"We'll have things our own way yet," replied Jennie, always the optimist.
One day Curtis announced, with joyful face:
"Sis, we are called to Washington. Get on your bonnet!"
She did not light up as he had expected her to do. "I can't go, George," she replied, decisively and without marked disappointment.
He seemed surprised. "Why not?"
"Because I have my plans all laid for giving my little 'ingines' such a Christmas as they never had, and you must manage to get back in time to be 'Sandy Claws.'"
"I don't see how I can do it. I am to appear before the Committee on Indian Affairs relative to this removal plan, and there may be other business requiring me to remain over the holidays."
"I don't like to have you away. I suppose you'll see Mr. Lawson and Miss Brisbane," she remarked, quietly, after a pause.
"Oh yes," he replied, with an assumption of carelessness. "I imagine Lawson will appear before the committee, and I hope to call on Miss Brisbane—I want to see her paintings." He did not meet his sister's eyes as squarely as was his wont, and her keen glance detected a bit more color in his face than was usual to him. "You must certainly call," she finally said. "I want to know all about how they live."
Many things combined to make this trip to Washington most pleasurable to the soldier. He was weary with six weeks of most intense application to a confused and vexatious situation, and besides he had not been East for several years, and his pocket was filled with urgent invitations to dinner from fellow-officers and co-workers in science, courtesies which he now had opportunity to accept; but back of all and above all was the hope of meeting Elsie Brisbane again. He immediately wrote her a note, telling her of his order to report at the department, and asking permission to call upon her at her convenience.
It was a long ride, but he enjoyed every moment of it. He gave himself up to rest. He went regularly to his meals in the dining-car; he smoked and dreamed and looked out with impersonal, shadowy interest upon the flying fields and the whizzing cities. He slept long hours and rose at will. Such freedom he had known only on the trail; here luxury was combined with leisure. In Chicago a friend met him and they lunched at a luxurious club, and afterwards went for a drive. That night he left the Western metropolis behind and Washington seemed very near.
As the train drew down out of the snows of the hill country into the sunshine and shelter of the Potomac Valley his heart leaped. This was home! Here were the little, whitewashed cabins, the red soil, the angular stone houses—verandaed and shuttered—of his native town. It was pleasant to meet the darkies swarming, chirping like crickets, around the train. They shadowed forth a warmer clime, a less insistent civilization than that of the West, and he was glad of them. They brought up in his mind a thousand memories of his boy-life in an old Maryland village not far from the great city, which still retained its supremacy in his mind. He loved Washington; to him it was the centre of national life.
The great generals, the great political leaders were there, and the greatest ethnologic bureau in all the world was there, and when the gleaming monument came into view over the wooded hills he had only one regret—he was sorrowful when he thought of Jennie far away in the bleak valley of the Elk.
It was characteristic of him that he took a cab to the Smithsonian Society rather than to the Army and Navy Club, and was made at home at once in the plain but comfortable "rooms of the Bug Sharps." He had just time to report by telephone to the Department of the Interior before the close of the official day. Several letters awaited him. One was from Elsie, and this he read at once, finding it unexpectedly cordial:
"My father is writing you an invitation to come to us immediately. You said you would arrive in Washington on the 17th, either on the 11A.M.train or the one at 3P.M.In either case we will look for you at 6.30 to dine with us before you get your calendar filled with engagements. I shall wait impatiently to hear how you are getting on out there. It is all coming to have a strange fascination for me. It is almost like a dream."
"My father is writing you an invitation to come to us immediately. You said you would arrive in Washington on the 17th, either on the 11A.M.train or the one at 3P.M.In either case we will look for you at 6.30 to dine with us before you get your calendar filled with engagements. I shall wait impatiently to hear how you are getting on out there. It is all coming to have a strange fascination for me. It is almost like a dream."
This letter quickened his pulse in a way which should have brought shame to him, but did not. The Senator's letter was ponderously polite. "I hope, my dear Captain Curtis, you will be free to call at once. My daughter and Lawson—"
At that word a chill wind blew upon the agent's hope. Lawson! "I had forgotten the man!" he said, almost aloud. "Ah! that explains her frank kindliness. She writes as one whose affections are engaged, and therefore feels secure from criticism or misapprehension." That explained also her feeling for the valley—it was the scene of her surrender to Lawson. The tremor went out of his nerves, his heart resumed its customary beating, steady and calm, and, setting his lips into a straight line, he resumed the Senator's letter, which ended with these significant words: "There are some important matters I want to talk over in private."
A note from Lawson urged him to take his first breakfast in the city with him. "I want to post you on the inside meaning of certain legislation now pending. I expect to see you at the Brisbanes'."
Curtis made his toilet slowly and with great care, remitting nothing the absence of which would indicate a letting down of military neatness and discipline. He wore the handsome undress uniform of a captain, and his powerful figure, still youthful in its erectness, although the lines were less slender than he wished, was dignified and handsome—fit to be taken as a type of mature soldier. He set forth, self-contained but eager.
The Brisbane portico of rose granite was immensely imposing to a dweller in tents and cantonments, such as Curtis had been for ten years, but he allowed no sign of his nervousness to appear as he handed his overcoat and cap to the old colored man in the vestibule.
As he started down the polished floor of the wide hall, stepping over a monstrous tiger-skin, he saw Elsie in the door of the drawing-room, her back against the folded portière. Her slender figure was exquisitely gowned in pale-green, and her color was iridescent in youthful sparkle. He thought once again—"Evening dress transforms a woman." She met him with a smile of welcome.
"Ah, Captain, this is very good of you, to come to us so soon."
"Not at all," he gallantly replied. "I would have come sooner had opportunity served."
"Father, this is Captain Curtis," she said, turning her head towards a tall man who stood within.
Brisbane came forward, greeting Curtis most cordially. He was grayer than Curtis remembered him, and a little stooping from age. His massive head was covered with a close-clipped bristle of white hair, and his beard, also neatly trimmed, was shaped to a point, from the habit he had of stroking it with his closed left hand in moments of deep thought. His skin was flushed pink with blood, and his urbane manner denoted pride and self-sufficiency. He was old, but he was still a powerful personality, and though he shook hands warmly, Curtis felt his keen and penetrating glance as palpably as an electric shock.
Lawson's voice arose. "Well, Captain, I hardly expected to see you so soon."
As the two men clasped hands Elsie again closely compared them. Curtis was the handsomer man, though Lawson was by no means ill-looking, even by contrast. The soldier more nearly approached the admirable male type, but there was charm in the characteristic attitudes and gestures of the student, who had the assured and humorous manner of the onlooker.
