The Splendid Outcast

"Some say he showed yellow yesterday in the wheat field," said the private.

"Yellow! They'd better not let me hear 'em sayin' it – "

They were talking about him– Harry Horton. And the figure, lying awkwardly, a shapeless mass – ?

At the risk of discovery, the coward straightened and peered down into the white face … Jim!

Harry Horton didn't remember anything very distinctly for a while after that, for his thoughts were much confused. But out of the chaos emerged the persistent instinct of self preservation. There was no use trying to find Jim's squad now. He wouldn't know them if he saw them. And how could he explain his absence with no wound to show? For a moment the desperate expedient occurred to him of thrusting himself through the leg with the bayonet. He even took Jim's weapon out of its scabbard. But the blue steel gave him a touch of the nausea that had come over him in the wheat field… That wouldn't do. And what was the use? They had Harry Horton lying near death on the stretcher. What mattered what happened to the brother? There was no chance now to exchange identities. Perhaps there was never to be a chance.

He sank down again into the thicket, pulling the leaves about him. He would find a way. It could be managed. "Missing" – that was the safest way out.

That night, limping slightly, he emerged and made his way to the rear. It was ridiculously easy. Of the men he met he asked the way to the billets of the – th Regiment. But he didn't go where they told him. He followed their instructions until out of sight of them, and then went in the opposite direction.

He managed at last to get some food at a small farm house and under the pretext of having been sent to borrow peasant clothing for the Intelligence department, managed to get a pair of trousers, shirt, coat and hat. He had buried his rifle the night before and now when the opportunity came he dropped the bundle of Jim Horton's corporal's uniform, weighted by a stone, into deep water from a bridge over a river. With the splash Corporal James Horton of the Engineers had ceased to exist.

At the end of two weeks, thanks to some money that he had found in Jim's uniform – and a great deal of good luck – he was safe in a quiet pastoral country far from the battle line. Here he saw no uniforms – only old men and women in blouses and sabots, occupying themselves with the harvest, aware only that the Boches were in retreat and that their own fields were forever safe from invasion. He represented himself as an American art student of Paris, driven by poverty from the city, and offered to work for board and lodging. They took him, and there he stayed for awhile. There was a girl in the family. It was very pleasant. The nearest town was St. Florentin, and Paris was a hundred miles away. But after a few weeks he wearied of it, and of the girl, and having twenty francs left in his pockets stole away in the middle of the night.

Paris was the place for him. There identities were not questioned. He knew something of Paris. Piquette Morin! He could get her help without telling any unnecessary facts. As to Barry Quinlevin and Moira – that was different. It wouldn't be pleasant to fall completely in the power of a man like Barry Quinlevin – even if he was now his father-in-law. And Moira … No. Moira mustn't ever know if he could prevent it. And yet if Jim Horton in Harry's uniform had been killed Harry would be officially dead. He was already dead, to Moira, if Jim Horton had revived enough to tell the truth. It wasn't a pretty story to be spread around. But if Jim were alive … what then?

There were ways of getting along in Paris. He would find a way even if … Moira! He would have liked to be able to go to Moira. She was the one creature in the world whose opinion seemed to matter now. She would have been his on the next furlough. He knew women. If you couldn't get them one way you could another. Already her letters had been gentler – more conciliatory. His wife – the wife of an outcast! God! Why had he ever gone into the service? How had he known back there that he wouldn't have been able to stand up under fire – that he would have found the grinning head of the hated Levinski in the wheat field? Waves of goose flesh went over him and left him cold and weak… A sullen mood followed, dull, embittered, and vengeful, against all the world, with only one hope… If Jim were alive – and silent!

That opened possibilities – to substitute with his brother and come back to his own – with all the honors of the fool performance! It was his name, his job that Jim had taken, and his brother couldn't keep him out of them. He could make Jim give them up – he'd make him. If he couldn't come back himself, he would drag Jim down with him – they would be outcast together. In the dark that night he would have managed in some way to carry out the Major's orders if Jim hadn't found him just at the worst moment. What right had Jim to go butting in and making a fool of them both! D – n him!

He found his way into Paris at the end of a dreary day of tramping. He had a few francs left but he was tired and very hungry. With a lie framed he went straight to the apartment of Piquette Morin. She had gone out of town for a few days.

