neath this one voice
which questioned him and waited for an answer, he heard as a deep,
thrilling undertone the voice of the Legion which had called to him
through the music to come and share its bath of fire. A sudden purpose
awoke in Max Doran, and he knew then that it had been in the background
of his mind for days, waiting for some word to wake it. Now the word had
come. All his blood seemed to rush from heart to head, and he grew
giddy: yet he spoke steadily enough.

"I have thought of a way, Colonel DeLisle!"

"I am glad. You have only to tell me."

"Accept me as one of your men. Let me join the Legion."

"Mon Dieu!" The Legion's colonel was taken completely by surprise. Max
had thought he might perhaps have expected the request, but evidently it
was not so. The dapper little figure straightened itself. And from his
place beside his adored flag, Colonel DeLisle gazed across to the other
side where, close also to the flag, stood the young man he had wished to
serve. Max met his eyes, flushed and eager and, it seemed, pathetically
young. There was dead silence for an instant. Then DeLisle spoke in a
changed tone: "Do you mean this? Have you thought of what you are
saying?"

"I do mean it," Max replied. "I believe I have thought of it ever since
I saw those men of all countries getting out of the train to join the
Legion. I felt the call they had felt. But it is stronger to-day. I know
now what I want. In the Salle D'Honneur of the Legion I decide on my
career."

"Decide!" the other repeated. "No, not that, yet! You have got this idea
into your head because you are romantic. You think you are ruined and
that the future doesn't matter. You will find it does. This is no place
for poetry and romance--my God, no! It's a fiery furnace. In barracks we
should burn the romance out of you in twenty-four hours."

"If I've got more in me than any man who loves adventure ought to have,
then I want it burned out," said Max.

"Adventures will cost you less elsewhere," almost sneered DeLisle.

"I don't ask to get them cheap," Max still insisted. "Though I've got
nothing to pay with, except myself, my blood, and flesh, and muscles."

"That's good coin," exclaimed the elder, warming again. "Yet we can't
take it. You may think you know what you mean. But you don't know what
the Legion means. I do. I've had nearly twenty years of it."

"You love it?"

"Yes, it is my life. But--I have to remind you, I entered it as an
off