de l'Enclos that I might judge if she were one half so lovely and so fascinating. And when I first beheld the Dürlonnklau she was no jeune fille....
"She had been the well-beloved of governors, generals, and officials and officers—and there had been catastrophes, scandals, suicides ... the usual affaires—before she became the hostess of legionaries, marsouins,7 sailors....
"She had herself not wholly escaped the tragedy and grief that followed in her train, for at the age of seventeen she had a son, and that son was kidnapped when at the age that a babe takes the strongest grip upon a mother's heart and love and life.... And after a madness of grief and a long illness, she plunged the more recklessly into the pursuit of that pleasure and joy that must ever evade the children of pleasure, les filles de joie."
'Erb yawned cavernously.
"Got a gasper, Farver?" he inquired of John Bull.
The old soldier produced a small packet of vile black Algerian cigarettes from his képi, without speaking.
"Quit it, Dub!" snapped the deeply interested Bucking Bronco. "Produce silence, and then some, or beat it."8
"Awright, Bucko," mocked the unabashed 'Erb, imitating the American's nasal drawl and borrowing from his vocabulary. "You ain't got no call ter git het up none, thataway. Don't yew git locoed an rip-snort—'cos I guess I don' stand fer it, any."
"Stop it, 'Erb," said John Bull, and 'Erb stopped it. There would be trouble between these two one hot day....
"The Legion appropriated her to itself at last," continued the Grasshopper, "and picketed her house. Marsouins, sailors, pékins9—all ceased to visit her. It was more than their lives were worth, and there were pitched battles when whole escouades of ces autres tried to get in, before it was clearly understood that Ninon belonged to the Legion. And this was meat and drink to Ninon. She loved to be La Reine de la Légion Étrangère. This was not Algiers, mark you, and she had been born and bred in Hanoï. She had not that false perspective that leads the women of the West to prefer those of other Corps to the sons of La Légion. And there were one or two moneyed men hiding in our ranks just then. She loved one for a time and then another for a time, and frequently the previous one would act rashly. Some took their last exercise in the Red River. An unpleasant stream in which to drown.
"Then came out, in a new draft, young Villa, supposed to be of Spanish extraction—but he knew no Spanish. I think he was the handsomest young devil I have ever seen. He had coarse black hair that is not of Europe, wild yellow eyes, and a curious, almost gold complexion. He was a strange boy, and of a temperament decidedly, and he loved flowers as some women do—especially ylang-ylang, jasmine, magnolia, and those of sweet and sickly perfume. He said they stirred his blood, and his pre-natal memories....
"And one night old Dubeque took him to see La Belle Dürlonnklau.
"As he told it to me I could see all that happened, for old Dubeque had the gift of speech, imagination, and the instinct of the drama.... Old Dubeque—the drunken, depraved scholar and gentilhomme.
"Outside her door a begging soothsayer whined to tell their fortunes. It was the Annamite New Year, the Thêt, when the native must get money somehow for his sacred jollifications. This fellow stood making the humble laï or prolonged salaam, and at once awoke the interest of young Villa, who tossed him a piastre.
"Old Dubeque swears that, as he grabbed it, this diseur de bonne aventure, a scoundrel of the Delta, said, 'Missieu French he die to-night,' or words to that effect in pigeon-French, and Villa rewarded the Job-like Annamite with a kick.... They went in....
"As they entered the big room where were the Mekong girls and Madame Dürlonnklau, the boy suddenly stopped, started, stared, and stood with open mouth gazing at La Belle Ninon. He had eyes for no one else. She rose from her couch and came towards him, her face lit up and exalted. She led him to her couch and they talked. Love at first sight! Love had come to that so-experienced woman; to that wild farouche boy. Later they disappeared into an inner room....
"Old Dubeque called for a bottle of wine, and drank with some of the girls.
"He does not know how much later it was that the murmur of voices in Madame's room ceased with a shriek of 'Mon fils,' a horrid, terrific scream, and the sound of a fall.
"Old Dubeque was not so drunk but what this sobered him. He entered the room.
"Young Villa had fulfilled the prophecy of the necromancer. He had driven his bayonet through his throat—just where a large birthmark was. What you call mole, eh? It was exposed when his shirt-collar was undone.... Ninon Dürlonnklau lived long, may be still alive—anyhow, I know she lived long—in a maison de santé. Yes—a reincarnation....
"That is of what the words la Rue de Tournelles reminded me."
"'Streuth!" remarked le Légionnaire 'Erbiggin, and scratched his cropped head.
III. An Officer And—a Liar
Little Madame Gallais was always a trifle inclined to the occult, to spiritualism, and to dabbling in the latest thing psychic and metaphysical. At home, in Marseilles, she was a prominent member and bright particular star of a Cercle which was, in effect, a Psychical Research Society. She complained that one of the drawbacks of accompanying her husband on Colonial service was isolation from these so interesting pursuits and people.
Successful and flourishing occultism needs an atmosphere, and it is difficult for a solitary crier in the wilderness to create one. However, Madame Gallais did her best. She could, and would, talk to you of your subliminal self, your subconscious ego, your true psyche, your astral body, and of planes. On planes she was quite at home. She would ask gay and sportive sous-lieutenants, fresh from the boulevards of Paris, as to whether they were mediumistic, or able to achieve clairvoyant trances. It is to be recorded that, at no dance, picnic, garden-party, "fiv' o'clock," or dinner did she encounter a French officer who confessed to being mediumistic or able to achieve clairvoyant trances.
Nor was big, fat Adjudant-Major Gallais any better than the other officers of the Legion and the Infanterie de la Marine and the Tirailleurs Tonkinois who formed the circle of Madame's acquaintance in Eastern exile. No—on the contrary, he distinctly inclined to the materialistic, and preferred red wines to blue-stockings—(not blue silk stockings, bien entendu). For mediums and ghost-seers he had an explosive and jeering laugh. For vegetarians he had a contempt and pity that no words could express.
A teetotaller he regarded as he did a dancing dervish.
He had no use for ascetics and self-deniers, holding them mad or impious.
No, it could not be said that Madame's husband was mediumistic or able to achieve clairvoyant trances, nor that he was a tower of strength and a present help to her in her efforts to create the atmosphere which she so desired.
When implored to gaze with her into the crystal, he declared that he saw things that brought the blush of modesty to the cheek of Madame.
When begged to take a hand at "planchette" writing, he caused the innocent instrument to write a naughty guinguette rhyme, and to sign it Eugénie Yvette Gallais.
