chief, he need not make
it plain to the women folk that they were in the way.

When, a month before, he had been adjutant, in a like situation he
would have shown more self-command. He disapproved of the aide
entirely. He resented the fact that he was as young as himself, that
he was in uniform, that he was an aide. Swanson certainly hoped that
when he was in uniform he had not looked so much the conquering hero,
so self-satisfied, so supercilious. With a smile he wondered why, at
such a moment, a man he had never seen before, and never would see
again, should so disturb him.

In his heart he knew. The aide was going forward just where he was
leaving off. The ribbons on the tunic of the aide, the straps on his
shoulders, told Swanson that they had served in the same campaigns,
that they were of the same relative rank, and that when he himself, had
he remained in the service, would have been a brigadier-general the
aide would command a battle-ship. The possible future of the young
sailor filled Swanson with honorable envy and bitter regret. With all
his soul he envied him the right to look his fellow man in the eye, his
right to die for his country, to give his life, should it be required
of him, for ninety million people, for a flag. Swanson saw the two
officers dimly, with eyes of bitter self-pity. He was dying, but he
was not dying gloriously for a flag. He had lost the right to die for
it, and he was dying because he had lost that right.

The sun had sunk and the evening had grown chill. At the wharf where
the steamer lay on which he had arrived, but on which he was not to
depart, the electric cargo lights were already burning. But for what
Swanson had to do there still was light enough. From his breast-pocket
he took the card on which he had written his message to his brother
officers, read and reread it, and replaced it.

Save for the admiral and his aide at the steps of the cottage, and a
bareheaded bluejacket who was reporting to them, and the admiral's
orderly, who was walking toward Swanson, no one was in sight. Still
seated upon the stringpiece of the wharf, Swanson so moved that his
back was toward the four men. The moment seemed propitious, almost as
though it had been prearranged. For with such an audience, for his
taking off no other person could be blamed. There would be no question
but that death had been self-inflicted.

Approaching from behind him Swanson heard the brisk steps of t