"Because I have my plans all laid for giving my little 'ingines' such a
Christmas as they never had, and you must manage to get back in time to
be 'Sandy Claws.'"
"I don't see how I can do it. I am to appear before the Committee on
Indian Affairs relative to this removal plan, and there may be other
business requiring me to remain over the holidays."
"I don't like to have you away. I suppose you'll see Mr. Lawson and Miss
Brisbane," she remarked, quietly, after a pause.
"Oh yes," he replied, with an assumption of carelessness. "I imagine
Lawson will appear before the committee, and I hope to call on Miss
Brisbane--I want to see her paintings." He did not meet his sister's
eyes as squarely as was his wont, and her keen glance detected a bit
more color in his face than was usual to him. "You must certainly
call," she finally said. "I want to know all about how they live."
Many things combined to make this trip to Washington most pleasurable to
the soldier. He was weary with six weeks of most intense application to
a confused and vexatious situation, and besides he had not been East for
several years, and his pocket was filled with urgent invitations to
dinner from fellow-officers and co-workers in science, courtesies which
he now had opportunity to accept; but back of all and above all was the
hope of meeting Elsie Brisbane again. He immediately wrote her a note,
telling her of his order to report at the department, and asking
permission to call upon her at her convenience.
It was a long ride, but he enjoyed every moment of it. He gave himself
up to rest. He went regularly to his meals in the dining-car; he smoked
and dreamed and looked out with impersonal, shadowy interest upon the
flying fields and the whizzing cities. He slept long hours and rose at
will. Such freedom he had known only on the trail; here luxury was
combined with leisure. In Chicago a friend met him and they lunched at a
luxurious club, and afterwards went for a drive. That night he left the
Western metropolis behind and Washington seemed very near.
As the train drew down out of the snows of the hill country into the
sunshine and shelter of the Potomac Valley his heart leaped. This was
home! Here were the little, whitewashed cabins, the red soil, the
angular stone houses--verandaed and shuttered--of his native town. It
was pleasant to meet the darkies swarming, chirping like crickets,
around the train. They shadowed forth a warmer clime, a less insistent
civilization than that of the West, and he was glad of them. They
brought up in his mind a thousand memories of his boy-life in an old
Maryland village not far from the great city, which still retained its
supremacy in his mind. He loved Washington; to him it was the centre of
national life.
The great generals, the great political leaders were there, and the
greatest ethnologic bureau in all the world was there, and when the
gleaming monument came into view over the wooded hills he had only one
regret--he was sorrowful when he thought of Jennie far away in the bleak
valley of the Elk.
It was characteristic of him that he took a cab to the Smithsonian
Society rather than to the Army and Navy Club, and was made at home at
once in the plain but comfortable "rooms of the Bug Sharps." He had just
time to report by telephone to the Department of the Interior before the
close of the official day. Several letters awaited him. One was from
Elsie, and this he read at once, finding it unexpectedly cordial:
"My father is writing you an invitation to come to us
immediately. You said you would arrive in Washington on the
17th, either on the 11 A.M. train or the one at 3 P.M. In
either case we will look for you at 6.30 to dine with us before
you get your calendar filled with engagements. I shall wait
impatiently to hear how you are getting on out there. It is all
coming to have a strange fascination for me. It is almost like
a dream."
This letter quickened his pulse in a way which should have brought shame
to him, but did not. The Senator's letter was ponderously polite. "I
hope, my dear Captain Curtis, you will be free to call at once. My
daughter and Lawson--"
At that word a chill wind blew upon the agent's hope. Lawson! "I had
forgotten the man!" he said, almost aloud. "Ah! that explains her frank
kindliness. She writes as one whose affections are engaged, and
therefore feels secure from criticism or misapprehension." That
explained also her feeling for the valley--it was the scene of her
surrender to Lawson. The tremor went out of his nerves, his heart
resumed its customary beating, steady and calm, and, setting his lips
into a straight line, he resumed the Senator's letter, which ended with
these significant words: "There are some important matters I want to
talk over in private."
A note from Lawson urged him to take his first breakfast in the city
with him. "I want to post you on the inside meaning of certain
legislation now pending. I expect to see you at the Brisbanes'."
Curtis made his toilet slowly and with great care, remitting nothing the
absence of which would indicate a letting down of military neatness and
discipline. He wore the handsome undress uniform of a captain, and his
powerful figure, still youthful in its erectness, although the lines
were less slender than he wished, was dignified and handsome--fit to be
taken as a type of mature soldier. He set forth, self-contained but
eager.
