The disgusting complacency with which his nephew had taken to wearing long trousers over his riding-boots in place of those precious balloon breeches originally designed for lackeys but since adopted as a becoming apparel for a gentleman, affected the Colonel's tender susceptibilities to an extent almost inducing nausea. He quite forgot that he had been guilty of a similar offense during his campaigning in the Civil War, and naïvely imagined that his nephew had acquired this vulgar habit from his friend, Mr. Yankton; a person whose lack of etiquette and easy-going ways were enough to set his teeth on edge.
The Captain was looking for Blanch whom he had seen entering the garden with his mother and the Colonel, but whose return to the house he had not noticed, and he, therefore, walked unsuspectingly into the arms of his uncle.
"I wish you would get rid of that infernal horse of yours," began the Colonel by way of a preliminary to the skirmish, while his nephew seated himself unconcernedly in a chair opposite him, tilting it backwards and leisurely crossing his legs. "He positively threatened to devour me bodily as I passed the corral this morning."
"I suppose it's because he has not yet learned that you are my uncle," replied the Captain, suppressing a smile. "It's strange what dislikes he takes to certain persons when one considers that he's as gentle as a kitten when children are around; but I'll try to teach him to distinguish members of the family in the future."
"Look here, Jack! I've had enough of this beating about the bush. It's time we came to an understanding."
"There's nothing to prevent it that I can see," answered the Captain with maddening coolness. "I was merely apologizing for an ill-mannered horse."
"Damn your horse, sir!" cried the Colonel with increasing choler.
"Any time you are ready, dear Uncle," replied the Captain calmly, taking a cigarette from his case and lighting it. The Colonel ground his teeth in silence. His first encounter with his nephew could hardly be called satisfactory and he did not wish a repetition of it. He had come to argue his nephew out of his folly through sheer force of logic and it behooved him to remain as calm as possible during the interview, for his nephew had a most surprising way of answering back and turning the argument against one.
"Tell me," he began, "what possible attraction this country can have for you?"
"It would be quite as impossible to explain that satisfactorily to you as to make my reasons clear for being here at all. But since you again ask me for those reasons, I can only answer as I did before. I have exhausted that felicitous state called civilization. I want to be free."