a
pipe, sat down side by side upon the doorstep.

"Of what were you dreaming?" he asked presently, when we had made for
ourselves a great cloud of smoke. "I called you twice."

"I was wishing for Dale's times and Dale's laws."

He laughed, and touched my knee with his hand, white and smooth as a
woman's, and with a green jewel upon the forefinger.

"Thou Mars incarnate!" he cried. "Thou first, last, and in the meantime
soldier! Why, what wilt thou do when thou gettest to heaven? Make it too
hot to hold thee? Or take out letters of marque against the Enemy?"

"I am not there yet," I said dryly. "In the meantime I would like a
commission against--your relatives."

He laughed, then sighed, and, sinking his chin into his hand and softly
tapping his foot against the ground, fell into a reverie.

"I would your princess were alive," I said presently.

"So do I," he answered softly. "So do I." Locking his hands behind his
head, he raised his quiet face to the evening star. "Brave and wise and
gentle," he mused. "If I did not think to meet her again, beyond that
star, I could not smile and speak calmly, Ralph, as I do now."

"'T is a strange thing," I said, as I refilled my pipe. "Love for your
brother-in-arms, love for your commander if he be a commander worth
having, love for your horse and dog, I understand. But wedded love! to
tie a burden around one's neck because 't is pink and white, or clear
bronze, and shaped with elegance! Faugh!"

"Yet I came with half a mind to persuade thee to that very burden!" he
cried, with another laugh.

"Thanks for thy pains," I said, blowing blue rings into the air.

"I have ridden to-day from Jamestown," he went on. "I was the only
man, i' faith, that cared to leave its gates; and I met the world--the
bachelor world--flocking to them. Not a mile of the way but I
encountered Tom, Dick, and Harry, dressed in their Sunday bravery and
making full tilt for the city. And the boats upon the river! I have seen
the Thames less crowded."

"There was more passing than usual," I said; "but I was busy in the
fields, and did not attend. What's the lodestar?"

"The star that draws us all,--some to ruin, some to bliss ineffable,
woman."

"Humph! The maids have come, then?"

He nodded. "There's a goodly ship down there, with a goodly lading."

"Videlicet, some fourscore waiting damsels and milkmaids, warranted
honest by my Lord Warwick," I muttered.

"This business hath been of Edwyn S