"You seem to be bent," said Stafford, "on drawing us from the Monterey line before we can gather any more! We will be here next week."
"You do not like the idea?"
The other shrugged. "I? Why should I care? It is war to go where you are sent. But this weather is much too good to last, and I fail to see what can be done to the northward when winter is once let loose! And we leave the passes open. There is nothing to prevent Rosecrans from pushing a force through to Staunton!"
"That is the best thing that could happen. Draw them into the middle valley and they are ours."
Stafford made a gesture. "Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame! Mrs. Cleave, there is no help for it! We are bewitched—and all by a stone wall in an old cadet cap!"
Cleave laughed. "No, no! but it is, I think, apparent—You will not go in? I will walk with you, then, as far as the hotel."
Margaret Cleave held out her hand. "Good-bye, Major Stafford. We think day and night of all you soldiers. God bless you all, wherever you may be!"
In the sunset light the two men turned their faces toward the Taylor House. "It is a good thing to have a mother," said Stafford. "Mine died when I was a little boy.—Well, what do you think of affairs in general?"
"I think that last summer we won a Pyrrhic victory."
"I share your opinion. It was disastrous. How confident we are with our 'One to Four,' our 'Quality, not Quantity,' our contempt for 'Brute Mass'! To listen to the newspapers one would suppose that the fighting animal was never bred north of the Potomac—Maryland, alone, an honourable exception! France and England, too! They'll be our active allies not a minute later than April Fool's Day!"