human
If you were my brother, she said,
gpt
I never had a sister, Max answered.
human
But when I was a boy I loved to look after my mother.
gpt
And now, is she dead?
human
Now she's dead.
gpt
My mother, the girl volunteered,
human
That's exactly what I thought!
gpt
Did you think about _me_, too?
human
Yes, I thought about you--of course.
gpt
That I'd run away?
human
Well, you were so different from the rest, it was queer to see you in the second-class.
gpt
But so are you--different from the rest. Yet you're in the second-class.
human
I'm hard up,
gpt
You, too! How strange that we, of all the others, should come together like this. It is as if it were somehow meant to be, isn't it? As if we were intended to do something for each other in future. I wish I _could_ do something for you, to pay you for to-night.
human
I don't need pay. Max smiled again, almost happily.
gpt
It's you who are being good to me. I was feeling horribly down on my luck.
human
I'm sorry. But it's helped you to help me. I understand that. Do you know, I believe you are one whose greatest pleasure is in doing things for those not as strong as yourself.
gpt
I never noticed that in my character,
human
Yet there's something which tells me I'm right. I think you would, for that reason, make a good soldier. My father is a soldier. He's stationed at a place called Sidi-bel-Abbés.
gpt
But that's where the Foreign Legion is, isn't it?
human
He's colonel of the First Regiment. Oh, I believe it's half dread of what he'll say to me, that makes me so ill and nervous to-night. The only two men in the world I love are so strong, so--so almost terrible, that I'm like a little wreath of spray dashed against the rocks of their nature. They don't even know I'm there!
gpt
Strong men should be the tenderest to women,
human
Yes, on principle. But when they want to live their own lives, and women interfere? What then? Could one expect them to be kind and gentle?
gpt
A man worth his salt couldn't be harsh to a woman he loved.
human
But if he didn't love her? I'm thinking of two men I know. And just now, more of my father than--than the other. I've got no one to advise me. I wonder if you would, a little? You're a man, and--and I can't help wondering if you're not a soldier. Don't think I ask from curiosity. And don't tell me if you'd rather not. But you see, if you _are_ one, it would help, because you could understand better how a soldier would feel about things.
gpt
I have been a soldier, Max said. There was no reason why he should keep back the truth from this little girl for whom he was playing watchdog: the little girl who thought him as kind as a brother!
human
But I'm afraid I don't know much about women.
gpt
The soldier I'm thinking about--my father--doesn't want to have anything to do with women. My mother spoiled him for others. I believe their love story must be the saddest in the whole world. But tell me, if you were old, as _he_ is, nearly fifty, and you had a daughter you didn't love--though you'd been kind about money and all that--what would you say if she suddenly appeared from another country, and said she'd come to live with you?
human
By Jove! exclaimed Max.
gpt
Is that what you're going to do?
human
Yes. You think my father will have a right to be angry with me, and perhaps send me back?
gpt
I don't know about the right, said Max,
human
But that's my only hope! she pleaded.
gpt
Surprising my father. Anyhow, I simply _can't_ go back to my aunts. I have some in Dublin--they were my mother's aunts, too: and some in Paris--aunts of my father. That makes them my great-aunts, doesn't it? Perhaps they're harder for young people to live with than _plain_ aunts, who aren't great. I shall be twenty-one in a few weeks and free to choose my own life if my father won't have me. I'm not brave, but I'm always trying to be brave! I can engage as a governess or something, in Algeria, if the worst comes to the worst.
human
I don't believe your father would let you do that. _I_ wouldn't in his place.
gpt
After all, you're very young to judge what he would do, even though you _are_ a soldier! exclaimed the girl, determined not to be thwarted.
human
I must take my chance with him. I shall go to Sidi-bel-Abbés. If there's a train, I'll start to-morrow night. And you, what are you going to do? Shall you stop long in Algiers?
gpt
That depends, answered Max,
human
You have come to Algiers to find a woman, she murmured,
gpt
No, said Max.
human
I've never seen her. And then, the power of the storm and the night, and their strange, dreamlike intimacy, made him add:
gpt
I love a woman whom I may never see again.
human
And I, said the girl,
gpt
I wish you happiness,
human
And I you. I shall often think of you, even if we never meet after to-morrow. But I hope we shall! I believe we shall.
gpt
Are you all right?