“Listen to me, Dick.” Madame spoke in her sweetest tones. “You are but a boy. You cannot know which side is right in this war when great men have differed upon the matter. I have heard you say that you honored Robert E. Lee. That he was a noble man, a great general, and one of the finest gentlemen that you ever met. Think you that such a man would embrace our cause if he did not believe himself right?”
“I do not,” answered Dick at once. “There are many men on the side of the South who believe themselves to be in the right. But they are none the less mistaken for all that.”
“And you set up your feeble judgment against them?” cried Madame, a trace of anger in her voice. “It is presumption.”
Dick did not reply. Presently Madame spoke again, and Jeanne noted that her tones were once more caressingly soft.
“Dick, I have spoken to you of my own son, have I not?”
“Yes, Cherie.”
“He was so much like you. When I used to hear Jeanne talk of you I knew that you were what my boy would have been. When I saw you my heart yearned over you, for you were the image of him. Had he lived he would have fought to defend our South from the rank invaders.”
“I do not doubt it,” spoke the boy gently.
“Think how desolate I am,” went on the lady quick to note the lad’s sympathy for her. “I have no one, Dick. Be my boy, I will be so proud of you. You would be our heir, and have all the property. I have influence too, and it should be used to advance you quickly to a high rank. You should be a general, my boy. The handsomest and youngest in the service. Think what I can give you. And all just to sign one little paper! Why do you hesitate? Why throw away such advantages for the sake of a mere notion? Come, sign it.”
Dick was silent so long that Jeanne became alarmed and she pushed back the curtain and looked at the pair anxiously. Madame Vance was holding a paper before the boy pleadingly, while Dick was regarding it with a look of indifference.