The bright lights of the day flashed into the old
house when the captain angrily kicked open the door.
He was aware of a wide hallway, carpeted with matting
and extending deep into the dwelling. There was
also an old walnut hat-rack and a little marble-topped
table with a vase and two books upon it. Farther
back was a great, venerable fireplace containing dreary
ashes.
But directly in front of the captain was a young girl.
The flying open of the door had obviously been an
utter astonishment to her, and she remained transfixed
there in the middle of the floor, staring at the captain
with wide eyes.
She was like a child caught at the time of a raid
upon the cake. She wavered to and fro upon her
feet, and held her hands behind her. There were
two little points of terror in her eyes, as she gazed
up at the young captain in dusty blue, with his reddish,
bronze complexion, his yellow hair, his bright sabre
held threateningly.
These two remained motionless and silent, simply staring
at each other for some moments.
The captain felt his rage fade out of him and leave
his mind limp. He had been violently angry, because
this house had made him feel hesitant, wary.
He did not like to be wary. He liked to feel confident,
sure. So he had kicked the door open, and had
been prepared, to march in like a soldier of wrath.
But now he began, for one thing, to wonder if his
uniform was so dusty and old in appearance. Moreover,
he had a feeling that his face was covered with a
compound of dust, grime, and perspiration. He
took a step forward and said: “I didn’t
mean to frighten you.” But his voice was
coarse from his battle-howling. It seemed to him
to have hempen fibres in it.
The girl’s breath came in little, quick gasps,
and she looked at him as she would have looked at
a serpent.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,”
he said again.
The girl, still with her hands behind her, began to
back away.
“Is there any one else in the house?”
he went on, while slowly following her. “I
don’t wish to disturb you, but we had a fight
with some rebel skirmishers in the woods, and I thought
maybe some of them might have come in here. In
fact, I was pretty sure of it. Are there any
of them here?”
The girl looked at him and said, “No!”
He wondered why extreme agitation made the eyes of
some women so limpid and bright.
“Who is here besides yourself?”
By this time his pursuit had driven her to the end
of the hall, and she remained there with her back
to the wall and her hands still behind her. When
she answered this question, she did not look at him
but down at the floor. She cleared her voice
and then said: “There is no one here.”
“No one?”
She lifted her eyes to him in that appeal that the
human being must make even to falling trees, crashing
boulders, the sea in a storm, and said, “No,
no, there is no one here.” He could plainly
see her tremble.
