Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 01.djvu/32

46 as she stepped lissomely between the rows of booted feet and dropped down in the seat across from me. I realized her eyes were golden, a light brown that was almost orange, harmonizing to perfection with her copper hair, her smooth pale cheeks and slim red lips.

When she took her cap off and shook her hair I saw that it was close-cropped, almost like a man's, and riotous with curls.

I cast a glance at apKern, sitting two seats from her, and he must have read the malice in my eyes, for almost instantly he sounded off. "See this?" he tapped the dispatch case that rested on his knees. "Lot o' valuable dope in here; list o' suspected enemy agents and so forth I'm takin' up to Treves. 'Captain apKern,' the general says to me, 'I've got some very confidential documents to go to Germany. They're so secret that I daren't trust 'em to an ordinary courier. Only a man of proved sagacity, indomitable courage and more than usual cleverness can be entrusted with these papers, Captain. You're going up to Treves, aren't you?'

"'Sure, General,' I tells him. I'm fed up with all this coffee-collin' in Paris; want to get where there's a chance for action, so I'm joinin' the M.P.'s at Treves. I'll be happy to accommodate you by taking those papers, and you need fear nothing. They'll be safe with me as if—'"

"'You published 'em in the New York Times,'" completed Amberson sarcastically.

I glanced across the narrow aisle at the girl. She was joining in the laugh that followed Amberson's deflation of apKern. Her lips were opening like a flower and a smile glowed in her orange eyes. "Lovely!" I whispered to myself. "Perfect—" as I eyed the long sweet line from her waist to knee, from knee to ankle, the small gentle bosom and the long slim hands and feet—"she's just perfect."

guard had blown his absurd tin trumpet and we slid out of the station, past the platform bright with French officers in fur coats or long capes of horizon blue, like birds of brilliant plumage among the somber O.D. of our own and British uniforms, through the blinking lights that marked the station yard and out into the fog-blurred night.

The train had a wagon-restaurant and presently the girl went forward, followed in a moment by apKern, Weinberg and Amberson. I'd lunched late at the Café de la Paix and had no wish for food, so settled back in my seat with a copy of the Bystander.

Our coach was German, taken over by the Allies, and a sign phrased with Teutonic arrogance stared at me from the farther wall of the compartment with the information that such indiscretions as smoking or falling from the window were stringently verboten under penalty of heavy fine. I grinned at it. I was an American soldier on my way to conquered territory. Presently their officers would be saluting me as I walked down the street, their civilians crowding to the curb to give me sidewalk-room. Their signs meant nothing to me, and I broke out a packet of Fatimas. "Smoke?" I proffered the pack to my silent companion.

"No," he returned shortly, never glancing up from his paper, and with renewed irritation I realized that he had not added "thank you," to his refusal.

In a little while the diners came back from their meal, on the best possible terms with each other, and I was duly presented to Miss Fedocia Watrous of Philadelphia. Moved by common courtesy I bent to catch the aloof infantryman's eye, intending to introduce him. For just a moment he looked up at me above his paper, and I was fairly chilled by the cold challenge in his agate stare. To hell with him! All of us, except Amberson who was a major, were