The Bondwoman Part 42

"Yes, I will wait," he said; "but I can't approve, and I don't need the evidence of any one else in order to appreciate your value," he added, grimly; "but be careful, remember where you are."

"I could not forget it if I tried, Captain Jack," she declared, with a peculiar smile, of which the meaning escaped him until long after.

That ride from Loringwood in the morning, and the nervous expectancy after, had evidently tended to undermine her own self-confidence and usual power of resource, for when she returned to the room a few minutes later, and found Gertrude and her uncle there, she halted in absolute confusion--could not collect her thoughts quickly enough for the emergency, and glanced inquiringly towards Monroe, as one looks at a stranger, while he, after one look as she entered, continued some remark to Mr. Loring.

For an instant Gertrude's eyes grew narrow as she glanced from one to the other; then she recovered her usual sweet manner, as she turned to Judithe:

"Pardon me, I fancied you two had met. Madame Caron, permit me to present Captain Monroe, one of our recent acquisitions."

Both bowed; neither spoke. Colonel McVeigh entered at that moment. He had changed the grey travelling suit in which he arrived, for the grey uniform of his regiment, and Judithe, however critical she tried to be, could not but acknowledge that he was magnificent; mentally she added, "Magnificent animal; but what of the soul, the soul?"

There was no lack of soul in his eyes as he looked at her and crossed the room, as though drawn by an invisible chain, and noted, as a lover ever notes, that the dress she wore had in its soft, silvery folds, a suggestion of sentiment for the cause he championed.

But when he murmured something of his appreciation, she dropped her eyes to the fan she held, and when she glanced slowly up it was in a manner outlawing the tete-a-tete.

"I realize now, Colonel McVeigh, that you are really a part of the army," she remarked in the tone of one who makes the conversation general. "You were a very civilian-looking person this morning. I have, like your Southern ladies, acquired a taste for warlike trappings; the uniform is very handsome."

"Thanks; I hope you will find my next one more becoming, since it is to be that of Brigadier-General."

Although Matthew Loring's sight was impaired, his locomotion slow, and his left hand and arm yet helpless, his sense of hearing was acute enough to hear the words even across Monroe's conversation, for his sunken eyes lit up as he twisted his head towards the speaker:

"What's that, Kenneth? You to command a brigade?"

"So they tell me," a.s.sented McVeigh. "The commission just reached me."

"Good enough! Do you hear that, Gertrude? A Brigadier-General at twenty-five. Well, I don't see what more a man could want."

"I do," he said, softly, to Judithe, so softly that she felt rather than heard the words, to which his eyes bore witness. Then he turned to reply to Mr. Loring's questions of military movements.

"No, I can't give you much special information today," and he smiled across at Monroe, when Loring found fault with the government officials who veiled their plans and prospects from the taxpayers--the capitalists of the South who made the war possible. "But the instructions received lead me to believe a general movement of much importance is about to be made in our department, and my opportunities will be all a soldier could wish."

"So you have become a Brigadier-General instead of the Lieutenant we knew only three years ago," and Judithe's eyes rested on him graciously for an instant, as Monroe and Gertrude helped Loring out to the wheeled chair on the lawn. "You travel fast--you Americans! I congratulate you."

She had arisen and crossed the room to the little writing desk in the corner. He followed with his eyes her graceful walk and the pretty fluttering movements of her hands as she drew out note paper and busied herself rather ostentatiously. He smiled as he noticed it; she was afraid of a tete-a-tete; she was trying to run away, if only to the farther side of the room.

"I shall consider myself a more fit subject for congratulation if you prove more kind to the General than you were to the Lieutenant."

"People usually are," she returned lightly. "I do not fancy you will have much of unkindness to combat, except from the enemy."

Evilena entered the room humming an air, and her brother remarked carelessly that the first of the enemy to invade their domain was not very formidable at present, though Captain Jack Monroe had made a fighting record for himself in the western campaign. Judithe did not appear particularly interested in the record of the Northern campaign, but Evilena, who had been too much absorbed in the question of wardrobe to keep informed of the late arrivals, fairly gasped at the name.

"Really and truly, is that Yankee here?" she demanded, "right here in the house? Caroline said it wasn't a Yankee--just some friend of yours."

"So he is."

"And--a--_Yankee_?"

He nodded his head and smiled at her. Judithe had picked up a pen and was writing. Evilena glanced towards her for a.s.sistance in this astonis.h.i.+ng state of affairs, but no one appeared to be shocked but herself.

"Well!" she said, at last, resignedly, "since we are to have any Yankee here, I'm glad it's the one Gertrude met at Beaufort. I've been conjuring up romances about them ever since, and I am curious to see if he looks like the Jack Monroe in the song."

"Not likely," said her brother, discouragingly, "he is the least romantic hero for a song you can imagine; but if you put on your prettiest dress and promise not to fight all the battles of the war over with him, I'll manage that you sit beside him at dinner and make romances about him at closer range, if you can find the material."

"To think of _me_ dressing my prettiest for a Yankee! and oh, Ken, I can't dress so astonis.h.i.+ngly pretty, either. I'm really," and she sighed dejectedly, "down to my last party dress."

"Well, that's better than none."

"None!" she endeavored to freeze him with a look, but his smile forbade it, and she left the room, singing

"Just as she stepped on s.h.i.+p board, 'Your name I'd like to know?'

And with a smile she answered, 'My name is Jack Monroe.'"

"Thanks; glad to find so charming a namesake," said a deep voice, and she looked up to see a tall man gazing down at her with a smile so kindly she should never have guessed he was a Yankee but for the blue uniform.

"Oh!" she blushed deliciously, and then laughed. There really was no use trying to be dignified with a stranger after such a meeting as that.

"I never did mean to steal your name, Captain Monroe," she explained, "for you are Captain Monroe?"

"Yes, except when I am Jack," and then they both smiled.

"Oh, I've known Jack was your name, too, for this long time," she said, with a little air of impressing him with her knowledge; "but I couldn't call you that, except in the song."

"May I express the hope that you sing the song often?" he asked, with an attempt at gravity not entirely successful.

"But you don't know who I am, do you?" and when he shook his head sadly she added, "but of course you've heard of me; I'm Evilena."

"Evilena?"

"Evilena McVeigh," she said, with a trifle of emphasis.

"Oh, Kenneth's sister?" and he held out his hand. "I'm delighted to know you."

"Thank you." She let her hand rest in his an instant, and then drew it away, with a little gasp.

"There! I've done it after all."

"Anything serious?" he inquired.

She nodded her head; "I've broken a promise."

"Not past repair, I hope."

"Oh, it's only a joke to you, but it really is serious to me. When the boys I know all started North with the army I promised I'd never shake hands with a Yankee."

"Promised them all?" he asked, and without waiting for a reply, he continued: "Now, that's a really extraordinary coincidence; I entertained the same idea about Johnnie Rebs."

"Really?" and she looked quite relieved at finding a companion in iniquity; "but you did shake hands?"