It stood open to my eyes, however, as Peg talked, how no man was more loved than Eaton. And when I looked upon the ardent girl and considered, withal, the dull stolidity of the other, there would rise up pictures from my roving past to be as allegories of Peg's love. I would recall how once I saw a vine, blossom-flecked and beautiful, flinging its green tenderness across a hard insensate wall; and that was like Peg's love. Or it would come before me how I had known a mountain, sterile, seamed, unlovely, where it heaved itself against the heavens, a repellant harsh shoulder of stone. The June day, fresh and new and beautiful, would blush in the east, and her first kiss was for that cold gray, rude, old rock. That day at noon in her warm ripeness would rest upon it. Her latest glance, as our day died in the west, was for it; and when the valley and all about were dark, her last rays crowned it. And the vivid day, with her love for that unregardful mountain, the rich day wasting herself on the desert peak that would neither respond nor understand, was as the marvel of Peg's love.
It is all the mystery that never ends; woman in her love-reasons is not to be fathomed nor made plain. The cry of her soul is to love rather than to be loved; her happiness lives in what she gives, not what she gets. This turns for the good fortunes of men; also, it offers the frequent spectacle of a woman squandering herself—for squandering it is—on one so unworthy that only the sorrow of it may serve to smother the laughter that else might be evoked. However, I am not one to discuss these things, being no analyst, but only a creature of bluff wits, too clumsy for theories as subtle, not to say as brittle, as spun glass. Wherefore, let us put aside Peg's love and break off prosing. The more, since I may otherwise give some value to a jest of the General's—made on that same day—who would have it I was at first sight half in love with Peg myself. This was the General's conception of humor ard owned no other currency—I, being twice Peg's age, and in the middle forties, and not a trifle battered of feature by my years in the field. I was old enough to be Peg's father;—but when it comes to that, Eaton was quite as old.
It was time to seek the General, I said. Peg and I had arrived at a frank acquaintance, and we went together to the General's room in good opinion of ourselves, she the better by a new staunch friend, and I prosperous with thoughts for her of a coming elevation consistent with her graces of mind and person, and which should atone as much as might be for what she had suffered heretofore. We decided that Peg should wear a gay look, and harrow the General with no tears.
As we went along I was given to quite a novel enthusiasm, I recollect; and it was the more strange since, while no pessimist, I never had found celebration as one whose hope was wont to wander with the stars. I could see the white days ahead for Peg; and albeit I fear their glory shone not to her apprehension as it did to mine, and while they came slowly as days shod with lead, dawn they did, as he shall witness who goes with this history to the end.
My servant Jim was sent with a message to the General to give him the word of Peg's coming. During our talk in the parlor, Jim, be it said, was never far to call. Obviously, Jim proposed for me no dangers of bright eyes so far as remained with him to be my shield. He dodged in and out of the room, now with this pretext and now with that, and when I bade him repair to the General to say that Peg and I would visit him, the gray old rogue was fair irresolute, and hung in the wind as though he had but to turn his back on us and bring down every evil. I drove him forth at last, and when Peg and I would tap on the General's door our black courier was just coming away.
While the General was greeting Peg—rather effusively for him, so I thought—Jim, detaining me at the door, took the liberty of a private word.
“Now you-all is yere, Marse Major,” observed Jim, and his manner was of complaint and weariness, “an' where Marse Gen'ral kin keep a eye on you, I feels free an' safe to go projectin' 'round about my own consarns. I was boun' I wouldn't leave you alone, Marse Major, in d' parlors; I shore tells you it makes Jim draw long brefs an' puts him to fear an' tremblin' lest every minute's gwine to be his nex', while any woman as han'some as dish yere Missis Eaton is pesterin' nigh. You-all can't tell what dey'll do, or what you'll do! Which Jim has knowed Love to up an' prounce on a man like a mink on a settin' hen; an' him jes' merely lookin' at one of them sirens, as d' good book calls'em. That's d' shore enough fac', Marse Major; an' you-all oughter be mighty keerful an' keep Jim hoverin' about d' lan'scape at all sech meetin's. It's a heap safer, that a-way; you hyar Jim!” At this point of warning Jim stopped like a clock that has run down.
“You asked me if you might have one drink from the demijohn in my closet,” I said. “Yassir, Marse Major, I does.”
“You took four, you scoundrel; you took at least four, as I can tell by the mill-wheel clatter of your tongue.”
“On'y three, Marse Major; on'y three. An' you don't want to disrecollect Marse Major, pore old Jim's got a heap on his mind to make him thirsty.”