"Thanks, no, not this time; I must go to bed. Good-night, Mr. Blake."
"Good-night to you, Mr. Hayne," said Blake, then stood gazing perplexedly after him. "Now, my fine fellow," was his dissatisfied query, "what on earth do you mean by prowling around Rayner's at this hour of the night?"
XI.
It was very generally known throughout Fort Warrener by ten o'clock on the following morning that Mr. Hayne had returned to duty and was one of the first officers to appear at the matinée. Once more the colonel had risen from his chair, taken him by the hand, and welcomed him. This time he expressed the hope that nothing would now occur to prevent their seeing him daily.
"Won't you come in to the club-room?" asked Captain Gregg, afterwards. "We will be pleased to have you."
"Excuse me, captain, I shall be engaged all morning," answered Mr. Hayne, and walked on down the row. Nearly all the officers were strolling away in groups of three or four. Hayne walked past them all with quick, soldierly step and almost aggressive manner, and was soon far ahead, all by himself. Finding it an unprofitable subject, there had been little talk between the two regiments as to what Mr. Hayne's status should be on his reappearance. Everybody heard that he had somewhat rudely spurned the advances of Ross and his companions. Indeed, Ross had told the story with strong coloring to more than half the denizens of officers' row. Evidently he desired no further friendship or intercourse with his brother blue-straps; and only a few of the cavalry officers found his society attractive. He played delightfully; he was well read; but in general talk he was not entertaining. "Altogether too sepulchral,—or at least funereal," explained the cavalry. "He never laughs, and rarely smiles, and he's as glum as a Quaker meeting," was another complaint. So a social success was hardly to be predicted for Mr. Hayne.
While he could not be invited where just a few infantry people were the other guests, from a big general gathering or party he, of course, could not be omitted; but there he would have his cavalry and medical friends to talk to, and then there was Major Waldron. It was a grievous pity that there should be such an element of embarrassment, but it couldn't be helped. As the regimental adjutant had said, Hayne himself was the main obstacle to his restoration to regimental friendship. No man who piques himself on the belief that he is about to do a virtuous and praiseworthy act will be apt to persevere when the object of his benevolence treats him with cold contempt. If Mr. Hayne saw fit to repudiate the civilities a few officers essayed to extend to him, no others would subject themselves to similar rebuffs; and if he could stand the status quo, why, the regiment could; and that, said the Riflers, was the end of the matter.
But it was not the end, by a good deal. Some few of the ladies of the infantry, actuated by Mrs. Rayner's vehement exposition of the case, had aligned themselves on her side as against the post commander, and by their general conduct sought to convey to the colonel and to the ladies who were present at the first dinner given Mr. Hayne thorough disapproval of their course. This put the cavalry people on their mettle and led to a division in the garrison; and as Major Waldron was, in Mrs. Rayner's eyes, equally culpable with the colonel, it so resulted that two or three infantry households, together with some unmarried subalterns, were arrayed socially against their own battalion commander as well as against the grand panjandrum at post head-quarters. If it had not been for the determined attitude of Mr. Hayne himself, the garrison might speedily have been resolved into two parties,—Hayne and anti-Hayne sympathizers; but the whole bearing of that young man was fiercely repellent of sympathy; he would have none of it. "Hayne's position," said Major Waldron, "is practically this: he holds that no man who has borne himself as he has during these five years—denied himself everything that he might make up every cent that was lost, though he was in no wise responsible for the loss—could by any possibility have been guilty of the charges on which he was tried. From this he will not abate one jot or tittle; and he refuses now to restore to his friendship the men who repudiated him in his years of trouble, except on their profession of faith in his entire innocence." Now, this was something the cavalry could not do without some impeachment of the evidence which was heaped up against the poor fellow at the time of the trial; and it was something the infantry would not do, because thereby they would virtually pronounce one at least of their own officers to have repeatedly and persistently given false testimony. In the case of Waldron and the cavalry, however, it was possible for Hayne to return their calls of courtesy, because they, having never "sent him to Coventry," received him precisely as they would receive any other officer. With the Riflers it was different: having once "cut" him as though by unanimous accord, and having taught the young officers joining year after year to regard him as a criminal, they could be restored to Mr. Hayne's friendship, as has been said before, only "on confession of error." Buxton and two or three of his stamp called or left their cards on Mr. Hayne because their colonel had so done; but precisely as the ceremony was performed, just so was it returned. Buxton was red with wrath over what he termed Hayne's conceited and supercilious manner when returning his call: "I called upon him like a gentleman, by thunder, just to let him understand I wanted to help him out of the mire, and told him if there was anything I could do for him that a gentleman could do, not to hesitate about letting me know; and when he came to my house to-day, damned if he didn't patronize me!—talked to me about the Plevna siege, and wanted to discuss Gourko and the Balkans or some other fool thing: what in thunder have I to do with campaigns in Turkey?—and I thought he meant those nigger soldiers the British have in India,—Goorkhas, I know now,—and I did tell him it was an awful blunder, that only a Russian would make, to take those Sepoy fellows and put 'em into a winter campaign. Of course I hadn't been booking up the subject, and he had, and sprung it on me; and then, by gad, as he was going, he said he had books and maps he would lend me, and if there was anything he could do for me that a gentleman could do, not to hesitate about asking. Damn his impudence!"
Poor Buxton! One of his idiosyncrasies was to talk wisely to the juniors on the subject of European campaigns and to criticise the moves of generals whose very names and centuries were entangling snares. His own subalterns were, unfortunately for him, at the house when Hayne called, and when he, as was his wont, began to expound on current military topics. "A little learning," even, he had not, and the dangerous thing that that would have been was supplanted by something quite as bad, if not worse. He was trapped and thrown by the quiet-mannered infantry subaltern, and it was all Messrs. Freeman and Royce could do to restrain their impulse to rush after Hayne and embrace him. Buxton was cordially detested by his "subs" and well knew they would tell the story of his defeat, so he made a virtue of necessity and came out with his own version. Theirs was far more ludicrous, and, while it made Mr. Hayne famous, he gained another enemy. The ——th could not fail to notice how soon after that all social recognition ceased between their bulky captain and the pale, slender subaltern; and Mrs. Buxton and Mrs. Rayner became suddenly infatuated with each other, while their lords were seldom seen except together.