Quin.

by Alice Hegan Rice.

CHAPTER 1

If the dollar Quinby Graham tossed up on New Year's eve had not elected to slip through his fingers and roll down the sewer grating, there might have been no story to write. Quin had said, "Tails, yes"; and who knows but that down there under the pavement that coin of fate was registering "Heads, no"? It was useless to suggest trying it over, however, for neither of the young privates with town leave for twenty-four hours possessed another coin.

The heavier of the two boys, Ca.s.s Martel,--the lame one, whose nose began quite seriously, as if it had every intention of being a nose, then changed abruptly into a b.u.t.ton,--sc.r.a.ped the snow from the sewer grating with his cane, and swore savagely under his breath. But Quin shrugged his shoulders with a slow, easy-going laugh.

"That settles it," he said triumphantly. "We got to go to the Hawaiian Garden now, because it's the only place that's free!"

"I'll be hanged if I know what you want to go to a dance for," argued his companion fiercely. "Here you been on your back for six months, and your legs so shaky they won't hardly hold you. Don't you know you can't dance?"

"Sure," agreed Quin amicably. "I don't mean to dance. But I got to go where I can see some girls. I'm dead sick of men. Come on in. We don't need to stay but a little while."

"That's too long for me," said Ca.s.s. "If you weren't such a bonehead for doing what you start out to do, we could do something interesting."

One might have thought they were Siamese twins, from the way in which Ca.s.s ignored the possibility of each going his own way. He glared at his tall companion with a mingled expression of rage and dog-like devotion.

"Cut it out, Ca.s.s," said Quin at last, putting an end to an argument that had been in progress for fifteen minutes. "I'm going to that dance, and I'm going to make love to the first girl that looks at me. I'll meet you wherever you say at six o'clock."

Ca.s.s, seeing that further persuasion was useless, reluctantly consented.

"Well, you take care of yourself, and don't forget you are going home with me for the night," he warned.

"Where else could I go? Haven't got a red cent, and I wouldn't go back out to the hospital if I had to bunk on the curbstone! So long, _cherie_!"

Sergeant Quinby Graham, having thus carried his point, adjusted his overseas cap at a more acute angle, turned back his coat to show his distinguished-conduct medal, and went blithely up the steps to the dance-hall. He was tall and outrageously thin, and pale with the pallor that comes from long confinement. His hands and feet seemed too big for the rest of him, and his blond hair stuck up in a bristly mop above his high forehead. But Sergeant Graham walked with the buoyant tread of one who has a good opinion not only of himself but of mankind in general.

The only thing that disturbed his mind was the fact that, swagger as he would, his shoulders, usually so square and trim, refused to fill out his uniform. It was the first time he had had it on for six months, his wardrobe having been limited to pajamas and bath-robes during his convalescence in various hospitals at home and abroad.

Two years before, when he had left a lumber camp in Maine to answer America's first call for volunteers to France, his personal appearance had concerned him not in the least. But the army had changed that, as it had changed most things for Quin.

He checked his overcoat at the hall entrance, stepped eagerly up to the railing that divided the spectators from the dancers, and drew a deep breath of satisfaction. Here, at last, was something different from the everlasting hospital barracks: glowing lights, holiday decorations, the scent of flowers instead of the stale fumes of ether and disinfectants; soul-stirring music in place of the wheezy old phonograph grinding out the same old tunes; and, above all, girls, hundreds of them, circling in a bewildering rainbow of loveliness before him.

Was it any wonder that Quin's foot began to twitch, and that, in spite of repeated warnings at the hospital, a blind desire seized him to dance? At the mere thought his heart gained a beat--that unruly heart, which had caused so much trouble. It had never been right since that August day in the Sevzevais sector, when, to quote his citation, he "had shown great initiative in a.s.suming command when his officer was disabled, and, with total disregard for his personal safety, had held his machine-gun against almost impossible odds." In the accomplishment of this feat he had been so badly ga.s.sed and wounded that his career as a soldier was definitely, if gloriously, ended.

The long discipline of pain to which he had been subjected had not, however, conquered Quin's buoyancy. He was still tremendously vital, and when he wanted anything he wanted it inordinately and immediately. Just now, when every muscle in him was keeping time to that soul-disturbing music, he heard his own imperative desire voiced at his elbow:

"I don't want to go home. I want to dance. n.o.body will notice us. Just one round, Captain Phipps."

