"So that's it," exclaimed Kildare, serious in his dismay. "Of course I
remember it, but I had forgotten to connect up the circumstances. It's a
mine all right, Major--and the poor little girl! She reads his poetry
with Phoebe and to me and she admires him and is deferential and--that
girl--the sweetest thing that ever happened! I don't know whether to go
over and smash him or to cry on his collar."
"Dave," answered the major as he folded his hands and looked off across
the housetops glowing in the winter sun, "some snarls in our life-lines
only the Almighty can unravel; He just depends on us to keep hands off.
Andrew is a fine product of disastrous circumstances. A man who can build
a bridge, tunnel a mountain and then sit down by a construction camp-fire
at night and write a poem and a play, must cut deep lines in life and
he'll not cut them in a woman's heart--if he can help it."
"And she must never know, Major, _never_," said David with distress in
his happy eyes; "we must see to that. It ought to be easy to keep. It was
so long ago that nobody remembers it. But wait--that is what Mrs. Cherry
Lawrence meant when she said to Phoebe in Caroline's presence that it was
just as well under the circumstances that the committee had not asked
Andrew to write the poem for the unveiling of the statue. I wondered at
the time why Phoebe dealt her such a knock-out glance that even I
staggered. And she's given her cold-storage attentions ever since. Mrs.
Cherry rather fancies Andy, I gather. Would she dare, do you think?"
"Women," remarked the major dryly, "when man-stalking make very cruel
enemies for the weaker of their kind. Let's be thankful that pursuit is a
perverted instinct in them that happens seldom. We can trust much to
Phoebe. The Almighty puts the instinct for mother guarding all younger or
lesser women into the heart of superbly sexed women like Phoebe Donelson,
and with her aroused we may be able to keep it from the child."
"Ah, but it is sad, Major," said David in a low voice deeply moved with
emotion. "Sad for her who does not know--and for him who does."
"And it was farther reaching than that, Dave," answered the major slowly,
and the hand that held the dying pipe trembled against the table. "Andrew
Sevier was a loss to us all at the time and to you for whom we builded.
The youngest and strongest and best of us had been mowed down before a
four-years' rain of bullets and there were few enough of us left to build
again. And of us all he had the most constructive power. With the same
buoyant courage that he had led our regiment in battle did he lead the
remnant of us in reconstructing our lives. He was gay and optimistic,
laughed at bitterness and worked with infectious spirits and superb
force. We all depended on him and followed him keenly. We loved him and
let ourselves be laughed into his schemes. It was his high spirits and
temperament that led to his gaming and tragedy. Nearly thirty years he's
been dead, the happy Andrew. This boy's like him, very like him."