That failure baffled him. He had a deposit in a bank, but he dared not draw it out. So he trudged the weary way up to Montmartre, saving his sous, and hired a bed into which he dropped more dead than alive.

Thus it was that two nights later, unable yet to bring himself to the point of begging from passersby, with scant hope indeed of success, his weary feet brought him at last to the Rue de Tavennes. Hiding his face under the shadow of his hat he inquired of the concierge and found that the apartment of Madame Horton was au troisième. He strolled past the porte cochère and walked on, looking hungrily up at the lighted windows of the studio. Moira was there – his wife, Barry Quinlevin perhaps. Who else? He heard sounds of laughter from somewhere upstairs. Laughter! The bitterness of it! But it didn't sound like Moira's voice. He walked to and fro watching the lighted windows and the entrance of the concierge, trying to keep up the circulation of his blood, for the night was chill and his clothing thin. He had no plan – but he was very hungry and his resolution to remain unknown was weakening. A man couldn't let himself slowly starve, and yet to seek out any one he knew meant discovery and the horrible publicity that must follow. The lights of the troisième étage held a fascination for him, like that of a flame for a moth. He saw a figure come to a window and throw open the sash. He stared, unable to believe his eyes. It was a man in the uniform of an officer of the United States Army – his own uniform and the man who wore it was his brother Jim! Alive – well, covered with honors perhaps – here – in Moira's apartment? What had happened to bring his brother here? And Moira …

His head whirled with weakness and he stood for a moment leaning against the wall, but his strength came back to him in a moment, and he peered up at the window again. The light had gone out. Jim masquerading in his shoes – with Moira – as her husband – alone, perhaps, in the apartment! And Moira? The words of conciliation in her last letters which had seemed to promise so much for the future, had a different significance here. Fury shook him like a leaf, the fury of desperation, that for the moment drove from his craven heart all fear of an encounter with his brother.

There was a sound of a door shutting and in a moment he saw the man in uniform emerge by the gate of the concierge. He walked toward the outcast, his head bent in deep meditation. There was no doubt about its being Jim. With clenched fists Harry barred his way, the thought that was uppermost in his mind finding utterance.

Jim Horton stopped, stepped back a pace and then peered at the man in civilian clothing from beneath his broad army hat-brim.

"Harry!" he muttered, almost inaudibly.

"What are you doing here – in this house?" raged Harry in a voice thick with passion. And then, as no reply came, "Answer me! Answer me!"

One of Harry's fists threatened but his brother caught him by the wrist and with ridiculous ease twisted his arm aside. He was surprised as Harry sank back weakly against the wall with a snarl of pain. "D – n you," he groaned.

This wouldn't do. Any commotion would surely arouse the curiosity of Madame Toupin, the concierge.

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, Harry," he muttered, "and I'll talk to you."

He caught him firmly by the arm, but Harry still leaned against the wall, muttering vaguely.

"A civil tongue —me? You – you dare ask me?"

"Yes," said Jim gently, "I've been trying to find you."

"Where?" leered Harry, "in my wife's studio?"

Jim Horton turned suddenly furious, but shocked into silence and inertia by the terrible significance of the suspicion. But he pulled himself together with an effort.

"Come," he said quietly. "Let's get away from here."

He felt Harry yield to the pressure of his fingers and slowly they moved into the shadows down the street away from the gas lamps. A moment later Harry was twitching at his arm.

"G-get me something to cat. I – I'm hungry," he gasped.

"Hungry! How long – ?"

"Since yesterday morning – a crust of bread – "

And Jim had been eating goose – ! The new sense of his own guilt appalled him.

"Since yesterday – !" he muttered in a quick gush of compassion. "We'll find something – a café– "

"There's a place in the Rue Berthe – Javet's," he said weakly.