A young woman of indeterminate type who was seated in conversation with Mrs. Wilcox received Curtis with impassive countenance, eying him closely through pinch-nose glasses. Mrs. Wilcox beamed with pleasure, and inquired minutely concerning the people at the agency, and especially she wished to know how little Johnny and Jessie Eagle were. "I quite fell in love with the tots, they were so cunning. I hope they got the toys I sent."
Brisbane gave Curtis the most studious attention, lounging deep in his big chair. Occasionally he ponderously leaned forward to listen to some remark, with his head cocked in keen scrutiny—actions which did not escape the Captain's notice. "He's sizing me up," he thought. "Well, let him."
Elsie also listened, curiously like her father in certain inclinations of the head—intent, absorbed; only Lawson seemed indifferent to the news the agent guardedly recited.
Brisbane broke his silence by saying: "I infer you're on the side of the redskin?"
"Decidedly, in this connection."
"Quite aside from your duty?"
"Entirely so. My duty in this case happened to be my inclination. I could have declined the detail, but being a believer in the army's arrangement of Indian affairs, I couldn't decently refuse."
Brisbane settled back into his chair and looked straight at his visitor.
"You think the white man the aggressor in this land question?"
Curtis definitely pulled himself up. "I am not at liberty to speak further on that matter."
Mrs. Wilcox interrupted smilingly. "Andrew, don't start an argument now. Dinner is served, and I know Captain Curtis is hungry."
Elsie rose. "Yes, papa, leave your discussion till some other time, when you can bang the furniture."
Curtis expected to take Miss Cooke in to dinner, but Elsie delighted him by saying, "You're to go in with me, Captain."
"I am very glad of the privilege," he said, with deliberate intent to please her; his sincerity was unquestionable.
Curtis would have been more profoundly impressed with the spaciousness of the hall and the dining-room had they been less like the interior of a hotel. The whole house, so far as its mural decoration went, had the over-stuffed quality of a Pullman car (with the exception of the pictures on the walls, which were exceedingly good), for Brisbane had successfully opposed all of Elsie's new-fangled notions with regard to interior decoration; he was of those who insist on being masters in their houses as well as in their business offices, and Elsie's manner was that of an obedient daughter deferring to a sire who had not ceased to consider her a child.
Seated at Elsie's right hand, with Mrs. Wilcox between himself and the head of the table, Curtis was fairly out of reach of Brisbane, who was dangerously eager to open a discussion concerning the bill for the removal of the Tetongs.
Elsie turned to him at once to say: "Do you know, Captain Curtis, I begin to long to return to the West. All my friends are enthusiastic over the studies I made last year, and I've decided to go back next spring. How early could one come out?"
"Any time after the first of May—in fact, that is the most beautiful month in the year; the grass is deliciously green then. I'm glad to know you think of returning. Jennie will also rejoice. It seems too good to be true. Will Mr. Lawson also return?"
"Oh yes. In fact, I go to complete his work—to do penance for neglecting him last summer." And in her tone, he fancied, lay a covert warning, as though she had said: "Do not mistake me; I am not coming out of interest in you."
He needed the word, for under the spell of her near presence and the charm of her smile, new to him, the soldier was beginning to glow again and to soften, in spite of his resolution to be very calm.
She went on: "I am genuinely remorseful, because Mr. Lawson has not been able to bring his paper out as he had planned."
"I will see that you have every possible aid," he replied, matter-of-factly. "The work must be done soon."
"How handsome he is!" the girl thought, as she studied his quiet face. "His profile is especially fine, and the line of his neck and shoulders—" an impulse seized her, and she said:
"Captain, I'd like to make a sketch of you. Could you find time to sit for me?"
"That's very flattering of you, but I'm afraid my stay in Washington is too short and too preoccupied."
Her face darkened. "I'm sorry. I know I could make a good thing of you."
"Thank you for the compliment, but it is out of the question at present. Next summer, if you come out, I will be very glad to give the time for it. And that reminds me, you promised to show me your pictures when I came, and your studio."
"Did I? Well, you shall see them, although they are not as good as I shall do next year. One has to learn to handle new material. Your Western atmosphere is so different from that of Giverney, in which we all paint in Paris; then, the feeling of the landscape is so different; everything is so firm and crisp in line—but I am going to get it! 'There is the mystery of light as well as of the dark,' Meunnot used to say to us, and if I can get that clear shimmer, and the vibration of the vivid color of the savage in the midst of it—"
She broke off as if in contemplation of the problem, rapt with question how to solve it.
"There speaks the artist in you, and it is fine. But I'd like you to see the humanitarian side of life, too," he replied.
"There is none," she instantly replied, with a curious blending of defiance and amusement. "I belong to the world of Light and Might—"
"And I to the world of Right—what about that?"
"Light and Might make right."
"Your team is wrongly harnessed—Light and Right are co-workers. Might fears both Light and Right."
Mrs. Wilcox, who had been listening, fairly clapped her hands. "I'm glad to have you refute her arguments, Captain. She is absolutely heartless in her theories—in practice she's a nice girl."
Elsie laughed. "What amuses me is that a soldier, the embodiment of Might, should dare to talk of Right."
Curtis grew grave. "If I did not think that my profession at bottom guarded the rights of both white men and red, I'd resign instantly. Our army is only an impartial instrument for preserving justice."
"That isn't the old-world notion," put in Lawson from across the table.
"It isournotion," stoutly replied Curtis. "Our little army to-day stands towards the whole nation as a police force relates itself to a city—a power that interferes only to prevent aggression of one interest on the rights of another."
Brisbane's big, flat voice took up the theme.
"That's a very pretty theory, but you'll find plenty to claim that the army is an instrument of oppression."
"I'll admit it is sometimes wrongly used," Curtis replied. "We who are in the field can't help that, however. We are under orders. Of course," he added, modestly, "I am only a young soldier. I have seen but ten years of service, and I have taken part in but one campaign—a war I considered unavoidable at that time."
"You would hold, then, that an officer of the army has a right to convictions?" queried Brisbane, in the tone of the lawyer.
"Most certainly. A man does not cease to think upon entering the army."
"That's dangerous doctrine."
"It's the American idea. What people would suffer by having its army intelligent?"
Lawson coughed significantly. "Bring forth the black-swathed axe—treason has upreared her head."
It was plain that Brisbane was lying in wait for him. Curtis whispered to Elsie:
"Rescue me! Your father is planning to quiz me, and I must not talk before I report to the department."
