Part 50 (2/2)
She brushed a tear from her cheek and whispered:
”That's for my Big Brother. I'll tell him about it some day. He's still in the Union--but he's mine!”
She drew her lace handkerchief from her belt, dried her tears and looked up with a laugh.
”I'm not so loyal after all--am I?”
”No. But I've seen something bigger than loyalty,” he breathed softly, ”something divine--”
”Come,” said the girl lightly. ”I wish you to meet the most wonderful woman in Richmond. She's in charge of this hospital--”
Socola laughed skeptically.
”I've already seen the most wonderful woman in Richmond, Miss Jennie--”
”But she _is_--really--the most wonderful woman in all the South--I think in the world--Mrs. Arthur Hopkins--”
”Really?”
”She has done what no man ever has anyhow--sold all her property for two hundred thousand dollars and given it to the Confederacy. And not satisfied with giving all she had--she gave herself.”
Socola followed the girl in silence into the little office of the hospital and found himself gasping with astonishment at the sight of the delicate woman who extended her hand in friendly greeting.
She was so perfect an image of his own mother it was uncanny--the same straight, firm mouth, the strong, intellectual forehead with the heavy, straight-lined eyebrows, the waving rich brown hair, with a strand of silver here and there--the somber dress of black, the white lace collar and the dainty white lace cap on the back of her beautiful hair--it took his breath.
The more he saw of these Southern people, men and women, the more absurd became the stuff he had read so often about the Puritan of New England and the Cavalier of the South. He was more and more overwhelmed with the conviction that the Americans were _one_ people racially and temperamentally. The only difference on earth between them was that some settled in the bleak hills and rock-bound coast of the North and others in the sunlit fields and along the s.h.i.+ning sh.o.r.es of the South.
He returned with Jennie Barton to her home with the deepening conviction that he was making no progress. He must use this girl's pa.s.sionate devotion to her country as the lever by which to break into her heart or he would fail.
He paused on the doorstep and spoke with quick decision:
”Miss Jennie, your Southern women have fired my imagination. I'm going to resign my commission with the Sardinian Ministry and enter the service of the South--”
”You mean it?”
”I was never in more deadly earnest.”
He looked straight into her brown eyes until she lowered them.
”I need not tell you that you have been my inspiration. You understand that without my saying it.”
Before Jennie could answer he had turned and gone with quick, firm step.
She watched his slender, graceful figure with a new sense of exhilaration and tenderness.
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