Jim Horton caught his brother under an elbow and helped him down the street, aware for the first time of the cause of his weakness. He marked, too, the haggard lines in Harry's face, and the two weeks' growth of beard that effectually concealed all evidence of respectability. There seemed little danger of any one's discovering the likeness between the neatly garbed lieutenant and the civilian who accompanied him. But it was well to be careful. They passed a brilliantly lighted restaurant, but in a nearby street after awhile they came to a small café, not too brightly lighted, and they entered. There was a polished zinc bar which ran the length of a room with low, smoke-stained ceilings. At the bar were two cochers, in shirt sleeves, their yellow-glazed hats on the backs of their heads, sipping grenadine. There was a winding stair which led to the living quarters above, but through a doorway beside it, there was a glimpse of an inner room with tables unoccupied. They entered and Jim Horton ordered a substantial meal which was presently set before the hungry man. The coffee revived him and he ate greedily in moody silence while Jim Horton sat, frowning at the opposite wall. For the present each was deeply engrossed – Jim in the definite problem that had suddenly presented itself, and the possible courses of action open to do what was to be required of him; Harry in his food, beyond which life at present held no other interest. But after a while, which seemed interminable to Jim, his brother gave a gasp of satisfaction, and pushed back his dishes.

"Give me a cigarette," he demanded with something of an air.

Jim obeyed and even furnished a light, not missing the evidences of Dutch courage Harry had acquired from the stimulation of food and coffee.

It was curious what little difference the amenities seemed to matter. They were purely mechanical – nor would it matter what Harry was to say to him. The main thing was to try to think clearly, obliterating his own animus against his brother and the contempt in which he held him.

Harry sank back into his chair for a moment, inhaling luxuriously.

"Well," he said at last, "maybe you've got a word to say about how the devil you got here."

"Yes," said Jim quickly. "It's very simple. I was hit. I took your identity in the hospital. There wasn't anything else to do."

Harry glowered at the ash of his cigarette and then shrugged heavily.

"I see. They think you're me. That was nice of you, Jim," he sneered, "very decent indeed, very kind and brotherly – "

"You'd better 'can' the irony," Jim broke in briefly. "They'd have found us out – both of us. And I reckon you know what that would have meant."

"H – m. Maybe I do, maybe I don't," he said shrewdly. "It was you who found me – er – sick. Nobody else did."

"We needn't speak of that."

"We might as well. I'd have come around all right, if you hadn't butted in."

"Oh, would you?"

"Yes," said Harry sullenly.

Jim Horton carefully lighted a cigarette from the butt of the other, and then said coolly:

"We're not getting anywhere, Harry."

"I think we are. I'm trying to show you that you're in wrong on this thing from start to finish. And it looks as though you might get just what was coming to you."

"Meaning what?"

"That you'll take my place again. This – !" exhibiting with a grin his worn garments. "You took mine without a by-your-leave. Now you'll give it back to me."

An ugly look came into Jim Horton's jaw.

"I'm not so sure about that," he said in a tone dangerously quiet.

"What! You mean that – " The bluster trailed off into silence at the warning fire in his brother's eyes. But he raised his head in a moment, laughing disagreeably. "I see. The promotion has got into your head. Some promotion – Lieutenant right off the reel – from Corporal, too. Living soft in the hospital and now – " He paused and swallowed uneasily. "How did you get to the Rue de Tavennes?"

"They came to the hospital – Mr. Quinlevin and – and your wife. I – I fooled them. They don't suspect."

"How – how did you know Moira was my wife?"

"Some letters. I read them."

"Oh, I see. You read them," he frowned and then, "Barry Quinlevin's too?"

"Yes – his too. I had to have facts. I got them – some I wasn't looking for – "

"About – ?"

"About the Duc de Vautrin," Jim broke in dryly. "That's one of the reasons why I'm still Harry Horton and why I'm going to stay Harry Horton – for the present."

If Jim had needed any assurance as to his brother's share in this intrigue he had it now. For Harry went red and then pale, refusing to meet his gaze.

"I see," he muttered, "Quinlevin's been talking."

"Yes," said Jim craftily, "he has. It's a pretty plan, but it won't come off. You always were a rotter, Harry. But you're not going to hurt Moira, if I can prevent."

It was a half-random shot but it hit the mark.

"Moira," muttered Harry somberly. "I see. You haven't been wasting any time."

"I'm not wasting time when I can keep her – or even you – from getting mixed up in dirty blackmail. That's my answer. And that's why I'm not going to quit until I'm ready."