"I understand. We will go to my studio after dinner." And with Lawson's aid she turned the conversation into safe channels.
It was a very great pleasure to the young soldier to sit once more at such a board and in pleasant relation to Elsie. It was more than he had ever hoped for, and he surprised her by his ability to take on her interests. He grew younger in the glow of her own youth and beauty, and they finished their ices in such good-fellowship that Mrs. Wilcox was amazed.
"We will slip away now," Elsie said, in a low tone to Curtis, and they both rose. As they were about to leave the room Brisbane looked up in surprise. "Where are you going? Don't you smoke, Captain? Stay and have a cigar."
Elsie answered for him. "Captain Curtis can come back, but I want him to see my studio now, for I know if you get to talking politics he will miss the pictures altogether."
"She has a notion I'm growing garrulous," Brisbane retorted, "but I deny the charge. Well, let me see you later, Captain; there are some things I want to discuss with you."
"Grace, you are to come, too," Elsie said to her girl friend, and led the way out into the hall.
Miss Cooke stepped to Curtis's side. "You've been in Washington before?" she asked, with an inflection which he hated.
"Oh yes, many times. In fact, I lived here till I was sixteen. I was born in Maryland, not far from here."
"Indeed! Then you know the city thoroughly?"
"Certain sides of it. Exteriorly and officially I know it; socially, I am a stranger to it. My people were proud and poor. A good old family in a fine old house, and very little besides."
Elsie led the way slowly up the big staircase, secretly hoping Miss Cooke would find it too cool for her thin blood. She wished to be alone with Curtis, and this wish, obscure as it was, grew stronger as she set a chair for him and placed a frame on an easel.
"You really need daylight to see them properly."
"Am I to make remarks?"
"Certainly; tell me just what you think."
"Then let me preface my helpful criticisms by saying that I don't know an earthly thing about painting. We had drawing, of a certain kind, at the academy, and I used to visit the galleries in New York when occasion served. Now you know the top and the bottom of my art education."
"It's cold in here, Elsie," broke in Miss Cooke, whom they had quite forgotten. "Is the steam turned on?"
"Wrap my slumber-robe around you," Elsie carelessly replied. "Now here is my completed study of Little Peta. What do you think of that? Is it like her?"
"Very like her, indeed. I think it excellent," he said, with unaffected enthusiasm. "She was a quaint little thing. She is about to be married to young Two Horns—a white man's wedding."
Elsie's eyes glowed. "Oh, I wish I could see that! But don't let her wear white man's clothing. She'd be so cunning in her own way of dress. I wish she had not learned to chew gum."
"None of us quite live up to our best intentions," he replied, laughing. "Peta thinks she's gaining in grace. Most of the white ladies she knows chew gum."
The pictures were an old story to Miss Cooke, who shivered for a time in silence and at last withdrew. Elsie and Curtis were deep in discussion of the effect of white man's clothing on the Tetongs, but each was aware of a subtle change in the other as the third person was withdrawn. A delicious sense of danger, of inward impulse warring with outward restraint, added zest to their intercourse. He instantly recalled the last time he stood in her studio feeling her frank contempt of him. "I am on a different footing now," he thought, with a certain exultation. It was worth years of hardship and hunger and cold to stand side by side with a woman who had not merely beauty and wealth but talent, and a mysterious quality that was more alluring than beauty or intellect. What this was he could not tell, but it had already made life a new game to him.
She, on her part, exulted with a sudden sense of having him to herself for experiment, and every motion of his body, every tone of his voice she noted and admired.
He resumed: "Naturally, I can say nothing of the technique of these pictures. My praise of them must be on the score of their likeness to the people. They are all admirable portraits, exact and spirited, and yet—" He hesitated, with wrinkled brows.
"Don't spare me!" she cried out. "Cut me up if you can!"
"Well, then, they seem to me unsympathetic. For example, the best of them all is Peta, because you liked her, you comprehended her, partly, for she was a child, gentle and sweet. But you have painted old Crawling Elk as if he were a felonious mendicant. You've delineated his rags, his wrinkled skin, his knotted hands, but you've left the light out of his eyes. Let me tell you something about that old man. When I saw him first he was sitting on the high bank of the river, motionless as bronze, and as silent. He was mourning the loss of his little grandchild, and had been there two days and two nights wailing till his voice had sunk to a whisper. His rags were a sign of his utter despair. You didn't know that when you painted him, did you?"
"No, I did not," she replied, softly.
"Moreover, Crawling Elk is the annalist and story-teller of his tribe. He carries the 'winter count' and the sacred pipe, and can tell you of every movement of the Tetongs for more than a century and a half. His mind is full of poetry, and his conceptions of the earth and sky are beautiful. He knows little that white men know, and cares for very little that the white man fights for, but his mind teems with lore of the mysterious universe into which he has been thrust, and which he has studied for seventy-two years. In the eyes of God, I am persuaded there is no very wide difference between old Crawling Elk and Herbert Spencer. The circle of Spencer's knowledge is wider, but it is as far from including the infinite as the redman's story of creation. Could you understand the old man as I do, you would forget his rags. He would loom large in the mysterious gloom of life. Your painting is as prejudiced in its way as the description which a cowboy would give you of this old man. You have given the color, the picturesque qualities of your subjects, but you have forgotten that they are human souls, groping for happiness and light."
As he went on, Elsie stared at the picture fixedly, and it changed under her glance till his deeply passionate words seemed written on the canvas. The painting ceased to be a human face and became a mechanical setting together of features, a clever delineation of the exterior of a ragged old man holding a beaded tobacco-pouch and a long red pipe.
"This old 'beggar,'" Curtis continued, "never lights that pipe you have put in his hands without blowing a whiff to the great spirits seated at the cardinal points of the compass. He makes offerings for the health of his children—he hears voices in the noon-day haze. He sits on the hill-top at dawn to commune with the spirits over his head. As a beggar he is picturesque; as a man, he is bewildered by the changes in his world, and sad with the shadow of his children's future. All these things, and many more, you must learn before you can represent the soul of the redman. You can't afford to be unjust."
She was deeply affected by his words. They held conceptions new to her. But his voice pierced her, strangely subdued her. It quivered with an emotion which she could not understand. Why should he care so much whether she painted her subjects well or ill? She was seized with sudden, bitter distrust.
"I wish I had not shown you my studies," she said, resentfully.
His face became anxious, his voice gentle. "I beg your pardon; I have presumed too far. I hope, Miss Brisbane, you will not take what I say too much to heart. Indeed, you must not mind me at all. I am, first of all, a sort of crank; and then, as I say, I don't know a word about painting; please forget my criticisms."
