"I stay by my colors. And now I'm going to
disband my army."
Stretching out her hand to a vase near her, she drew out a rose of
deepest red and held it above Von Plaanden.
"The color of my country," said Von Plaanden gravely. "May I take
it for a sign that I am forgiven?"
"Fully, freely, and gladly," said the girl. "You have put a debt
upon us all that I--that we can never repay."
"It is I who pay. You will not think of me too hardly, for my one
breach?"
"I shall think of you as a hero," said the girl impetuously. "And
I shall never forget. Catch, O knight."
The rose fell, and was caught. Von Plaanden bowed low over it.
Then he straightened to the military salute, and so rode out of
the door and out of the girl's life.
"Men are strange creatures," mused the philosopher of twenty. "You
think they are perfectly horrid, and suddenly they show their
other side to you, and you think they are perfectly splendid. I
wish I knew a little more about real people."
She confessed to no more specific thought, but as she descended
the stairs to bid farewell to the blushing and deprecatory
Britons, she was eager to have it over with, and to come to speech
with her beetle man, who had so strangely flamed into action.
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