"No, General."
Jane was beginning to find this cross-examination distinctly painful. She felt that already her pledge, so glibly given at Captain Woodhouse's insistence, was involving her in a situation the significance of which might prove menacing to herself—and one other. She could sense the beginnings of a strain between herself and this genial elderly gentleman, her host.
"Do you know, Miss Gerson"—he was speaking soberly now—"I believe you and Captain Woodhouse have met before."
"You're at liberty to think anything you like, General—the truth or otherwise." Her answer, though given smilingly, had a sting behind it.
"I'm not going to think much longer. I'm going to know!" He clapped his lips shut over the last word with a smack of authority.
"Are you really, General Crandall?" The girl's eyes hardened just perceptibly. He took a turn of the room and paused, facing her. The situation pleased him no more than it did his breezy guest, but he knew his duty and doggedly pursued it.
"Come—come, Miss Gerson! I believe you're straightforward and sincere or I wouldn't be wasting my time this way. I'll be the same with you. This is a time of war; you understand all that implies, I hope. A serious question concerning Captain Woodhouse's position here has arisen. If you have met him before—as I think you have—it will be to your advantage to tell me where and when. I am in command of the Rock, you know."
He finished with an odd tenseness of tone that conveyed assurance of his authority even more than did the sense of his words. His guest, her back to the table on which the roses rested and her hands bracing her by their tense grip on the table edge, sought his eyes boldly.
"General Crandall," she began, "my training in Hildebrand's store hasn't made me much of a diplomat. All this war and intrigue makes me dizzy. But I know one thing: this isn't my war, or my country's, and I'm going to follow my country's example and keep out of it."
General Crandall shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the girl's defiance.