The Brisbane portico of rose granite was immensely imposing to a dweller
in tents and cantonments, such as Curtis had been for ten years, but he
allowed no sign of his nervousness to appear as he handed his overcoat
and cap to the old colored man in the vestibule.
As he started down the polished floor of the wide hall, stepping over a
monstrous tiger-skin, he saw Elsie in the door of the drawing-room, her
back against the folded portiere. Her slender figure was exquisitely
gowned in pale-green, and her color was iridescent in youthful sparkle.
He thought once again--"Evening dress transforms a woman." She met him
with a smile of welcome.
"Ah, Captain, this is very good of you, to come to us so soon."
"Not at all," he gallantly replied. "I would have come sooner had
opportunity served."
"Father, this is Captain Curtis," she said, turning her head towards a
tall man who stood within.
Brisbane came forward, greeting Curtis most cordially. He was grayer
than Curtis remembered him, and a little stooping from age. His massive
head was covered with a close-clipped bristle of white hair, and his
beard, also neatly trimmed, was shaped to a point, from the habit he had
of stroking it with his closed left hand in moments of deep thought. His
skin was flushed pink with blood, and his urbane manner denoted pride
and self-sufficiency. He was old, but he was still a powerful
personality, and though he shook hands warmly, Curtis felt his keen and
penetrating glance as palpably as an electric shock.
Lawson's voice arose. "Well, Captain, I hardly expected to see you so
soon."
As the two men clasped hands Elsie again closely compared them. Curtis
was the handsomer man, though Lawson was by no means ill-looking, even
by contrast. The soldier more nearly approached the admirable male type,
but there was charm in the characteristic attitudes and gestures of the
student, who had the assured and humorous manner of the onlooker.
A young woman of indeterminate type who was seated in conversation with
Mrs. Wilcox received Curtis with impassive countenance, eying him
closely through pinch-nose glasses. Mrs. Wilcox beamed with pleasure,
and inquired minutely concerning the people at the agency, and
especially she wished to know how little Johnny and Jessie Eagle were.
"I quite fell in love with the tots, they were so cunning. I hope they
got the toys I sent."
Brisbane gave Curtis the most studious attention, lounging deep in his
big chair. Occasionally he ponderously leaned forward to listen to some
remark, with his head cocked in keen scrutiny--actions which did not
escape the Captain's notice. "He's sizing me up," he thought. "Well, let
him."
Elsie also listened, curiously like her father in certain inclinations
of the head--intent, absorbed; only Lawson seemed indifferent to the
news the agent guardedly recited.
Brisbane broke his silence by saying: "I infer you're on the side of the
redskin?"
"Decidedly, in this connection."
"Quite aside from your duty?"
"Entirely so. My duty in this case happened to be my inclination. I
could have declined the detail, but being a believer in the army's
arrangement of Indian affairs, I couldn't decently refuse."
Brisbane settled back into his chair and looked straight at his visitor.
"You think the white man the aggressor in this land question?"
Curtis definitely pulled himself up. "I am not at liberty to speak
further on that matter."
Mrs. Wilcox interrupted smilingly. "Andrew, don't start an argument now.
Dinner is served, and I know Captain Curtis is hungry."
Elsie rose. "Yes, papa, leave your discussion till some other time, when
you can bang the furniture."
Curtis expected to take Miss Cooke in to dinner, but Elsie delighted him
by saying, "You're to go in with me, Captain."
"I am very glad of the privilege," he said, with deliberate intent to
please her; his sincerity was unquestionable.
Curtis would have been more profoundly impressed with the spaciousness
of the hall and the dining-room had they been less like the interior of
a hotel. The whole house, so far as its mural decoration went, had the
over-stuffed quality of a Pullman car (with the exception of the
pictures on the walls, which were exceedingly good), for Brisbane had
successfully opposed all of Elsie's new-fangled notions with regard to
interior decoration; he was of those who insist on being masters in
their houses as well as in their business offices, and Elsie's manner
was that of an obedient daughter deferring to a sire who had not ceased
to consider her a child.
Seated at Elsie's right hand, with Mrs. Wilcox between himself and the
head of the table, Curtis was fairly out of reach of Brisbane, who was
dangerously eager to open a discussion concerning the bill for the
removal of the Tetongs.
Elsie turned to him at once to say: "Do you know, Captain Curtis, I
begin to long to return to the West. All my friends are enthusiastic
over the studies I made last year, and I've decided to go back next
spring. How early could one come out?"
