“Upon my soul, Captain Sloman!” asseverated the lieutenant of dragoons, “you’ve excited my curiosity to such a degree, I feel already half in love with Louise Poindexter!”
“Before you get altogether into it,” rejoined the officer of infantry, in a serious tone, “let me recommend a little caution. There’s a bête noir in the background.”
“A brother, I suppose? That is the individual usually so regarded.”
“There is a brother, but it’s not he. A free noble young fellow he is—the only Poindexter I ever knew not eaten up with pride, he’s quite the reverse.”
“The aristocratic father, then? Surely he wouldn’t object to a quartering with the Hancocks?”
“I’m not so sure of that; seeing that the Hancocks are Yankees, and he’s a chivalric Southerner! But it’s not old Poindexter I mean.”
“Who, then, is the black beast, or what is it—if not a human?”
“It is human, after a fashion. A male cousin—a queer card he is—by name Cassius Calhoun.”
“I think I’ve heard the name.”
“So have I,” said the lieutenant of rifles.