aid.

'He likes it, I dare say,' Ericson said. 'He is young and fresh and
energetic, and he is fond of mashing on to young and pretty women--and
so the dinner parties give him pleasure. It will give me sincere
pleasure to dine with Mrs. Sarrasin and you, and we'll leave Hamilton to
his countesses and marchionesses. But don't think too badly of him,
Captain Sarrasin, for all that: he is so young. If there is a fight to
go on in Gloria he'll be there with you and me--you may depend on that.'

'But is there any chance of a fight going on?' Hamilton asked, looking
up from his papers with flushing face and sparkling eyes.

'Captain Sarrasin thinks that there is a good chance of something of the
kind, and he offers to be with us. He has certain information that there
is a scheme on foot in Orizaba for the invasion and annexation of
Gloria.'

Hamilton leaped up in delight.

'By Jove!' he exclaimed, 'that would be the one chance to rally all that
is left of the national and the patriotic in Gloria! Hip, hip,
hurrah!--one cheer more--hurrah!' And the usually demure Hamilton
actually danced then and there, in his exultation, some steps of a
music-hall breakdown. His face was aflame with delight. The Dictator and
Sarrasin both looked at him with an expression of sympathy and
admiration. But there were different feelings in the breasts of the two
sympathising men. Sarrasin was admiring the manly courage and spirit of
the young man, and in his admiration there was that admixture of
melancholy, of something like compassion, with which middle-age regards
the enthusiasm of youth.

With the Dictator's admiration was blended the full knowledge that, amid
all Hamilton's sincere delight in the prospect of again striking a blow
for Gloria, there was a suffused delight in the sense of sudden
lightening of pain--the sense that while fighting for Gloria he would be
able, in some degree, to shake off the burden of his unsuccessful love.
In the wild excitement of the coming struggle he might have a chance of
now and then forgetting how much he loved Helena Langley and how she did
not love him.

CHAPTER XI

HELENA

Love, according to the Greek proverb quoted by Plutarch, is the
offspring of the rainbow and the west wind, that delicious west wind, so
full of hope and youth in all its breathings--that rainbow that we may,
if we will, pursue for ever, and which we shall never overtake. Helena
Langley, although she was a fairly we