She understood his mood now. His anxiety to regain her good-will was within her grasp, and she seized the opportunity to make him plead for himself and exonerate her.
"You have torn my summer's work to flinders," she said, sullenly, looking down at a bit of charcoal she was grinding into the rug beneath her feet.
He was aghast. "Don't say that, I beg of you! Good Heavens! don't let my preachment discourage you. You see, I have two or three hobbies, and when I am once mounted I'm sure to ride right over somebody's garden wall." He rose and approached her. "I shall never forgive myself if I have taken away the smallest degree of your enthusiasm. My aim—if I had an aim—was to help you to understand my people, so that when you come out next summer—"
"All that is ended now," she said, sombrely. "I shall attempt no more Indian work!"
This silenced him. He took time to consider what this sudden depression on her part meant. As he studied her he saw her lip quiver, and anxiety suddenly left him. His tone was laughter-filled as he called: "Come, now, Miss Brisbane, you're making game of me by taking my criticisms so solemnly. I can see a smile twitching your lips this moment. Look at me!"
She looked up and broke into a laugh. He joined in with her, but a flush rose to his face.
"You fooled me completely. I reckon you should have been an actress instead of a painter."
She sobered a little. "Really, Iwasdepressed for a moment. Your tone was so terribly destructive. Shall we go down?"
"Not till you say you'll forgive me and forget my harangue."
She gave him her hand. "I'll forgive you, but I'm going to remember the harangue. I—rather liked it. It made me think. Strange to say, I like people who make me think."
Again his heart leaped with the blood of exultant youth. "She is coming to understand me better!" he thought.
"You must see my other pictures by daylight," she was saying. "Mr. Lawson likes this one particularly." They had moved out into the little reception-room. "I did it in Giverney—we all go down sooner or later to paint one of Monet's pollard willows. These are my 'stunts.'"
Lawson! Yes, there was the secret of her increasing friendliness. As the fiancée of Lawson she could afford to lessen her reserve towards his friend.
And so it happened that, notwithstanding her cordial welcome and her respectful consideration of his criticism, he went away with a feeling of disappointment. That her beauty was more deeply enthralling than he had hitherto realized made his disquiet all the greater. As he stepped out upon the street, she seemed as insubstantial as a dream of his imaginative youth, far separated from any reality with which he had any durable association.
Curtis was frankly exclamatory at the size and splendor of Lawson's apartments. He had accepted the invitation to take breakfast with him without much thought as to the quality of the breakfast or where it would be eaten, until he found himself entering the hall of a superb apartment hotel.
"Why, see here, Lawson," he exclaimed, as he looked about his friend's suite, "this is too much for any bachelor—it's baronial! I must revise my judgments. I had a notion you were a hard-working ethnologic sharp."
"So I am," replied Lawson, smiling with frank enjoyment of his visitor's amazement. "I've been at work two hours at my desk. If you don't believe it, there's the desk."
The room was filled with books, cases of antique pottery, paintings of Indians, models of Pueblo dwellings, and other things in keeping, and was made rich in color by a half-dozen very choice Navajo blankets in the fine old weaves with the vegetable dyes so dear to the collector. The long table was heaped with current issues of the latest magazines, and dozens of books, with markers set to guard some valuable passages, were piled within reach. It was plainly the library of a student and man of letters.
Lawson's lean, brown face at once assumed a different aspect to Curtis. It became more refined, more scholarly, and distinctly less shrewd and quizzical, and the soldier began to understand the writer's smiling defiance of Western politicians and millionaire cattle-owners. Plainly a man of large fortune, with high social connections, what had Lawson to fear of the mountain West? The menace of the greedy cattlemen troubled him no more than the howl of the blizzard.
In the same measure that Lawson's power was revealed to him the heart of the agent sank. He could not but acknowledge that here was the fitting husband and proper home for Elsie—"while I," he thought, "have only a barrack in a desolate Indian country to offer her," and he swung deep in the trough of his sea of doubt.
A map on the wall, lined with red, caught his eye, and he seized upon it for diversion.
"What is this?" he asked.
"That's my trail-map," replied Lawson. "The red lines represent my wanderings."
Curtis studied it with expert eyes. "You have ploughed the Arizona deserts pretty thoroughly."
"Yes, I've spent three summers down in that country studying cliff-dwellings. It's a mighty alluring region. Last summer I broke away and got back into the north, but I am greatly taken with the hot sunshine and loneliness of the desert."
Curtis turned sharply. "What I can't understand, Lawson, is this: How can you pull up and leave such a home?"—he indicated the room with a sweep of his hand—"and go out on the painted desert or down the Chaco and swelter in the heat like a horned toad?"
Lawson smiled. "Itisabsurd, isn't it? Man's an unaccountable beast. But come! Breakfast is waiting, and I hope you're hungry."
The dining-room was built on a scale with the library, and the mahogany table, sparsely covered with dishes, looked small and lonely in the midst of the shining floor. This feature of the beautiful room impressed Curtis, and as they took seats opposite each other he remarked, "If I were not here you would be alone?"
"Yes, quite generally I breakfast alone. I entertain less than you would think. I'm a busy man when at home."
"Well, the waste of room is criminal, Lawson, that's all I have to say—criminal. You'll be called upon to answer for it some time."
"I've begun to think so myself," replied the host, significantly.
They talked mountain ranges and Pueblo dwellers, and the theoretical relation of the mound-builders to the small, brown races of the Rio Grande Valley, touching also on the future of the redman; and all the while Curtis was struggling with a benumbing sense of his hopeless weakness in the face of a rival like Lawson. He gave up all thought of seeing Elsie again, and resolutely set himself to do the work before him, eager to return to his duties in the Western foot-hills.
Lawson accompanied him to the Interior Department and introduced him to the Secretary, who had the preoccupied air of a business man rather than the assumed leisure of the politician. He shook hands warmly, and asked his visitors to be seated while he finished a paper in hand. At last he turned and pleasantly began:
"I'm glad to meet you, Captain. Yours is a distinguished name with us. We fully recognize the value of your volunteer service, and hope to make the best use of you. Our mutual friend, Lawson here, threatens to make you Secretary in my stead." Here he looked over his spectacles with a grave and accusing air, which amused Lawson greatly.
"Not so bad as that, Mr. Secretary," he laughed. "I merely suggested that Captain Curtis would make an excellent President."