"Any time after the first of May--in fact, that is the most beautiful
month in the year; the grass is deliciously green then. I'm glad to know
you think of returning. Jennie will also rejoice. It seems too good to
be true. Will Mr. Lawson also return?"
"Oh yes. In fact, I go to complete his work--to do penance for
neglecting him last summer." And in her tone, he fancied, lay a covert
warning, as though she had said: "Do not mistake me; I am not coming out
of interest in you."
He needed the word, for under the spell of her near presence and the
charm of her smile, new to him, the soldier was beginning to glow again
and to soften, in spite of his resolution to be very calm.
She went on: "I am genuinely remorseful, because Mr. Lawson has not been
able to bring his paper out as he had planned."
"I will see that you have every possible aid," he replied,
matter-of-factly. "The work must be done soon."
"How handsome he is!" the girl thought, as she studied his quiet face.
"His profile is especially fine, and the line of his neck and
shoulders--" an impulse seized her, and she said:
"Captain, I'd like to make a sketch of you. Could you find time to sit
for me?"
"That's very flattering of you, but I'm afraid my stay in Washington is
too short and too preoccupied."
Her face darkened. "I'm sorry. I know I could make a good thing of
you."
"Thank you for the compliment, but it is out of the question at present.
Next summer, if you come out, I will be very glad to give the time for
it. And that reminds me, you promised to show me your pictures when I
came, and your studio."
"Did I? Well, you shall see them, although they are not as good as I
shall do next year. One has to learn to handle new material. Your
Western atmosphere is so different from that of Giverney, in which we
all paint in Paris; then, the feeling of the landscape is so different;
everything is so firm and crisp in line--but I am going to get it!
'There is the mystery of light as well as of the dark,' Meunnot used to
say to us, and if I can get that clear shimmer, and the vibration of the
vivid color of the savage in the midst of it--"
She broke off as if in contemplation of the problem, rapt with question
how to solve it.
"There speaks the artist in you, and it is fine. But I'd like you to see
the humanitarian side of life, too," he replied.
"There is none," she instantly replied, with a curious blending of
defiance and amusement. "I belong to the world of Light and Might--"
"And I to the world of Right--what about that?"
"Light and Might make right."
"Your team is wrongly harnessed--Light and Right are co-workers. Might
fears both Light and Right."
Mrs. Wilcox, who had been listening, fairly clapped her hands. "I'm glad
to have you refute her arguments, Captain. She is absolutely heartless
in her theories--in practice she's a nice girl."
Elsie laughed. "What amuses me is that a soldier, the embodiment of
Might, should dare to talk of Right."
Curtis grew grave. "If I did not think that my profession at bottom
guarded the rights of both white men and red, I'd resign instantly. Our
army is only an impartial instrument for preserving justice."
"That isn't the old-world notion," put in Lawson from across the table.
"It is _our_ notion," stoutly replied Curtis. "Our little army to-day
stands towards the whole nation as a police force relates itself to a
city--a power that interferes only to prevent aggression of one interest
on the rights of another."
Brisbane's big, flat voice took up the theme.
"That's a very pretty theory, but you'll find plenty to claim that the
army is an instrument of oppression."
"I'll admit it is sometimes wrongly used," Curtis replied. "We who are
in the field can't help that, however. We are under orders. Of course,"
he added, modestly, "I am only a young soldier. I have seen but ten
years of service, and I have taken part in but one campaign--a war I
considered unavoidable at that time."
"You would hold, then, that an officer of the army has a right to
convictions?" queried Brisbane, in the tone of the lawyer.
"Most certainly. A man does not cease to think upon entering the army."
"That's dangerous doctrine."
"It's the American idea. What people would suffer by having its army
intelligent?"
Lawson coughed significantly. "Bring forth the black-swathed
axe--treason has upreared her head."
It was plain that Brisbane was lying in wait for him. Curtis whispered
to Elsie:
"Rescue me! Your father is planning to quiz me, and I must not talk
before I report to the department."
"I understand. We will go to my studio after dinner." And with Lawson's
aid she turned the conversation into safe channels.
It was a very great pleasure to the young soldier to sit once more at
such a board and in pleasant relation to Elsie. It was more than he had
ever hoped for, and he surprised her by his ability to take on her
interests. He grew younger in the glow of her own youth and beauty, and
they finished their ices in such good-fellowship that Mrs. Wilcox was
amazed.
