"She took only the most casual notice of my presence—barely to give me a cup of tea."
"Now, Baynell," said the lieutenant, exceedingly wroth. "I want you to understand that I take this very ill of you."
He was a tall, spare young fellow, with light, straight brown hair, a light-brown mustache, and a keen, excitable blue eye, which showed well-opened and alert from under the dark brim of his cap as he looked upward, still standing at the side of Baynell's restive horse. "I think it a very poor return for similar courtesy. I took you with me to call on Miss Fisher—and—"
"This is a very different case. I, personally, am not on terms with Mrs. Gwynn. Besides, she is very different from Miss Fisher, who entertains general society. Mrs. Gwynn is a widow—in deep mourning."
"But it is told in Gath that widows are not usually inconsolable," suggested Ashley, with a brightening of his arch eyes, and still laughing it off.
"I am much affronted, Captain Baynell," declared the irascible lieutenant. "I consider this personal. And I will get even with you for this!"
"And I will get an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn without your kind offices," declared Ashley, with a jocular imitation of their young friend's indignant manner.
"I shall be very happy if you can meet her in any appropriate way. It is not appropriate for me, cognizant of their ardent rebel sympathies and intense antagonism to the Union cause and antipathy to all its supporters, to ask to introduce my friends of the invading 'Yankee army,'" Baynell replied with stiff hauteur.
Just then the bugle sang out, its mandatory, clear, golden tones lifting into the sunshine with such a full buoyant effect that it was like the very spirit of martial courage transmuted into sound. Baynell instantly put his horse into motion, and rode off through the brilliant air and the sparse shadows of the budding trees. His blond hair and mustache, gilded by the sunlight, had as decorative an effect as his gold lace; his blue eyes glittered with a stern, vigilant light; his face was flushed, something unusual, for he was wont to be pale, and his erect, imposing, soldierly figure sat his spirited young charger with the firmness of a centaur. The eyes of all the group followed him, several commenting on his handsome appearance, his fine bearing, his splendid horse, and his great value as an officer.
"He is an admirable fellow," declared Dr. Grindley, a surgeon on his way to the hospital hard by. He had paused at a little distance, and had not heard the conversation.