"Oh, well, it all comes to the same thing." He then became quite serious. "Now, Captain, I would suggest that you put this whole matter as you see it, together with your recommendations, into the briefest, most telling form possible, and be ready to come before the committee to-morrow. Confer with the commissioner and be ready to meet the queries of the opposition. Brisbane is behind the cattlemen in this controversy, and he is a strong man. I agree entirely with you and Lawson that the Tetongs should remain where they are and be helped in the way you suggest. Be ready with computations of the cost of satisfying claims of the settlers, building ditches, etc. Come and see me again before you return. Good-morning," and he bent to his desk with instant absorption.
Lawson again led the way across the square in search of the commissioner's office. The large, bare waiting-room was filled with a dozen or more redmen, all wearing new blue suits and wide black hats. They were smoking in contemplative silence, with only an occasional word spoken in undertone. It was plain they were expecting an audience with the great white chief.
Several of them knew Lawson and cried out: "Ho! Ho!" coming up one by one to shake hands, but they glowed with pleasure as Curtis began to sign-talk with them.
"Who are you?" he asked of one. "Oh! Northern Cheyenne—I thought so. And you—you are Apache?" he said to another. "I can tell that, too. What are you all waiting for? To see the commissioner? Have you had a good visit? Yes, I see you have nice new suits. The government is good to you—sometimes." They laughed at his sharp hits. "Well, don't stay too long here. The white man will rob you of your good clothes. Be careful of fire-water."
One old man, whose gestures were peculiarly flowing and dignified, thereupon signed: "When the white man come to buy our lands we are great chiefs—very tall; when we ask for our money to be paid to us, then we are small, like children." This caused a general laugh, in which Curtis joined. They all wanted to know who he was, and he told them. "Ah! we are glad for the Tetongs. They have a good man. Tell the commissioner we are anxious to council and go home—we are weary of this place."
Lawson, meanwhile, had entered the office and now reappeared. "Mr. Brown will see you at once, Captain."
The acting commissioner wore the troubled look of a man sorely overworked and badly badgered. He breathed a sigh of ostentatious relief as he faced his two visitors, who came neither to complain nor to ask favors. He studied Curtis contemplatively, his pale face set in sad lines.
"I'm leaning on you in this Tetong business," he began. "I have so many similar fights all over the West, I can't give you the attention you deserve. It seems as though our settlers were insane over Indian lands. I honestly believe, if we should lay out a reservation on the staked plains there'd be a mad rush for it. 'The Injun has it—let's take it away from him,' seems to be the universal cry. I am pestered to death with schemes for cutting down reservations and removing tribes. It would seem as if these poor, hunted devils might have a thumb-nail's breadth of the continent they once entirely owned; but no, so long as an acre exists they are liable to attack. I'm worn out with the attempt to defend them. I'll have nervous prostration or something worse if this pressure continues. Yesterday nearly finished me. What kind of pirates do you raise out there, anyway?"
Curtis listened with amazement to this frank avowal, but Lawson only laughed, saying, in explanation: "This is one of the commissioner's poor days. He'll fight till the last ditch—"
"Irrigating ditch!" supplemented the commissioner. "Yes, there's another nightmare. Beautiful complication! The government puts the Indian on a reservation so dry that water won't run down hill, and then Lawson or some other friend of the Indian comes in here and insists on irrigating ditches being put in, and then I am besieged by civil engineers for jobs, and wild-eyed contractors twist my door-knobs off. Captain Curtis, keep out of the Indian service if you have any conscience."
"That's exactly why I recommended him," said Lawson—"because hehasa conscience."
"It'll shorten his life ten years and do no material good. Well, now, about this Tetong imbroglio."
Immediately he fell upon the problem with the most intense application, and Curtis had a feeling that his little season of plain speaking had refreshed him.
Lawson went his way, but Curtis spent the remainder of the day in the commissioner's office, putting together his defence of the Tetongs, compiling figures, and drawing maps to show the location of grass and water. He did not rise from his work till the signal for closing came, and even then he gathered his papers together and took them home to his room in the club in order to put the finishing touches to them.
While dressing for his dinner with Lieutenant Kirkman, a classmate and comrade, he began to wonder how soon he could decently make his dinner-call on the Brisbanes. It was shameful in him, of course, but he had suddenly lost interest in the Kirkmans. The day seemed lost because he had not been able to see Elsie. There was a powerful longing in his heart, an impatience which he had not experienced since his early manhood. It was a hunger which had lain dormant—scotched but not killed—for now it rose from its mysterious lair with augmented power to break his rest and render all other desires of no account.
That night, after he returned from the Kirkmans', where he had enjoyed an exquisite little dinner amid a joyous chatter reviving old-time memories, he found himself not merely wide-awake, but restless. His brain seemed determined to reveal itself to him completely. Pictures of his early life and the faces and homes of his friends in the West came whirling in orderless procession like flights of swift birds—now a council with the Sioux; now a dinner of the staff of General Miles; visions of West Point, a flock of them, came also, and the faces of the girls he had loved with a boy's fancy; and then, as if these were but whisks of cloud scattering, the walls of great mountain ranges appeared behind, stern and majestic, sunlit for a moment, only to withdraw swiftly into gray night; and when he seized upon these sweeping fragments and attempted to arrange them, Elsie's proud face, with its dark, changeful eyes and beautiful, curving lips, took central place, and in the end obscured all the rest.
The Kirkman home, the cheer, the tenderness of the husband towards his dainty little wife, the obvious rest and satisfaction of the man, betokening that the ultimate of his desires had been reached, also came in for consideration by the restless brain of the soldier-mountaineer. "I shall never be at peace till I have wife and child, that I now realize," he acknowledged to himself in the deep, solitary places of his thought.
Then he rose and took up the papers which he had been preparing, and as he went over them again he came to profounder realization than ever before of the mighty tragedy whose final act he seemed about to witness. His heart swelled with a great tenderness towards that fragment of a proud and free people who sat in wonder before the coming of an infinite flood of alien races, helpless to stay it, appalled by the breadth and power of the stream which swept them away. He felt himself in some sense their chosen friend—their Moses, to lead them out of the desolation in which they sat bewildered and despairing. Thinking of them and of plans to help them, he grew weary at last, his brain ceased to grind, and he slept.