"We will slip away now," Elsie said, in a low tone to Curtis, and they
both rose. As they were about to leave the room Brisbane looked up in
surprise. "Where are you going? Don't you smoke, Captain? Stay and have
a cigar."
Elsie answered for him. "Captain Curtis can come back, but I want him to
see my studio now, for I know if you get to talking politics he will
miss the pictures altogether."
"She has a notion I'm growing garrulous," Brisbane retorted, "but I deny
the charge. Well, let me see you later, Captain; there are some things I
want to discuss with you."
"Grace, you are to come, too," Elsie said to her girl friend, and led
the way out into the hall.
Miss Cooke stepped to Curtis's side. "You've been in Washington
before?" she asked, with an inflection which he hated.
"Oh yes, many times. In fact, I lived here till I was sixteen. I was
born in Maryland, not far from here."
"Indeed! Then you know the city thoroughly?"
"Certain sides of it. Exteriorly and officially I know it; socially, I
am a stranger to it. My people were proud and poor. A good old family in
a fine old house, and very little besides."
Elsie led the way slowly up the big staircase, secretly hoping Miss
Cooke would find it too cool for her thin blood. She wished to be alone
with Curtis, and this wish, obscure as it was, grew stronger as she set
a chair for him and placed a frame on an easel.
"You really need daylight to see them properly."
"Am I to make remarks?"
"Certainly; tell me just what you think."
"Then let me preface my helpful criticisms by saying that I don't know
an earthly thing about painting. We had drawing, of a certain kind, at
the academy, and I used to visit the galleries in New York when occasion
served. Now you know the top and the bottom of my art education."
"It's cold in here, Elsie," broke in Miss Cooke, whom they had quite
forgotten. "Is the steam turned on?"
"Wrap my slumber-robe around you," Elsie carelessly replied. "Now here
is my completed study of Little Peta. What do you think of that? Is it
like her?"
"Very like her, indeed. I think it excellent," he said, with unaffected
enthusiasm. "She was a quaint little thing. She is about to be married
to young Two Horns--a white man's wedding."
Elsie's eyes glowed. "Oh, I wish I could see that! But don't let her
wear white man's clothing. She'd be so cunning in her own way of dress.
I wish she had not learned to chew gum."
"None of us quite live up to our best intentions," he replied, laughing.
"Peta thinks she's gaining in grace. Most of the white ladies she knows
chew gum."
The pictures were an old story to Miss Cooke, who shivered for a time in
silence and at last withdrew. Elsie and Curtis were deep in discussion
of the effect of white man's clothing on the Tetongs, but each was aware
of a subtle change in the other as the third person was withdrawn. A
delicious sense of danger, of inward impulse warring with outward
restraint, added zest to their intercourse. He instantly recalled the
last time he stood in her studio feeling her frank contempt of him. "I
am on a different footing now," he thought, with a certain exultation.
It was worth years of hardship and hunger and cold to stand side by side
with a woman who had not merely beauty and wealth but talent, and a
mysterious quality that was more alluring than beauty or intellect. What
this was he could not tell, but it had already made life a new game to
him.
She, on her part, exulted with a sudden sense of having him to herself
for experiment, and every motion of his body, every tone of his voice
she noted and admired.
He resumed: "Naturally, I can say nothing of the technique of these
pictures. My praise of them must be on the score of their likeness to
the people. They are all admirable portraits, exact and spirited, and
yet--" He hesitated, with wrinkled brows.
"Don't spare me!" she cried out. "Cut me up if you can!"
"Well, then, they seem to me unsympathetic. For example, the best of
them all is Peta, because you liked her, you comprehended her, partly,
for she was a child, gentle and sweet. But you have painted old Crawling
Elk as if he were a felonious mendicant. You've delineated his rags, his
wrinkled skin, his knotted hands, but you've left the light out of his
eyes. Let me tell you something about that old man. When I saw him first
he was sitting on the high bank of the river, motionless as bronze, and
as silent. He was mourning the loss of his little grandchild, and had
been there two days and two nights wailing till his voice had sunk to a
whisper. His rags were a sign of his utter despair. You didn't know that
when you painted him, did you?"
"No, I did not," she replied, softly.
"Moreover, Crawling Elk is the annalist and story-teller of his tribe.
