"I mean, sir, that you tell not the truth, that you lie, when you say that that was your conversation with that man. You lie, I say!"
Now there could be no mistake. The Doctor's sixty years fell from him like a mantle. He looked a young man, and his face unfurled the banner of wrath that knows no nation, but calls all the earth its own. The two men glared at each other like dogs leaping against their collars, eager to bury their teeth in each other's throats.
"By God," growled the elder man, "if you-all weren't a damned foreigner Ah'd kill you! But Ah suppose you don't know any better, and Ah've got to let you alone."
He turned and walked to his buggy. He did not forget to pat the noses of the horse and mule that drew his equipage. He clambered into the carriage, which protested, creaking, against his weight, and he jogged slowly out of sight.
"Oh, my Lawd," he whispered to himself, gently rocking from side to side,—"oh, my Lawd, why ain't he an American? Oh, why ain't he? But a foreigner! He ain't responsible!"
Friedrich watched the retreating buggy with mingled disgust and surprise.
"Why did he not r-resent that? If not that, what? He is br-rave, that is clear; then why does he not fight? Ah, these Americans, I compr-rehend them not!"
A furnace of indignation, he walked into the house. He passed through his living-room, where Melissa was scrubbing the floor and singing a doleful hymn as an encouragement to exertion, and went into his bedroom. There, in the glass, he suddenly came upon his own face, filled with bitterness, scowling.
He paused, shocked that this mask of hatred should be his. Abashed, he turned away from the too truthful mirror of his tell-tale features. A gurgling sound fell upon his ear, and he saw, lying contentedly upon his bed, babbling inexplicable nothings, waving meaningless gestures, rosy, happy, a baby—Melissa's baby.
The soldier looked down upon her solemnly. His face grew less stern and his whole form seemed to relax.