His face flushed.
“Not I! but some one else might. You are not prudent to wear that openly.”
And I was so ashamed of myself for hurting his feelings that I made amends in rather too warm terms, I am afraid, considering that he didn’t know I was married and a privileged character.
“You are traveling in the wrong direction, I think, Miss Duncan,” he ventured to say after awhile. “You shouldn’t leave the North and go south now.”
“Why?”
“I—I shouldn’t think you would receive the attention there just now that is your due. You are young and fond of society, I imagine. And—there are so few beaux in the South now—I shouldn’t think you would like that.”
“Really?”
“I mean that I wish you would stay up North where it is pleasanter. It’s so—uncomfortable down South. You are so young, you see, you ought to have a chance to enjoy life a little. I—I wish you were up here—and I could add a little to your happiness. I—I mean,” catching a glance which warned him, “it is must be dull for you in the South—no beaux—no nothing.”
“All the beaux are in the field,” I retorted, “where they ought to be. I wouldn’t have a beau who wasn’t, and if I were a Northern girl I wouldn’t have a man who didn’t wear a uniform—though, I think, it ought to be gray.”
“I expect you have a sweetheart down South whom you expect to see when you get home. That is why your heart has been so set on getting back.”