The voice was young and singularly vibrant, and the demand in it was quite as insistent as the demand that was clamoring in Quin's own khaki-covered breast.

He craned his neck to see the speaker; but she was hidden by her escort, in whose supercilious profile he recognized one of the officers in charge of his ward at the hospital.

"You foolish child!" the officer was saying, fingering his diminutive mustache and viewing the scene with a somewhat contemptuous smile. "You said if I would bring you in for a moment you wouldn't ask to stay."

"I know, but I always break my promises," said the coaxing voice; "and besides I'm simply crazy to dance."

"You surely don't imagine that I would get out on the floor with all this hoi-poloi?"

Quin saw a pair of small gloved hands grasp the railing resolutely, and he was straightway filled with indignation that any man, of whatever rank, should stand back on his dignity when a voice like that asked a favor. A similar idea had evidently occurred to the young lady, for she said with some spirit:

"The only difference I can see between these boys and you is that they are privates who got over, and you are an officer who didn't."

Quin could not hear the answer, but as the officer shifted his position he caught his first glimpse of the girl. She was very young and obviously imperious, with white skin and coal-black hair and the most utterly destructive brown eyes he had ever encountered. Discretion should have prompted him to seek immediate safety out of the firing-line, but instead he put himself in the most exposed position possible and waited results.

They arrived on schedule time.

"Captain Phipps!" called a page. "Wanted on the telephone."

"Will you wait for me here just a second?" asked the officer.

"I don't know whether I will or not," was the spirited answer; "I may go home."

"Then I'll follow you," said the Captain as he pushed his way through the crowd to the telephone-booth.

It was just at this moment, when the jazz band was breaking into its most beguiling number, that Quin's eyes and the girl's eyes met in a glance of mutual desire. History repeated itself. Once again, "with total disregard for his personal safety, Sergeant Graham a.s.sumed command when his officer was disabled," and rashly flung himself into the breach.

"Will you dance it with me?" he asked eagerly, and he blushed to the roots of his stubbly hair.

There was an ominous pause, during which the young girl stood irresolute, while Mrs. Grundy evidently whispered "Don't" in one ear and instinct whispered "Do" in the other. It lasted but a second, for the next thing Quin knew, a small gloved hand was slipped into his, a blue plume was tickling his nose, and he was gliding a bit unsteadily into Paradise.

What his heart might do after that dance was of absolutely no consequence to him. It could beat fast or slow, or even stop altogether, if it would only hold out as long as the music did. Round and round among the dancers he guided his dainty partner, carefully avoiding the entrance end of the hall, and devoutly praying that his clumsy army shoes might not crush those little high-heeled brown pumps tripping so deftly in and out between them. He was not used to dancing with officers' girls, and he held the small gray-gloved hand in his big fist as if it were a bird about to take flight.

Next to the return of the Captain, he dreaded that other dancers, seeing his prize, would try to capture her; but there was a certain tempered disdain in the poise of his little partner's head, an ability to put up a quick and effective defense against intrusion, that protected him as well.

Neither of them spoke until the music stopped, and then they stood applauding vociferously, with the rest, for an encore.

"I ought to go," said the Radiant Presence, with a guilty glance upward from under long eyelashes. "You don't see a very cross-looking Captain charging around near the door, do you?"

"No," said Quin, without turning his head, "I don't see him"--and he smiled as he said it.

Now, Quin's smile was his chief a.s.set in the way of looks. It was a leisurely smile, that began far below the surface and sent preliminary ripples up to his eyes and the corners of his big mouth, and broke through at last in a radiant flash of good humor. In this case it met a very prompt answer under the big hat.

"You see, I'm not supposed to be dancing," she explained rather condescendingly.

"Nor me, either," said Quin, breathing heavily.

Then the band decided to be accommodating, and the saxophone decided to out-jazz the piano, and the drum got its ambition roused and joined in the compet.i.tion, and the young couple who were not supposed to be dancing out-danced everything on the floor!

Quin's heart might have adjusted itself to that first dance, but the rollicking encore, together with the emotional shock it sustained every time those destructive eyes were trained upon him, was too much for it.

"Say, would you mind stopping a bit?--just for a second?" he gasped, when his breath seemed about to desert him permanently.

"You surely aren't _tired_?" scoffed the young lady, lifting a pair of finely arched eyebrows.