The hearing took place at ten o'clock, but Curtis had opportunity for a little helpful consultation with Lawson before the chairman called the committeemen to order. The session seemed unimportant—perfunctory. The members sat for the most part silent, ruminating, with eyes fixed on the walls or upon slips of paper which they held abstractedly in their hands. Occasionally some one of them would rouse up to ask a question, but, in general, their attitudes were those of bored and preoccupied business men. They came and went carelessly in response to calls of their clerks, and Curtis perceived that they had very little real interest in the life or death of the redmen. He would have been profoundly discouraged had not the chairman been alert and his questions to the point. After his formal statement had been taken and the hearing was over, the chairman approached Curtis informally and showed a very human sympathy for the Tetongs.
"Yes, I think we can hold this raid in check," he said, in answer to Curtis, and added, slowly, "I am very glad to find a man of your quality taking up this branch of service." He paused, and a smile wrinkled his long, Scotch face. "They accuse me of being a weak sentimentalist, because I refuse to consider the redman in the light of a reptile. I was an abolitionist"—the smile faded from his eyes and his thin lips straightened—"in days when it meant something to defend the negro, and in standing for the rights of the redman I am merely continuing my life-work. It isn't a question of whether I know the Indian or not, though I know him better than most of my critics; it's a question of his dues under our treaties. We considered him a man when we bought his land, and I insist he shall be treated the same now. I should like to hear from you—unofficially, of course—whenever you have anything to say. Lawson's testimony"—he laid a caressing hand on Lawson's shoulder—"is worth more to me than that of a thousand land speculators. He's a comfort to us, for we know he is disinterested, and has nothing to gain or lose in any question which concerns the reds, and we find very much the same about you, Captain Curtis, and I am determined that you shall have free hand."
Curtis shook hands with the old man with a sense of security. Here, at least, was a senator of the old school, a man to be depended upon in time of trouble. He began also to realize Lawson's power, for he seemed to be the personal friend of every honest official connected with the department.
As the two young men stepped out into the hall they came face to face with Elsie and her father.
"Are we too late?" cried the girl. "Is the hearing over?"
"My part of it is," answered Curtis—"at least for to-day. They may recall me to-morrow."
Brisbane was visibly annoyed. "I didn't suppose you would come on till eleven; that's the word I got over the 'phone. I particularly wanted to hear your deposition," he added, sourly.
"Papa has an idea your opposition to this bill is important," Elsie said, lightly, as Curtis edged away from Brisbane.
Brisbane followed him up. "Well, now that your hearing is over, suppose you get into our carriage and go home with us to lunch?'
"Please do!" said Elsie, with flattering sincerity.
Curtis hesitated, and was made captive. "It is a great temptation," he said, looking at Lawson.
Elsie saw him yielding and cried out: "Oh, you must come—and you, too, Osborne."
Lawson was plainly defeated. "I can't do it. I have a couple of New York men to lunch at the club, and I couldn't think of putting them off."
"Oh, I'm so sorry; we would have made a nice little lunch party."
"There are other days coming!" he replied, as lightly as possible.
As they drove away Curtis had a premonition that his impending interview would be disagreeable, for Brisbane sat in silence, his keen eyes full of some sinister resolution. He was, in fact, revolving in his mind a plan of attack. He realized the danger of attempting to bribe such a man even indirectly, but a poor and ambitious soldier might be removed by gentler means, through promotion; and friendly pressure might be brought to bear on the War Department to that effect. Having set himself to the task of clearing the reservation of the Tetongs, a man of Brisbane's power did not hesitate long over the morality of methods, and having decided upon promotion as his method of approaching Curtis, the old man distinctly softened, and made himself agreeable by extending the drive and affably pointing out the recent improvements in the city. "Our Capitol is as good as any now," he said. "Our new buildings are up to the standard."
The young soldier refused to be drawn into any blood-heating discussions, being quite content to sit facing Elsie, feeling obscurely the soft roll of the wheels beneath him, and absorbing the light and color of the streets. "This is my city," he said; "I spent my boyhood, here. I went to West Point from here."
"Itisbeautiful," replied Elsie, and at the moment a spark of some mysterious flame sprang from each to the other. They were young, and the air was soft and sweet. Thereafter everything gave the young soldier pleasure. The whistling of the darkies, the gay garments of the shoppers, the glitter of passing carriages, the spread of trees against the bright sky—everything assumed a singular grace. His courage rose, and he felt equal to any task.
As they entered the big house Elsie said: "You're to come right up to the studio. I want to show you a canvas I finished yesterday. I had an inspiration—I think you brought it to me."
As she led the way up the wide and splendidly carved stair-way the soldier's elation sank away, for each step emphasized the girl's pride and power, and by contrast threw the poor Indian agent into hopeless shadow. He hardly heard what she said, till she led him before her easel and said:
"There is yesterday's work. I've been trying for days to get a certain effect of color, and, behold! I caught it flying this morning. What puzzles me in your country is the enormously high value of your earth in reference to the sky. The sky is so solid."
As he took in the significance of the canvas Curtis exclaimed:
"It is very beautiful. It is miraculous. How do you do it?"
"I'm glad you like it. My problem there was to represent the difference in value between Chief Elk, who is riding in the vivid sunlight, and his wife and Little Peta, who are just in the edge of that purple cloud-shadow. The difference between white in sunlight and white in shadow is something terrific in your dry air. Contrasts are enough to knock you down. This gray, Eastern studio light makes all my sketches seem false, but I know they are not."
"They are very true, it seems to me."
"When I close my eyes and hark back to the flooding light of the valley of the Elk, then I can do these things; I can't if I don't. I have to forget all my other pictures. This is nearer my impression than anything else I've done."
"It has great charm," he said, after a pause, "and it also reminds me of my duty. I must return at once to the West."
"When do you go—actually?"
"Actually, I leave to-morrow at three o'clock; unless I receive word to the contrary, to-morrow morning."
"So soon? You are making a very short stay. Can't you remain over the holidays? Some friends of mine are coming on from New York. I'd like you to meet them."
"I think I must return. Jennie is preparing to give her little 'Ingines' a Christmas-tree, and I am told that my 'Sandy Claws' would add greatly to their joy, so I am making special effort to reach there on the 23d."
She looked at him musingly. "You really are interested in those ugly creatures? I don't understand it."
"To be really frank, I don't understand your lack of sympathy," he replied, smiling a little. "It isn't at all feminine."
She took a seat on the divan before she spoke again. "Oh, women are such posers. You think I am quite heartless, don't you?"
"No, I don't think that, but I do think you are a little unjust to these people, whose thought you have made very little effort to comprehend."
"Why should I? They are not worth while."
"Do you speak now as an artist?" he asked, gravely.
"But they are so gross and so cruel!"
