The breakfast-table was worthy of the hostess who poured the coffee for us. I glanced again at the room. On the wall, gazing at me with calm eyes, was a fine portrait of General Lee. Near it was one of Stonewall Jackson. Farther on was Jefferson Davis, and as I looked at the four walls of the room I saw that the whole Confederacy was present. Wreathed over the door somewhat after the fashion of a looped-up curtain was the Confederate flag.
I wished to ask many questions of this strange household, but courtesy forbade it, when I saw that every time I led the conversation in the direction of curiosity it was skilfully turned aside. Instead, we talked of the great world outside, and made very good progress, barring a certain unfamiliarity on the part of the colonel, who spoke as if all these things were vague and unreal to him.
There was a wide window at the end of the room, and I could see that it was a glorious morning without. The torrent, thirty feet down, dashed and sparkled in front of the window, the gay sunlight falling on it and showing rocks and pebbles in its clear depths. All the brilliant colors of late autumn, which I had admired so much the day before, reappeared, more dazzling after a brief eclipse. I knew that the air outside was tonic like good wine, but there was enough just then to keep me content in that breakfast-room, the heart of the lost Confederacy. The lost Confederacy! How could I say that, with its president and ministers and generals looking down from the walls at me as if all the world were theirs, while the stars and bars, under which I had just passed, hung in loops over the door!
As his daughter and I talked more, the colonel talked less. Seen in the light of the morning, his face looked rather worn, and once when he threw his yet thick white hair back with his hand I noticed the scar of a deep wound across his head. I began to feel sympathy for him without knowing exactly why. He rose presently and excused himself, saying it was time to give his men some directions for the day. Miss Hetherill and I dawdled a little over the coffee-cups, and I took the opportunity to thank her for her intercession with her father in my favor. She did not make light of my thanks or of her act, and her manner appeared to indicate a belief on her part that I had been in real danger; which, however, I had not been able to persuade myself was so, nor could I yet.
She asked me if I would look through the house,—I noticed she did not call it fort, and I consented with gladness, saying I would be pleased to go anywhere with so fair a guide, which she accepted with the carelessness of one who had heard the like before.
She took me into a room she called the great parlor, and a noble room it was, too, though here, as elsewhere, the atmosphere was distinctly military. It was full thirty feet square, with a vaulted ceiling of polished oak. Furs were on the floor and arms on the wall, repeating rifles, revolvers, bayonets, swords in much variety.
"It is my father's chief delight to polish these and to see that they are in perfect order," she said.
"Miss Hetherill," I said, speaking suddenly from impulse, "why does your father cherish this delusion? Why does he not go and live among his kind?"
I regretted instantly that I had spoken so, for she turned upon me with a sudden flash of anger.