human
I have thought of a way, Colonel DeLisle!
gpt
I am glad. You have only to tell me.
human
Accept me as one of your men. Let me join the Legion.
gpt
Mon Dieu! The Legion's colonel was taken completely by surprise. Max had thought he might perhaps have expected the request, but evidently it was not so. The dapper little figure straightened itself. And from his place beside his adored flag, Colonel DeLisle gazed across to the other side where, close also to the flag, stood the young man he had wished to serve. Max met his eyes, flushed and eager and, it seemed, pathetically young. There was dead silence for an instant. Then DeLisle spoke in a changed tone:
human
Do you mean this? Have you thought of what you are saying?
gpt
I do mean it, Max replied.
human
I believe I have thought of it ever since I saw those men of all countries getting out of the train to join the Legion. I felt the call they had felt. But it is stronger to-day. I know now what I want. In the Salle D'Honneur of the Legion I decide on my career.
gpt
Decide! the other repeated.
human
No, not that, yet! You have got this idea into your head because you are romantic. You think you are ruined and that the future doesn't matter. You will find it does. This is no place for poetry and romance--my God, no! It's a fiery furnace. In barracks we should burn the romance out of you in twenty-four hours.
gpt
If I've got more in me than any man who loves adventure ought to have, then I want it burned out,
human
Adventures will cost you less elsewhere,
gpt
I don't ask to get them cheap, Max still insisted.
human
Though I've got nothing to pay with, except myself, my blood, and flesh, and muscles.
gpt
That's good coin, exclaimed the elder, warming again.
human
Yet we can't take it. You may think you know what you mean. But you don't know what the Legion means. I do. I've had nearly twenty years of it.
gpt
You love it?
human
Yes, it is my life. But--I have to remind you, I entered it as an officer. There is all the difference.
gpt
At least I should be a soldier. I know what a soldier's hardships are.
human
Ah, not in the Legion!
gpt
It can't kill me.
human
It might.
gpt
Let it, then. I'll die learning to be a man.
human
I think, he said,
gpt
No, sir, I'm not, Max contradicted him abruptly.
human
I used to hope I might pass muster as men go. But these last days I've been finding myself out. I've been down in hell, and I shouldn't have got there if I were a man. I'm a self-indulgent, pining, and whining boy, thinking of nothing but myself, and not knowing whether I've done right or wrong. If the Legion can't teach me what's white and what's black, nothing can.
gpt
That is true, he said.
human
I take back those words of mine about poetry and romance. You've got the right point of view, after all. And you are the kind of man the Legion wants, the born soldier, lover of adventure for adventure's sake. You would come to us not because you have anything to hide, or because you prefer barracks in France to prison at home, or because some woman has thrown you over, (just there his keen eyes saw the young man wince, and he hurried on without a pause)
gpt
--and he pointed to the flag whose folds hung between them--
human
Only what, sir?
gpt
My daughter! She wanted me to help you. She'll think I've hindered, instead.
human
No, Colonel. She hoped I'd join the Legion.
gpt
What reason have you for supposing that?
human
Interpreting a thing she said, or, rather, a thing she wanted to say, but was afraid to say for fear I might blame her some day in the future.
gpt
She, knowing nothing of the Legion, recommended you to join? That is strange.
human
She knew a little of me and my circumstances. I'd been a soldier, and there seemed only one convenient way for a man without a name or country to start and become a soldier again. Miss DeLisle saw that.
gpt
You're talking of me?