"I don't deny but they are, sometimes, both gross and cruel, but so are civilized men. The scalp-dance no more represents them than a bayonet charge represents us. It isn't just to condemn all for the faults of a few. You wouldn't destroy servant-girls because some of them are ugly and untidy, would you?"
"The cases are not precisely similar."
"I'll admit that, but the point is here: as an artist you can't afford to dispose of a race on the testimony of their hereditary enemies. You wouldn't expect a sympathetic study of the Greek by the Saracen, would you?"
"It isn't that so much, but they are so perfectly unimportant. They have no use in the world. What does it matter if they die, or don't?"
"Perhaps not so much to them; but to me, if I can help them and fail to do it, it matters a great deal. We can't afford to be unjust, for our own sake. The bearer of the torch should not burn, he should illumine."
"I don't understand that," she said, genuinely searching for his meaning.
"There is where you disappoint me," he retorted. "Most women quiver with altruistic passion the moment they see helpless misery. If you saw a kitten fall into a well what would you do?"
"I should certainly try to save it."
"Your heart would bleed to see it drown?"
She shivered at the thought. "Why, of course!"
"And yet you can share in your father's exterminating vengeance as he sweeps ten thousand redmen into their graves?"
"The case is different—the kitten never did any harm."
"The wrong is by no means all on the redman's side. But even if it were, Christ said, 'Love them that hate you,' and as a Christian nation we should not go out in vindictive warfare against even those who despitefully use us. I haven't a very high seat in the synagogue. I have a soldier's training for warfare, but I acknowledge the splendor of Christ's precepts and try to live up to them. I always liked Grant's position as regards the soldier. But more than that—I like these red people. They are a good deal more than rude men. It is a great pleasure to feel their trust and confidence in me. It touches me deeply to have them come and put their palms on me reverently, as though I were superhuman in wisdom, and say: 'Little Father, we are blind. We cannot see the way. Lead us and we will go.' At such times I feel that no other work in the world is so important. If human souls are valuable anywhere on earth they are valuable here; no selfish land-lust should blind us to see that."
As he spoke, the girl again felt something large and sweet and powerful, like a current of electrical air which came out of wide spaces of human emotion and covered her like a flood. She was humbled by the high purpose and inexplicable enthusiasm of the man before her.
"I suppose you consider me cruel and heartless!" she cried out. "But I am not to blame for being what I am."
"If you are not free, who is? You have it all—youth, wealth, beauty. Nothing enslaves you but indifference."
She was thinking that Lawson had never moved her so, and wishing Curtis were less inexorable in his logic, when he checked himself by saying: "I beg your pardon again. I came to see your pictures, not to preach forgiveness of sins. I here pull myself up short."
"I think you could make me feel personal interest in brickbats or—or spiders," she said, with a quaint, relaxing smile. "You were born to be a preacher, not a soldier."
"Do you think so? I've had a notion all along that I was a fairly good commander and a mighty poor persuader; what I don't intend to be is a bore." He rose and began to walk slowly round the walls, studying the paintings under her direction. He was struggling with obscure impulses to other and more important speech, but after making the circuit of the room he said, as though rendering a final verdict:
"You have great talent; that is evident. What do you intend to do with it? It should help some one."
"You are old-fashioned," she replied. "In our modern day, art is content to add beauty to the world; it does not trouble itself to do good. It isunmoral."
"Perhaps Iama preacher, after all, for I like the book or picture that has a motive, that stands for something. Your conception of art's uses is French, is it not?"
"I suppose it is; clearly, it isn't Germanic. What would you have me do—paint Indians to convince the world of their sufferings?"
"Wouldn't that be something like the work Millet did? Seems to me I remember something of that sort in some book I have read."
She laughed. "Unfortunately, I am not Millet; besides, he isn't the god of our present idolatry. He's a dead duck. We paint skirt-dancers and the singers in the cafés now. Toiling peasants are 'out.'"
"You are a woman, and a woman ought—"
"Please don't hand me any of that stupid rot about what a womanoughtto be, and isn't. What I am I am, and I don't like dirty, ragged people, no matter whether they are Roman beggars or Chinese. I like clean, well-dressed, well-mannered people and no one can make me believe they are less than a lot of ill-smelling Indians."
"Miss Brisbane, you must not do me an injustice," he earnestly entreated. "It was not my intention to instruct you to-day. I am honestly interested in your pictures, and had no thought of renewing an appeal. I was tempted and fell. If you will forgive me this time, I'll never preach again."
"I don't say I object to your preachment. I think I rather like it. I don't think I ever met a man who was so ready to sacrifice his own interest for an idea. It's rather amusing to meet a soldier who is ready to knock one down with a moral war-club." She ended with a mocking inflection of voice.
His face lost its eager, boyish expression. "I'm delighted to think I have amused you," he said, slowly. "It makes amends."
"Please don't be angry," she pleaded. "I didn't mean to be flippant."
"Your words were explicit," he replied, feeling at the moment that she was making a mock of him, and this duplicity hurt him.
She put forth her sweetest voice. "Please forgive me! I think your work very noble, only I can't understand how you can exile yourself to do it. Let us go down; it is time for lunch, and papa is waiting for you, I know."
It was unaccountable that a mocking tone, a derisive smile from this chance acquaintance, should so shake the soldier and so weaken him, but he descended the stair-way with a humiliating consciousness of having betrayed his heart to a fleering, luring daughter of wealth.
At the door of the library the girl paused. "Papa, are you asleep?"
The abrupt rustle of a newspaper preceded Brisbane's deep utterance. "Not at all—just reading theStar. Come in, Captain. Is lunch nearly ready?" he asked of Elsie.
"I think so. They are a little late. I'll go see."
As she left the room Brisbane cordially rumbled on. "Sit down, Captain. I'm sorry I missed your talk to-day. I am curious to know what your notion is about the Tetongs. Of course, I understood you couldn't go into the case the other night, but, now that your testimony is all in, I hope you feel free to give me your reasons for opposing our plan for a removal of the tribe."
Curtis took a seat, while Brisbane stretched himself out in a big chair and fixed his cold, gray-blue eyes on the soldier, who hesitated a moment before replying, "I don't think it wise to go into that matter, Senator."
"Why not?"
"Well, we differ so radically on the bill, and your interests make it exceedingly difficult for you to be just in the case. Nothing would be gained by argument."
"You think you know what my interests are?" There was a veiled sarcasm in the great man's smile.
"I think I do. As a candidate for re-election to the Senate you can't afford to antagonize the cattle and mining interests of your State, and, as I am now officially the representative of the Tetongs, I sincerely hope you will not insist on a discussion of the motives involved." The young officer spoke firmly, but with impressive dignity and candor.
