"How brutal! Deliver me from the cynical man! By the way, Warry, I saw Minnie Metchen in New York this spring, and she asked me all the questions about you she dared. That really wasn't good of you. She hadn't been an army girl long—her father was a new paymaster, or something like that; she wasn't fair game. You were her first, and she thought you meant it all,—the poems and the flowers and all that kind of thing. She thought you were very good, too. You remember, I hope, that you dragged her across town to that colored mission where you were lay-reading at the time. Now, you mustn't do that any more."
Raridan buried his face in his hands and groaned.
"My sins are more than I can bear. But I'm really disappointed in you. It isn't good form in this town to remember from one winter to another what my enthusiasms have been. But, Evelyn—"
His manner changed suddenly and he rose and walked the floor. He was so full of mockery, and his fun took so many unexpected turns, that Evelyn, who had known him from his wilful, spoiled childhood, was never sure of his moods. He seemed very serious as he stood before her with his arms folded and looked at her. His voice broke a little as he said:
"Evelyn, I don't want you to remember this kind of thing of me. Nobody takes me seriously; I'm getting tired of it. I'm all kinds of a failure. I ought to be doing things, like all the other men here. Maybe it's too late—"
"No, it's never too late to do what we want to do, Warry," she said very kindly. "But I don't know that you're such a failure." She was still on guard for some flash of the joke that he was always playing.
"But it's a question with me whether I haven't lost my chance," he persisted. He sat down, dejectedly. Then he laughed.
"Do you know why I'm like the Juniata River?" he demanded.
"I'm not good at guessing," she answered, wondering whether he was laying a trap for her.
"Why, Captain Wheelock told somebody that it was because I am very beautiful and very shallow." He did not laugh with her.