“I thank you,” I replied, anxious to meet him as pleasantly as possible, “but I am eager to get away upon my duty as early as may be, and have merely intruded upon you to explain my purpose.”
“Nonsense,” he insisted. “Duty is never quite so urgent as to require a waste of good liquor. Captain Wayne, permit me to present my officers—Lieutenants Warren and Starr, Second New Hampshire Cavalry. If by any luck you were at Gettysburg, you have met before.”
I smiled and accepted the glass held out to me.
“I was certainly there,” I replied in the same spirit with which he had spoken, “and now you recall it, retain a most vivid recollection of meeting several Federal cavalrymen on that occasion, but believe I did not linger to ascertain the number of their regiment. My curiosity was completely satisfied before I reached that point. However, I am far better pleased to renew the acquaintance in this manner.”
The ice broken, we continued to converse freely for several minutes regarding incidents of the war, and I described the peculiar conditions which had brought me to the relief of Brennan's party. Under other circumstances I should have greatly enjoyed this exchange of reminiscences, but the constant haunting fear of the Major's possible entrance at any moment rendered me extremely uneasy, and anxious to be away. Undoubtedly this feeling exhibited itself in my manner, for Captain Moorehouse said finally:
“I realize your natural anxiety to be off, Captain Wayne, and while we should be very glad to keep you with us indefinitely, yet I trust you will feel perfectly free in the matter.”
“I thank you greatly,” I answered, rising as I spoke. “My duty is of such a nature, and has already been so long neglected, that I feel every moment of unnecessary delay to be a crime. I wish you a pleasant return within your own lines, and an early cessation of hostilities.”
I had shaken hands with them all, and turned toward the door, congratulating myself on escaping thus easily, when a new voice broke suddenly in upon my self-satisfaction:
“I trust Captain Wayne is not intending to depart without at least a word with me?”
It was Brennan. He had entered unobserved from the second parlor, and now stood leaning with an almost insolent assumption of languor against the sliding door, his eyes fastened upon me.