Brisbane's ambiguous manner took a sudden shift to cordiality, and, leaning forward, he said:
"Curtis, I like you. I admire your frankness. Let me be equally plain. You're too able a man to be shelved out there on a bleak reservation. What was your idea of going into the Indian service, anyway?"
The young officer remained on guard despite this genial glow. "I considered it my duty," he replied. "Besides, I was rusting out in garrison, and—but there is no need to go into my motives. I am agent, and shall stand firmly for the right of my wards so long as I am in position to do so."
"But you're wasting your life. Suppose you were offered a chance to go to—well, say West Point, as an instructor on a good salary?"
"I would decline the appointment."
"Why?"
"Because at this time I am needed where I am, and I have started on a plan of action which I have a pride in finishing."
Brisbane grew distinctively less urbane. "You are bent on fighting me, are you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Curtis, though he knew.
"You are dead set against the removal of the Tetongs?"
"Most certainly I am!"
Elsie re-entered the room during this rapid interchange of phrase, but neither of the men heard her, so intent were they upon each other.
"Young man, do you know who you are fighting?" asked Brisbane, bristling like a bear and showing his teeth a little. Curtis being silent, he went on: "You're lined up against the whole State! Not only the cattlemen round about the reservation, but a majority of the citizens are determined to be rid of those vagabonds. Anybody that knows anything about 'em knows they're a public nuisance. Why should they be allowed to camp on land which they can't use—graze their mangy ponies on lands rich in minerals—"
"Because they are human beings."
"Human beings!" sneered Brisbane. "They are nothing but a greasy lot of vermin—worthless from every point of view. Their rights can't stand in the way of civilization."
"It is not a question of whether they are clean or dirty, it is a question of justice," Curtis replied, hotly. "They came into the world like the rest of us, without any choice in the matter, and so far as I can see have the same rights to the earth—at least, so much of it as they need to sustain life. The fact that they make a different use of the soil than you would do isn't a sufficient reason for starving and robbing them."
"The quicker they die the better," replied Brisbane, flushing with sudden anger. "The only good Injun is a dead Injun."
At this familiar phrase Curtis took fire. "Yes, I expected that accursed sentence. Let me tell you, Mr. Brisbane, I never knew a redman savage enough to utter such a sentiment as that. The most ferocious utterance of Geronimo never touched the tigerish malignity of that saying. Sitting Bull was willing to live and let live. If your view represents civilization, I want none of it. The world of the savage is less cruel, less selfish."
Brisbane's face writhed white, and a snarling curse choked his utterance for a moment. "If you weren't my guest," he said, reaching a clutching hand towards Curtis, "I'd cut your throat."
Elsie, waiting in strained expectancy, cried out: "Father! What are you saying? Are you crazy?"
Curtis hastily rose, very white and very quiet. "I will take care not to put myself in your way as guest again, sir."
"You can't leave too quick!" roared the old man, his face twitching with uncontrollable wrath. "You are a traitor to your race! You'd sacrifice the settlers to the interests of a greasy red vagabond!"
"Father, be quiet! You are making a scene," called Elsie, and added, sadly: "Don't go, Captain Curtis; I shall be deeply mortified if you do. Father will be sorry for this."
Brisbane also rose, shaking with a weakness pitiful to see. "Well, sir, you can go, for I know now the kind of sneak you are. Let me tell you this, young man: you'll feel my hand before you are a year older. You can't come into my house and insult me in the presence of my daughter. Get out!" His hands were moving uncontrollably, and Elsie discovered with a curious pang that she was pitying him and admiring the stern young soldier who stood quietly waiting for an opportunity to speak. At last he said:
"Miss Brisbane, I beg your pardon; I should not have said what I did." He turned to Brisbane. "I am sorry I spoke so harshly, sir. You are an older man than I, and—"
"Never mind my age," replied Brisbane, his heat beginning to cool into self-contained malice. "I desire no terms of friendship with you. It's war now—to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. You think you are safe from me, but the man that lines up against me generally regrets it to the day of his death."
"Very well, sir, I am not one to waste words. I shall do my duty to the Tetongs regardless of you or your friends." He turned to Elsie. "Miss Brisbane, I ask you to remember that I honestly tried to avoid a controversy."
Six months before Elsie would have remained passive while her father ordered Curtis from the door, but now she could not even attempt to justify his anger, and the tears glistened on her lashes as she said: "Father, why can't you accept Captain Curtis's hand? These ragamuffin redmen aren't worth quarrelling about. No one ever went away from us like this, and it breaks my heart to have it so. Don't go, Captain Curtis. Father, ask his pardon."
The old man turned towards her. "Go to your room. I will see that this young squirt finds the door!"
Elsie shrank from the glare of his eyes. "Father, you are brutal! You hurt me."
"Do as I say!" he snarled.
"I willnot!" She faced him, tall and resolute. "I am not a child. I am the mistress of this house." She turned and walked towards the door. "Captain Curtis, I begyourpardon; my father has forgotten himself."
Brisbane took a step towards Curtis. "Get out! And you, girl, leave the room."
The girl's face whitened. "Have you no sense of decency?" she said, and her voice cut deep down into his heart and he flinched. "Captain Curtis is my guest as well as yours." She extended her hand. "Please go! It is best."
"It is the most miserable moment of my life," he replied, as they moved down the hall, leaving Brisbane at the door of the study. "I will do any honorable thing to regain your good-will."
"You have not lost it," she replied. "I cannot blame you—as I should," she added, and the look on her face mystified him.
"May I see you again before I leave for the West?"
"Perhaps," she softly replied. "Remember he is old—and—"
"I will try not to bear anger," he replied.
And as he turned away it seemed that she had leagued herself with him against her own father, and this feeling deepened as she ran up the stairs heedless of the voice whose commands had hitherto been law to her.
The young officer walked down the sunny avenue towards the White House with a curious feeling of having just passed through a bitter and degrading dream. He was numb and cold. Around him the little negro newsboys were calling the one-o'clock editions of the "Styah," and the pavements were swarming with public servants hastening to lunch, punctual as clocks, while he, having been ordered from the house of his host, was mechanically returning to his club.
There was something piercingly pathetic in the thought of the good cheer he had anticipated, and the lost pleasure of sitting opposite Elsie made his heart ache. At the moment his feet stumbled in the path of duty. Surely he was a long way from the single-minded map-builder who had crossed the Sulphur Spring Divide.