“But,” she said, turning towards him wickedly, “what if I did it only to excite my revenge; what if I knew it would give me courage to incite my people to carry war into your own homes; to make you of the North feel as I feel, and taste our bitterness?”
“I could easily understand that, too,” he returned, with listless coldness, “although I don't admit that revenge is an unmixed pleasure, even to a woman.”
“A woman!” she repeated indignantly. “There is no sex in a war like this.”
“You are spoiling your flower,” he said quietly. “It is very pretty, and a native one, too; not an invader, or even transplanted. May I look at it?”
She hesitated, half recoiling for an instant, and her hand trembled. Then, suddenly and abruptly she said, with a hysteric little laugh, “Take it, then,” and almost thrust it in his hand.
It certainly was a pretty flower, not unlike a lily in appearance, with a bell-like cup and long anthers covered with a fine pollen, like red dust. As he lifted it to his face, to inhale its perfume, she uttered a slight cry, and snatched it from his hand.
“There!” she said, with the same nervous laugh. “I knew you would; I ought to have warned you. The pollen comes off so easily, and leaves a stain. And you've got some on your cheek. Look!” she continued, taking her handkerchief from her pocket and wiping his cheek; “see there!” The delicate cambric showed a blood-red streak.
“It grows in a swamp,” she continued, in the same excited strain; “we call it dragon's teeth,—like the kind that was sown in the story, you know. We children used to find it, and then paint our faces and lips with it. We called it our rouge. I was almost tempted to try it again when I found it just now. It took me back so to the old times.”
Following her odd manner rather than her words, as she turned her face towards him suddenly, Brant was inclined to think that she had tried it already, so scarlet was her cheek. But it presently paled again under his cold scrutiny.
“You must miss the old times,” he said calmly. “I am afraid you found very little of them left, except in these flowers.”