Harry Horton frowned at the soiled table cover, his fingers twitching at his fork, and then reached for the coffee pot and quickly poured himself another cup.

"Clever, Jim," he said with a cynical laugh. "I take off my hat to you. I never would have thought you had it in you. But you'll admit that living in my wife's apartment and impersonating her husband is going a bit too far."

The laughter didn't serve to conceal either his fear or his fury. But it stopped short as Jim's fingers suddenly closed over his wrist and held it in a grip of iron.

"Don't bring her into this," he whispered tensely. "Do you hear?" And after a moment of struggle with himself as he withdrew his hand, "You dared to think yourself worthy of her. You!"

"Be careful what you say to me," said Harry, trying bravado. "She's my wife."

"She won't be your wife long, when I tell her what I know about you," finished Jim angrily.

He saw Harry's face go pale again as he tried to meet his gaze, saw the fire flicker out of him, as he groped pitiably for Jim's hand.

"Jim! You – you wouldn't do that?" he muttered.

Jim released his hand, shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

"Not if you play straight with me – and with her. You want me to pay the penalty of what I did for you – to go out into the world – an outcast in your place. Perhaps I owe it to you. I don't know. But you owe me something too – promotion – the Croix de Guerre– "

"The Croix de Guerre! Me – ?"

"Lieutenant Harry G. Horton to be gazetted captain – me!" put in Jim, with some pride. "Not you."

A brief silence in which Harry rubbed his scrawny beard with his long fingers.

"That might be difficult to prove to my Company captain," he said at last.

"You forget my wounds," laughed Jim. "Oh, they're my wounds all right." And then, with a shrug, "You see, Harry, it won't work. You're helpless. If I chose to keep on the job, you'd be left out in the cold."

"You won't dare – "

"I don't know what I'd dare. It depends on you."

"What do you mean?" broke in Harry with some spirit. "I couldn't be any worse off than I am now, even if I told the truth."

Jim laughed. "I tried to tell in the hospital and they thought I was bug-house. Try it if you like."

Harry frowned and reached for another cigarette.

And then after awhile, "Well – what do you want me to do?"

His brother examined him steadily for a moment, and then went on.

"I don't know whether you've learned anything in the army or not. But it ought to have taught you that you've got to live straight with your buddy or you can't get on."

"Straight!" sneered Harry, "like you. You call this straight – what you're doing?"

"No," Jim admitted. "It's not straight. It's crooked as hell, but if it wasn't, you'd have been drummed out of the Service by now. I don't want you to think I care about you. I didn't – out there. It was only the honor of the service I was thinking about. I'd do it again if I had to. But I do care about this girl you've bamboozled into marrying you – you and Quinlevin. And whatever the dirty arrangement between you that made it possible, I want to make it clear to you here and now that she isn't going to be mixed up in any of your rotten deals. She isn't your sort and you couldn't drag her down to your level if you tried. I'll know more when Quinlevin gets back and then – "

Jim Horton paused as he realized that he had said too much, for he saw his brother start and then stare at him.

"Ah, Barry Quinlevin – is away!"

Jim nodded. "Yes," he said, "in Ireland."

Harry had risen, glowering.

"And you think I'm going to slink off to-night to my kennel and let you go back to the studio. You in my uniform – as me– to Moira."

Jim Horton thought deeply for a moment and then rose and coolly straightened his military blouse.

"Very well," he said, "we'll go back to her together."

He took out some money and carelessly walked toward the bar in the front room. But Harry followed quickly and caught him by the arm.

"Jim," he muttered, "you won't do that!"

"We'll tell her the truth – I guess you're right. She ought to know."

"Wait a minute – "

His hand was trembling on the officer's sleeve and the dark beard seemed to make the face look ghastly under its tan.

"Not yet, Jim. Not to-night. We – we'll have to let things be for awhile. Just sit down again for a minute. We've got to find a way to straighten this thing out – to get you back into your old job – "

"How?" dryly.

"I – I don't know just now, but we can work it somehow – "

"It's too late – "

"You could have been captured by the Boches. We can find a way, when you let me have my uniform."

Jim Horton grinned unsympathetically.

"There are two wounds in that too, Harry," he said. "Where are yours?"

