FullReads

“Did you order up the horses?” inquired the captain.

“Yes. We thought——”

“Well, then, let’s get out of here,” interrupted the captain morosely.

The men began to filter out into the open air. The youth in grey had been hanging dismally to the railing of the stairway. He now was climbing slowly up to the second floor. The old man was addressing himself directly to the serene corporal.

“Not a chicken on the place!” he cried.

“Well, I didn’t take your chickens, did I?”

“No, maybe you didn’t, but——”

The captain crossed the hall and stood before the girl in rather a culprit’s fashion.”You are not angry at me, are you?” he asked timidly.

“No,” she said. She hesitated a moment, and then suddenly held out her hand.”You were good to me—and I’m—much obliged.”

The captain took her hand, and then he blushed, for he found himself unable to formulate a sentence that applied in any way to the situation.

She did not seem to heed that hand for a time.

He loosened his grasp presently, for he was ashamed to hold it so long without saying anything clever. At last, with an air of charging an intrenched brigade, he contrived to say: “I would rather do anything than frighten or trouble you.”

His brow was warmly perspiring. He had a sense of being hideous in his dusty uniform and with his grimy face.

She said, “Oh, I’m so glad it was you instead of somebody who might have–might have hurt brother Harry and grandpa!”

He told her, “I wouldn’t have hurt em for anything!”

There was a little silence.

“Well, good-bye!” he said at last.

“Good-bye!”

He walked toward the door past the old man, who was scolding at the vanishing figure of the corporal. The captain looked back. She had remained there watching him.

At the bugle’s order, the troopers standing beside their horses swung briskly into the saddle. The lieutenant said to the first sergeant:

“Williams, did they ever meet before?”

“Hanged if I know!”

“Well, say——”

The captain saw a curtain move at one of the windows. He cantered from his position at the head of the column and steered his horse between two flower-beds.

“Well, good-bye!”

The squadron trampled slowly past.

“Good-bye!”

They shook hands.

He evidently had something enormously important to say to her, but it seems that he could not manage it. He struggled heroically. The bay charger, with his great mystically solemn eyes, looked around the corner of his shoulder at the girl.

The captain studied a pine tree. The girl inspected the grass beneath the window. The captain said hoarsely: “I don’t suppose—I don’t suppose—I’ll ever see you again!”

She looked at him affrightedly and shrank back from the window. He seemed to have woefully expected a reception of this kind for his question. He gave her instantly a glance of appeal.

She said: “Why, no, I don’t suppose you will.”

“Never?”

“Why, no, ’tain’t possible. You—you are a—Yankee!”

“Oh, I know it, but——” Eventually he continued: “Well, some day, you know, when there’s no more fighting, we might——” He observed that she had again withdrawn suddenly into the shadow, so he said: “Well, good- bye!”

When he held her fingers she bowed her head, and he saw a pink blush steal over the curves of her cheek and neck.

“Am I never going to see you again?”

She made no reply.

“Never?” he repeated.

After a long time, he bent over to hear a faint reply: “Sometimes—when there are no troops in the neighbourhood—grandpa don’t mind if I—walk over as far as that old oak tree yonder—in the afternoons.”

It appeared that the captain’s grip was very strong, for she uttered an exclamation and looked at her fingers as if she expected to find them mere fragments. He rode away.