Curtis made his toilet slowly and with great care, remitting nothing the absence of which would indicate a letting down of military neatness and discipline. He wore the handsome undress uniform of a captain, and his powerful figure, still youthful in its erectness, although the lines were less slender than he wished, was dignified and handsome--fit to be taken as a type of mature soldier. He set forth, self-contained but eager.
The Brisbane portico of rose granite was immensely imposing to a dweller in tents and cantonments, such as Curtis had been for ten years, but he allowed no sign of his nervousness to appear as he handed his overcoat and cap to the old colored man in the vestibule.
As he started down the polished floor of the wide hall, stepping over a monstrous tiger-skin, he saw Elsie in the door of the drawing-room, her back against the folded portiere. Her slender figure was exquisitely gowned in pale-green, and her color was iridescent in youthful sparkle.
He thought once again--"Evening dress transforms a woman." She met him with a smile of welcome.
"Ah, Captain, this is very good of you, to come to us so soon."
"Not at all," he gallantly replied. "I would have come sooner had opportunity served."
"Father, this is Captain Curtis," she said, turning her head towards a tall man who stood within.
Brisbane came forward, greeting Curtis most cordially. He was grayer than Curtis remembered him, and a little stooping from age. His ma.s.sive head was covered with a close-clipped bristle of white hair, and his beard, also neatly trimmed, was shaped to a point, from the habit he had of stroking it with his closed left hand in moments of deep thought. His skin was flushed pink with blood, and his urbane manner denoted pride and self-sufficiency. He was old, but he was still a powerful personality, and though he shook hands warmly, Curtis felt his keen and penetrating glance as palpably as an electric shock.
Lawson"s voice arose. "Well, Captain, I hardly expected to see you so soon."
As the two men clasped hands Elsie again closely compared them. Curtis was the handsomer man, though Lawson was by no means ill-looking, even by contrast. The soldier more nearly approached the admirable male type, but there was charm in the characteristic att.i.tudes and gestures of the student, who had the a.s.sured and humorous manner of the onlooker.
A young woman of indeterminate type who was seated in conversation with Mrs. Wilc.o.x received Curtis with impa.s.sive countenance, eying him closely through pinch-nose gla.s.ses. Mrs. Wilc.o.x beamed with pleasure, and inquired minutely concerning the people at the agency, and especially she wished to know how little Johnny and Jessie Eagle were.
"I quite fell in love with the tots, they were so cunning. I hope they got the toys I sent."
Brisbane gave Curtis the most studious attention, lounging deep in his big chair. Occasionally he ponderously leaned forward to listen to some remark, with his head c.o.c.ked in keen scrutiny--actions which did not escape the Captain"s notice. "He"s sizing me up," he thought. "Well, let him."
Elsie also listened, curiously like her father in certain inclinations of the head--intent, absorbed; only Lawson seemed indifferent to the news the agent guardedly recited.
Brisbane broke his silence by saying: "I infer you"re on the side of the redskin?"
"Decidedly, in this connection."
"Quite aside from your duty?"
"Entirely so. My duty in this case happened to be my inclination. I could have declined the detail, but being a believer in the army"s arrangement of Indian affairs, I couldn"t decently refuse."
Brisbane settled back into his chair and looked straight at his visitor.
"You think the white man the aggressor in this land question?"
Curtis definitely pulled himself up. "I am not at liberty to speak further on that matter."
Mrs. Wilc.o.x interrupted smilingly. "Andrew, don"t start an argument now.
Dinner is served, and I know Captain Curtis is hungry."
Elsie rose. "Yes, papa, leave your discussion till some other time, when you can bang the furniture."
Curtis expected to take Miss Cooke in to dinner, but Elsie delighted him by saying, "You"re to go in with me, Captain."
"I am very glad of the privilege," he said, with deliberate intent to please her; his sincerity was unquestionable.
Curtis would have been more profoundly impressed with the s.p.a.ciousness of the hall and the dining-room had they been less like the interior of a hotel. The whole house, so far as its mural decoration went, had the over-stuffed quality of a Pullman car (with the exception of the pictures on the walls, which were exceedingly good), for Brisbane had successfully opposed all of Elsie"s new-fangled notions with regard to interior decoration; he was of those who insist on being masters in their houses as well as in their business offices, and Elsie"s manner was that of an obedient daughter deferring to a sire who had not ceased to consider her a child.
Seated at Elsie"s right hand, with Mrs. Wilc.o.x between himself and the head of the table, Curtis was fairly out of reach of Brisbane, who was dangerously eager to open a discussion concerning the bill for the removal of the Tetongs.
Elsie turned to him at once to say: "Do you know, Captain Curtis, I begin to long to return to the West. All my friends are enthusiastic over the studies I made last year, and I"ve decided to go back next spring. How early could one come out?"
"Any time after the first of May--in fact, that is the most beautiful month in the year; the gra.s.s is deliciously green then. I"m glad to know you think of returning. Jennie will also rejoice. It seems too good to be true. Will Mr. Lawson also return?"
"Oh yes. In fact, I go to complete his work--to do penance for neglecting him last summer." And in her tone, he fancied, lay a covert warning, as though she had said: "Do not mistake me; I am not coming out of interest in you."
He needed the word, for under the spell of her near presence and the charm of her smile, new to him, the soldier was beginning to glow again and to soften, in spite of his resolution to be very calm.
She went on: "I am genuinely remorseful, because Mr. Lawson has not been able to bring his paper out as he had planned."
"I will see that you have every possible aid," he replied, matter-of-factly. "The work must be done soon."
"How handsome he is!" the girl thought, as she studied his quiet face.
"His profile is especially fine, and the line of his neck and shoulders--" an impulse seized her, and she said:
"Captain, I"d like to make a sketch of you. Could you find time to sit for me?"
"That"s very flattering of you, but I"m afraid my stay in Washington is too short and too preoccupied."
Her face darkened. "I"m sorry. I know I could make a good thing of you."
"Thank you for the compliment, but it is out of the question at present.
Next summer, if you come out, I will be very glad to give the time for it. And that reminds me, you promised to show me your pictures when I came, and your studio."
"Did I? Well, you shall see them, although they are not as good as I shall do next year. One has to learn to handle new material. Your Western atmosphere is so different from that of Giverney, in which we all paint in Paris; then, the feeling of the landscape is so different; everything is so firm and crisp in line--but I am going to get it!
"There is the mystery of light as well as of the dark," Meunnot used to say to us, and if I can get that clear shimmer, and the vibration of the vivid color of the savage in the midst of it--"
She broke off as if in contemplation of the problem, rapt with question how to solve it.
"There speaks the artist in you, and it is fine. But I"d like you to see the humanitarian side of life, too," he replied.
"There is none," she instantly replied, with a curious blending of defiance and amus.e.m.e.nt. "I belong to the world of Light and Might--"
"And I to the world of Right--what about that?"
"Light and Might make right."
"Your team is wrongly harnessed--Light and Right are co-workers. Might fears both Light and Right."
Mrs. Wilc.o.x, who had been listening, fairly clapped her hands. "I"m glad to have you refute her arguments, Captain. She is absolutely heartless in her theories--in practice she"s a nice girl."
Elsie laughed. "What amuses me is that a soldier, the embodiment of Might, should dare to talk of Right."
Curtis grew grave. "If I did not think that my profession at bottom guarded the rights of both white men and red, I"d resign instantly. Our army is only an impartial instrument for preserving justice."
"That isn"t the old-world notion," put in Lawson from across the table.