Part 25 (2/2)
”Don't you like him-still?”
”Yes-I do. I don't know what was the matter with that man. He went all to pieces.”
”W-what!”
”Utterly. Isn't it too bad.”
She sat there very silent, very white. Stephen bit into another cake, angrily.
”It's the company he keeps,” he said-”a lot of fast men-fast enough to be talked about, fas.h.i.+onable enough to be tolerated-Jack Ca.s.son is one of them, and that little a.s.s, Arthur Wye. That's the crowd-a horse-racing, hard-drinking, hard-gambling crew.”
”But-he is-Mr. Berkley's circ.u.mstances-how can he do such things--”
”Some idiot-even Berkley doesn't know who-took all those dead stocks off his hands. Wasn't it the devil's own luck for Berkley to find a market in times like these?”
”But it ended him... . Oh, I was fond of him, I tell you, Ailsa!
I hate like thunder to see him this way--”
”What way!”
”Oh, not caring for anybody or anything. He's never sober. I don't mean that I ever saw him otherwise-he doesn't get drunk like an ordinary man: he just turns deathly white and polite. I've met him-and his friends-several times. They're too fast a string of colts for me. But isn't it a shame that a man like Berkley should go to the devil-and for no reason at all?”
”Yes,” she said.
When Stephen, swinging his crimson fez by the ta.s.sel, stood ready to take his leave, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
After he departed Colonel Arran came, and sat, as usual, silent, listening.
Ailsa was very animated; she told him about Stephen's enlistment, asked scores of questions about military life, the chances in battle, the proportion of those who went through war unscathed.
And at length Colonel Arran arose to take his departure; and she had not told what was hammering for utterance in every heart beat; she did not know how to tell, what to ask.
Hat in hand Colonel Arran bent over her hot little hand where it lay in his own.
”I have been offered the colonelcy of a volunteer regiment now forming,” he said without apparent interest.
”You!”
”Cavalry,” he explained wearily.
”But-you have not accepted!”
He gave her an absent glance. ”Yes, I have accepted... . I am going to Was.h.i.+ngton to-night.”
”Oh!” she breathed, ”but you are coming back before-before--”
”Yes, child. Cavalry is not made in a hurry. I am to see General Scott-perhaps Mr. Cameron and the President... . If, in my absence-” he hesitated, looked down, shook his head. And somehow she seemed to know that what he had not said concerned Berkley.
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