He carries the 'winter count' and the sacred pipe, and can tell you of
every movement of the Tetongs for more than a century and a half. His
mind is full of poetry, and his conceptions of the earth and sky are
beautiful. He knows little that white men know, and cares for very
little that the white man fights for, but his mind teems with lore of
the mysterious universe into which he has been thrust, and which he has
studied for seventy-two years. In the eyes of God, I am persuaded there
is no very wide difference between old Crawling Elk and Herbert
Spencer. The circle of Spencer's knowledge is wider, but it is as far
from including the infinite as the redman's story of creation. Could you
understand the old man as I do, you would forget his rags. He would loom
large in the mysterious gloom of life. Your painting is as prejudiced in
its way as the description which a cowboy would give you of this old
man. You have given the color, the picturesque qualities of your
subjects, but you have forgotten that they are human souls, groping for
happiness and light."
As he went on, Elsie stared at the picture fixedly, and it changed under
her glance till his deeply passionate words seemed written on the
canvas. The painting ceased to be a human face and became a mechanical
setting together of features, a clever delineation of the exterior of a
ragged old man holding a beaded tobacco-pouch and a long red pipe.
"This old 'beggar,'" Curtis continued, "never lights that pipe you have
put in his hands without blowing a whiff to the great spirits seated at
the cardinal points of the compass. He makes offerings for the health of
his children--he hears voices in the noon-day haze. He sits on the
hill-top at dawn to commune with the spirits over his head. As a beggar
he is picturesque; as a man, he is bewildered by the changes in his
world, and sad with the shadow of his children's future. All these
things, and many more, you must learn before you can represent the soul
of the redman. You can't afford to be unjust."
She was deeply affected by his words. They held conceptions new to her.
But his voice pierced her, strangely subdued her. It quivered with an
emotion which she could not understand. Why should he care so much
whether she painted her subjects well or ill? She was seized with
sudden, bitter distrust.
"I wish I had not shown you my studies," she said, resentfully.
His face became anxious, his voice gentle. "I beg your pardon; I have
presumed too far. I hope, Miss Brisbane, you will not take what I say
too much to heart. Indeed, you must not mind me at all. I am, first of
all, a sort of crank; and then, as I say, I don't know a word about
painting; please forget my criticisms."
She understood his mood now. His anxiety to regain her good-will was
within her grasp, and she seized the opportunity to make him plead for
himself and exonerate her.
"You have torn my summer's work to flinders," she said, sullenly,
looking down at a bit of charcoal she was grinding into the rug beneath
her feet.
He was aghast. "Don't say that, I beg of you! Good Heavens! don't let my
preachment discourage you. You see, I have two or three hobbies, and
when I am once mounted I'm sure to ride right over somebody's garden
wall." He rose and approached her. "I shall never forgive myself if I
have taken away the smallest degree of your enthusiasm. My aim--if I had
an aim--was to help you to understand my people, so that when you come
out next summer--"
"All that is ended now," she said, sombrely. "I shall attempt no more
Indian work!"
This silenced him. He took time to consider what this sudden depression
on her part meant. As he studied her he saw her lip quiver, and anxiety
suddenly left him. His tone was laughter-filled as he called: "Come,
now, Miss Brisbane, you're making game of me by taking my criticisms so
solemnly. I can see a smile twitching your lips this moment. Look at
me!"
She looked up and broke into a laugh. He joined in with her, but a flush
rose to his face.
"You fooled me completely. I reckon you should have been an actress
instead of a painter."
She sobered a little. "Really, I _was_ depressed for a moment. Your tone
was so terribly destructive. Shall we go down?"
"Not till you say you'll forgive me and forget my harangue."
She gave him her hand. "I'll forgive you, but I'm going to remember the
harangue. I--rather liked it. It made me think. Strange to say, I like
people who make me think."
Again his heart leaped with the blood of exultant youth. "She is coming
to understand me better!" he thought.
"You must see my other pictures by daylight," she was saying. "Mr.
Lawson likes this one particularly." They had moved out into the little
reception-room. "I did it in Giverney--we all go down sooner or later to
paint one of Monet's pollard willows. These are my 'stunts.'"
Lawson! Yes, there was the secret of her increasing friendliness. As the
fiancee of Lawson she could afford to lessen her reserve towards his
friend.
And so it happened that, notwithstanding her cordial welcome and her
respectful consideration of his criticism, he went away with a feeling
of disappointment. That her beauty was more deeply enthralling than he
had hitherto realized made his disquiet all the greater. As he stepped
out upon the street, she seemed as insubstantial as a dream of his
imaginative youth, far separated from any reality with which he had any
durable association.
X