"Confound it, Gustave!" exclaimed Lanstron. "It's inhuman, old boy! You shan't stay another day!" Discretion to the winds, he sprang to his feet.
An impulse of the same sort overwhelmed Feller. His hand let go of the branch. The brim of the hat shot up, revealing a face that was not old, but in mercurial quickness of expressive, uncontrollable emotion was young, handsomely and attractively young in its frame of prematurely white hair. The stoop was wholly gone. He was tall now, his eyes sparkling with wild, happy lights and the soles of the heavy workman's shoes unconsciously drawn together in a military stance. Lanstron's twitching hand flew from his pocket and with the other found Feller's hand in a strong, warm, double grip. For a second's silence they remained thus. Feller was the first to recover himself and utter a warning.
"Miss Galland--Minna--some one might be looking."
He drew away abruptly, his face becoming suddenly old, his stoop returning, and began to study the branch as before. Lanstron dropped back to his seat and gazed at the brown roofs of the town. Thus they might continue their conversation as guest and gardener.
"I didn't think you'd stick it out, but you wanted to try--you chose," said Lanstron. "Come--this afternoon--now!"
"This is best for me--this to the end of the chapter!" Feller replied doggedly. "Because you say you didn't think I'd stick it out--ah, how well you know me. Lanny!--is the one reason that I should."
"True!" Lanstron agreed. "A victory over yourself!"
"How often I have heard in imagination the outbreak of rifle-fire down there by the white posts! How often I have longed for that day--for war! I live for war!"
"It may never come," Lanstron said in frank protest. "And, for God's sake, don't pray for it in that way!"
"Then I shall be patient--patient under all irritations. The worst is," and Feller raised his head heavily, in a way that seemed to emphasize both his stoop and his age, "the worst is Miss Galland."
"She is learning the deaf-and-dumb alphabet in order the better to communicate with me. She likes to talk of the flowers--gardening is a passion with her, too--and all the while, in face of the honesty of those big eyes of hers and of her gentle old mother's confidence, I am living a lie! Oh, the satire of it! And I have not been used to lying. That is my only virtue; at any rate, I was never a liar!"