothing very wonderful about that. But now comes the odd part. I dreamed that you were standing out in the rain and wind and yet looking at me as though you saw me. I could not see your face because you were in the dark, but I knew it was you. Then I woke up with a start. It was a most vivid dream. And now to-day you have come to see me after all these years.”
He shifted his legs uneasily. Considering the facts of the case, her dream frightened him, which was not strange. Fortunately, at that moment the impressive footman arrived with the tea-things and asked whether he should light the lamps.
“No,” said Lady Croston; “put some wood on the fire.” She knew that she looked her very best in those half-lights.
Then, when she had given him his tea, delighting him by remembering that he did not like sugar, she fell to drawing him out about the wild life he had been leading.
“By the way,” she said presently, “perhaps you can tell me–a few days ago I bought a book for my boy”–she had two children–“all about brave deeds and that sort of thing, and in it there was a story of a volunteer officer in South Africa (the name was not mentioned) which interested me very much. Did you ever hear of it? It was this: The officer was in command of a fort containing a force that was operating against a native chief. While he was away the chief sent a flag of truce down to the fort, which was fired on by some of the volunteers in the fort, because there was a man among the truce party against whom they had a spite. Just afterwards the officer returned, and was very angry that such a thing had been done by Englishmen, whose duty it was, he said, to teach all the world what honour meant.
“Now comes the brave part of the story. Without saying any more, and notwithstanding the entreaties of his men, who knew that in all probability he was going to a death by torture, for he was so brave that the natives had set a great price upon him, wishing to kill him and use his body for medicine, which they thought would make them as brave as he was, that officer rode out far away into the mountains with only an interpreter and a white handkerchief, till he came to the chief’s stronghold. But when the natives saw him coming, holding up his white handkerchief, they did not fire at him as his men had fired at them, because they were so astonished at his bravery that they thought he must be mad or inspired. So he came straight on to the walls of the stronghold, called to the chief and begged his pardon for what had happened, and then rode away again unharmed. Shortly afterwards, the chief, having captured some of the officer’s volunteers, whom in the ordinary course of affairs he would have tortured to death, sent them back again untouched, with a message to the effect that he would show the English officer that he was not the only man who could behave ‘like a gentleman.’ I should like to know that man. Do you know who he was?”