The Iron Game | Page 8

Henry Francis Keenan
us a cripple or worse. But, as you see, we make no sign. Not a line of routine has been changed in the house. Jack will march away and never see a tear in my eye or feel my pulse tremble. It is not in our Northern blood to give much expression to sentiment, but we feel none the less deeply--much more deeply, I think, than you exuberant Southerners; you are impulsive, mercurial, and fickle."
"Oh, don't say that: I can't bear to hear you say it; we have deep feelings, we are constant, true as steel, chivalrous--"
"Yes, you are delightful people; but you are always living in the past. Shall I say it? You are womanlike; you can't reason. What you want at the moment is right, and only that; with us nothing is real until we have tried and proved it. If you count on Northern apathy you will soon see your mistake. When Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter the North was of one mind, and will stay so until all is again as it was."
"Pray don't let us talk on this subject. I'm free to own that it does not interest me. Then," he added adroitly, "you are readier in argument than I, because you were brought up in it. But what I want to say is, that it seems base for me to turn upon the goodness I have met in this house, and--and--"
"But you need not turn. In battle do your duty like a man. If it should fall to you to do a kindness to the wounded, do it in memory of the friends you have here. War is less savage now than it was when your ancestors and mine tortured each other in the name of God and the king."
"All murder is done for love of one sort or another: war is love of country; revenge is love of some one else--men rarely kill from hate," Vincent stammered, his heart beating at the nearness of what he was dying to say.
"In that case I hope I shall he hated. I shall shun people who love me," and with that she struck the horse a lively tap and soon was far ahead of her tongue-tied wooer. Was this a challenge? Vincent asked himself, as he sped after her. When he reached her side the tender words were chilled on his lips, for Olympia had in her laughing eye the, to him, odious expression he saw there when she made the irritating speech about himself and Jack a few minutes before. Fearing a teasing retort, he bridled the tender outburst and rode along pensively, revolving pretexts for another day's stay in Acredale. But when they reached home he found an imperative mandate to set out at once, as his lingering in the North was subjecting himself and kinsmen to doubt among the zealous partisans of the Davis party. Olympia was alone in the library when he ran down to tell Jack that he must start at once. He took it as an omen, and said, confusedly:
"It is decided; I must go in the morning."
As this had been the plan all along, she looked up at him in surprise, not knowing, of course, that he had been thinking of putting off the fixed time.
"Yes, everything has been made ready; Jack will take you to Warchester, and we shall drive over to see you en route."
"It is fortunate the letter from my mother came to-night." He stood quite, over her chair, his eyes glittering strangely, his manner excited.
"Do you know what they think at home? They say that I--I am not true to my cause; that my heart is with the North--that I want to stay here."
"They won't think that when they hear you, as we have, breathing fury and wrath against the Lincolnites," Olympia briskly replied, as if to proffer her services as witness to his misguided loyalty to the South.
"Ah, don't be so ungenerous, now--at this time. I never talk like that now--here--never before you." He hesitated, and his voice dropped. "Why will you put a fellow in a ridiculous light? Your sneers almost make me ashamed of my honest pride in my State--my enthusiasm for our sacred cause."
"Deep feeling isn't so easily shaken; true love should brave all things--even sneers and blows."
"If I should tell you that I loved somebody, I am sure you would make me seem ridiculous or ignorant of my own mind."
"Then pray be wise and don't tell me. It's bad enough to be in love, without being photographed in the agony."
He looked at her in angry perplexity. Could she ever be serious? Was all the tenderness of the past only heedless coquetry? Had she danced with him, drove with him, sailed with him, walked in the moonlight and made much of
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