She cast one glance his way, and then dropped her eyes.
"Yo' swo'd theah, fo' instance, is an emblem of vanity," she went on hurriedly, in a final effort to regain her lost note of banter, "why do yo' weah it in a ball room? Ah yo' in dangeh? No, yo' me'ely wish to show that yo' can handle it skilfully in a dance--which yo' can't----" And she thrust a hand into a rent in her overskirt, and spread it over her palm in proof. "And those things, what do yo' call them? That helmet co'd, as Leftenant Wood so cahfully explained to me, that is to hold yo' helmet on; but yo' haven't yo' helmet on now. And those othah things, lak pencils, that knock in mah eyes in dancing, what good ah they?"
She touched with the tip of her finger his dangling aiguillettes. The touch thrilled him.
"Did you hear me?" he went on. All her mockery had not been heard. She knew it had not been heard, and she tried to say more, but her mind would not work; she caught her breath. They were alone on that side of the great hall. He leaned closer.
"Did you hear me?" he went on. "You shall see me so if you will. I'll take you there--will you go?"
"It would be a treat, wouldn't it," she said, "to see yo' on yo' native heath?"
"Dade," he said, and she flushed crimson, "it's no use--I can't say it right--only--I love you, that's all."
"Do you hear, darling?" he continued, bending nearer. "Do you hear? You must excuse the bluntness of a soldier--I love you, that's all there is to it."
He clutched the scabbard of his saber in his nervousness. Her hand had fallen to her side, and with his own he seized it, and crushed it between them.
"Listen," he said, "I love you, love you, love you! Oh, if we were somewhere else! You can't say 'No' now; you must not! You do love me, you must--listen, do you hear?--you must love me! If we were elsewhere I'd take you in my arms--I'll do it anyway, here and now--what do I care? And you couldn't stop me!"
He leaned impulsively forward. She stirred, and turned her face half-frightened toward him.
Her eyes looked full in his, and then, without dropping one of her Western r's, she said:
He crushed her hand until she winced with the pain.
Emily and Dade had kept up a correspondence that gushed from their pens with all the olden spontaneity of their girlhood, though in the latter days this thin black-gowned matron who paused in her household duties to sit down to epistolary labors found it an effort which caused her rueful smiles to assume a character that was akin to her ancient self. Dade in her letters from Washington had hinted darkly at a secret she had to impart when they were, as she put it, heart to heart again, though her constant and enthusiastic celebration of Lieutenant Beck of the cavalry detracted somewhat from the mystery she was saving for Emily's stupefaction.