They sang, as they
crossed their varyingly shapely legs, stamped their feet,
and formed into figures no drill-book ever saw, a chorus
of which the refrain was
"Oh, it never matters, matters,
Though his coat be tatters, tatters,
His good sword rust-incrusted and his songs all sung,
The maids will flatter, flatter,
And foes will scatter, scatter,
For a soldier is soldier while his heart is young,"
the last line accompanied by a smiling flirt of their
eyes over their shoulders and a kick to the rear as they
wheeled, which evoked the unstinted appreciation of the
house. The girls had the unvarying pink-and-white surfaces
of their profession, but under it they obviously differed
much, and the age and emaciation and ugliness among them
had its common emphasis in the contrast of their smart
masculine attire with the distressingly feminine outlines
of their figures. "I should have thought it impossible
to make a woman absolutely hideous by a dress that revealed
her form," said Kendal to himself, as the jingling and
the dancing and the music went on in the glare before
him, "but, upon my word--" He paused suddenly. She wasn't
absolutely hideous, that tall girl with the plume and
the sword, who maneuvered always in front of the
company--the lieutenant in charge.
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