CHAPTER

     I. A picture and A wager
    II.  Concerning ancestors
   III.  In Dornlitz again
    IV.  The salute of A cousin
     V. The salute or A friend
    VI.  The sixth dance
   VII.  An early morning ride
  VIII.  The laws of the Dalbergs
    IX.  The decision
     X. The colonel of the red Huzzars
    XI.  The fatality of moonlight
   XII.  Learning my trade
  XIII.  In the royal box
   XIV.  The woman in black
    XV.  Her word and her certificate
   XVI.  The Princess royal sits as judge
  XVII.  Pitch and toss
 XVIII.  Another act in the play
   XIX.  My cousin, the Duke
    XX.  A trick of fence
   XXI.  The Bal masque
  XXII.  Black knave and white
 XXIII.  At the inn of the twisted Pines
  XXIV.  The end of the play

ILLUSTRATIONS

“You are a soldier—­an American officer?” she said,
suddenly. . . . . . Frontispiece

Then, as he unbent, his eyes rested on me for the first time.

Our swords fell to talking in the garden of the masked ball.

THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS

I

A PICTURE AND A WAGER

It was raining heavily and I fastened my overcoat to the neck as I came down the steps of the Government Building.  Pushing through the crowds and clanging electric cars, at the Smithfield Street corner, I turned toward Penn Avenue and the Club, whose home is in a big, old-fashioned, grey-stone building—­sole remnant of aristocracy in that section where, once, naught else had been.

For three years I had been the engineer officer in charge of the Pittsburgh Harbor, and “the navigable rivers thereunto belonging”—­as my friend, the District Judge, across the hall, would say—­and my relief was due next week.  Nor was I sorry.  I was tired of dams and bridges and jobs, of levels and blue prints and mathematics.  I wanted my sword and pistols—­a horse between my legs—­the smell of gunpowder in the air.  I craved action—­something more stirring than dirty banks and filthy water and coal-barges bound for Southern markets.

Five years ago my detail would have been the envy of half the Corps.  But times were changed.  The Spanish War had done more than give straps to a lot of civilians with pulls; it had eradicated the dry-rot from the Army.  The officer with the soft berth was no longer deemed lucky; promotion passed him by and seized upon his fellow in the field.  I had missed the war in China and the fighting in the Philippines and, as a consequence, had seen juniors lifted over me.  Yet, possibly, I had small cause to grumble; for my own gold leaves had dropped upon me in Cuba, to the disadvantage of many who were my elders, and, doubtless, my betters as well.  I had applied for active service, but evidently it had not met with approval, for my original orders to report to the Chief of Engineers were still unchanged.