Again was the coming war the absorbing topic of conversation among the older people, while the young men whispered sentimentally to the girls concerning the coming separation when all of these gallants expected to return covered with glory. No one asked any direct question of Neville, as it was understood that he was in honor bound to remain in the United States Army until the secession of Virginia, and after that his resignation was supposed to be as voluntary on his part as it was inevitable. Again the dance broke up while the pallid moon was struggling with the ghostly dawn. Colonel Tremaine, as usual, mounted the box on starting for home, as Hector was in his customary state of exhilaration after a party, and saw four horses before him where there were only two. Not, however, until the carriage had been driven into a ditch did Colonel Tremaine take the reins from Hector, who with folded arms and profound indignation declared according to his invariable formula: “’Fo’ Gord, I ain’t teched a drap.”
That day there was a hunting party and a dinner afterwards at Barn Elms, an estate half across the county. Angela rode with Neville, but there was little time for lovers’ colloquy in the midst of a screeching run after the hounds, an uproarious country dinner, and the return afterwards by the light of the stars. The last evening of Neville’s stay was spent at Harrowby, and the tenderness of his parents toward him seemed redoubled. Angela, Richard, and Lyddon all knew that might be the last night which Neville would ever spend under that roof, but Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine were blindly unsuspecting. At half past nine, when the family assembled for prayers in the library as usual and Mrs. Tremaine asked God’s blessing upon “our son now departing from us,” her voice broke a little, and Angela, glancing toward Neville, saw that he was pale, and his eyes, the resolute eyes of a soldier, were wet with tears. He went upstairs with his father and mother and sat by his mother’s dressing table while Mammy Tulip, according to immemorial custom, brushed and plaited Mrs. Tremaine’s hair, still abundant although streaked with silver. Neville was to leave at daylight and mother and son would meet again, but this was their last chance for that soft intercourse which Mrs. Tremaine had ever maintained with her sons as with her husband. Mrs. Tremaine felt the delicate homage which Neville paid her in giving her this last hour, and when Mammy Tulip had left the room, held out her hand to Neville and said sweetly: “My son, we see how it is between you and Angela, and your father and I will take care of her for you.”
Neville drew his chair up to his mother’s, and the mother and son talked together as they had done when Neville was a little bright-eyed boy and Mrs. Tremaine was almost as slender as Angela. Neville’s heart was in his mouth. He dreaded every moment that Mrs. Tremaine would ask him the direct question of what he meant to do when the State seceded and he knew that no kind of evasion would serve him then. But Mrs. Tremaine, like Colonel Tremaine, took everything for granted. While they were still sitting together Colonel Tremaine came in from his dressing room. In the old days that had been the signal that the boys should leave, and Neville, remembering this, rose to go.
“Never mind, my son,” said the colonel. “You may remain a while longer.”
“I thought it was contrary to regulations,” answered Neville, placing a chair for his father.
“Oh, the regulations are suspended on this, your last night at home. I will say, however, if it hadn’t been for my discipline, you and your brothers would long since have worn your mother to a thread with your demonstrative affection.” The colonel’s discipline had always consisted in letting his sons do exactly as they had pleased, and their demonstrative affection was directly inherited from him. All this Mrs. Tremaine knew perfectly well and smiled, but, like a discreet wife, permitted the colonel to think that it was his iron hand which had kept everything in order at Harrowby. In the study below, Lyddon and Richard Tremaine sat smoking while Archie in a corner by the fireplace dreamily played his fiddle. Angela, whose bedtime was supposed to be when Mrs. Tremaine went upstairs, flitted in and out of the room. She felt it due to Neville that she should give him a little time before that last hurried parting at dawn the next morning. Presently the sound of Neville’s step in the hall was heard. Archie stopped his fiddling and cried: “There’s Neville! I want to see him again to-night. I’m going to ask him to send me a new bird gun like the one he had here last year.”
“Stay where you are, you little whipper-snapper,” said Richard with authority.
“What for?” asked Archie, wondering. Richard looked at Lyddon and then answered Archie.
“Because Neville is with Angela, you little idiot.”
“Well, suppose he is,” answered the unsuspecting Archie. “Angela’s always with Neville for that matter.” And Richard, rising and taking him by the back of his neck, plumped him down in a chair and told him to stay there until his brother should come in. In a little while Neville entered, and Archie began on the subject of the bird gun, which Neville promised to send to him, and then the boy went off to bed.