And he moved toward the door.

"Listen, Jim. We'll let things be as they are for the present. Barry Quinlevin mustn't know – you've got to play the part. I see. Come and sit down a minute."

His brother obeyed mechanically.

"Well," he said.

"I'll do what you say – until – until we can think of something." He tried a smile and failed. "I know it's a good deal to ask you – to take my place – to go out into the world and be what I am, but you won't have to do it. You won't have to. We'll manage something – some way. You go back to the studio – " he paused uncertainly, "You're not – ?" he paused.

Jim Horton read his meaning.

"Making love to your wife? And if I was, it would only be what you deserve. She doesn't love you any too much, as it is."

Harry frowned at the floor, and was silent, but his brother's answer satisfied him.

"All right. You go back – but I've got to get some money. I can't starve."

"I don't want you to," Jim fumbled in his pockets and brought out some bills. "Here – take these. They're yours anyway. We'll arrange for more later. I've an account at a bank here – "

"And so have I – but I don't dare – "

"Very good. What's your bank?"

"Hartjes & Cie."

"All right. I'll get some checks to-morrow and you can make one payable to yourself. I'll cash it and give you the money. And I'll make one out at my bank for the same amount, dated back into October, before the Boissière fight, payable to bearer. You can get it cashed?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"A woman I know."

Jim shrugged. "All right. But be careful. I'll meet you here to-morrow night. And don't shave."

Harry nodded and put the bills into his pocket while Jim rose again.

"You play the game straight with me," he said, "and I'll put this thing right, even if – "

He paused suddenly in the doorway, his sentence unfinished, for just in front of him stood a very handsome girl, who had abandoned her companion and stood, both hands outstretched, in greeting.

"'Arry 'Orton," she was saying joyously in broken English. "You don seem to know me. It is I – Piquette."

The name Quinlevin had spoke in the hospital!

Jim glanced over his shoulder into the shadow where Harry had been, but his brother had disappeared.

CHAPTER V

PIQUETTE

She wore a black velvet toque which bore upon its front two large crimson wings, poised for flight, and they seemed to typify the girl herself – alert, on tip-toe, a bird of passage. She had a nose very slightly retroussé, black eyes, rather small but expressive, with brows and lids skillfully tinted; her figure was graceful, svelte, and extraordinarily well groomed, from her white gloves to the tips of her slender shiny boots, and seemed out of place in the shadows of these murky surroundings. For the rest, she was mischievous, tingling with vitality and joyous at this unexpected meeting.

Horton glanced past her and saw a figure in a slouch hat go out of the door, then from the darkness turn and beckon. But Jim Horton was given no opportunity to escape and Harry's warning gesture, if anything, served to increase his curiosity as to this lovely apparition.

"Monsieur Valcourt – Monsieur 'Orton," she said, indicating her companion with a wave of the hand. And then, as he shook hands with her companion, a handsome man with a well-trimmed grayish mustache, "Monsieur Valcourt is one day de greatest sculptor in de world – Monsieur 'Orton is de 'ero of Boissière wood."

"You know of the fight in Boissière – ?" put in Jim.

"And who does not? It is all in le Matin to-day – an' 'ere I find you trying to 'ide yourself in the obscure caféof Monsieur Javet."

She stopped suddenly and before he realized what she was about had thrown her arms over his shoulders and kissed him squarely upon the lips. He felt a good deal of a fool with Monsieur Valcourt and the villainous-looking Javet grinning at them, but the experience was not unpleasant and he returned her greeting whole heartedly, wondering what was to come next.

And when laughing gayly she released him, he turned toward Monsieur Valcourt, who was regarding her with a dubious smile.

"For all her prosperity, Monsieur 'Orton," Valcourt was saying, in French, "she is still a gamine."

"And who would wonder, mon vieux! To live expensively is very comfortable, but even comfort is tedious. Does not one wish to laugh with a full throat, to kick one's toes or to put one's heels upon a table? La la! I do not intend to grow too respectable, I assure you."

Jim Horton laughed. She had spoken partly in English, partly in French, translating for both, and then, "Let me assure you, Madame," said Valcourt with a stately bow, "that you are not in the slightest danger of that."