no longer desired to see her again. Never again would he risk enduring what she had evoked in him, whatever it was of good or of evil, of the spiritual or the impure—he did not know he was aware only of what his eyes had beheld and his heart had begun to desire.
On his way back from the office that evening he met Camilla Lent and her uncle, the Captain, and would have passed with an amiable salute, but the girl evinced a decided desire to speak. So he turned and joined them.
"How do you do, Camilla? How are you, Captain Lent? This re-conversion of the nation's ploughshares and pruning hooks is a noisy affair, isn't it?"
"April 18th, 1861!" replied the Captain quickly. "What you hear, sir, is the attrition consequent upon the grinding together of certain millstones belonging to the gods."
"I have no doubt of it, Captain Lent; they'll probably make meal of us all. Are you offering your services, sir."
Camilla said quickly, and with gayest confidence: "Uncle has been looking about casually. There are so many regiments forming, so many recruiting stations that we—we haven't decided—have we, uncle?" And she gave Berkley a wistful, harrowing glance that enlightened him.
He said gravely: "I suppose the average age of these volunteers will be about eighteen. And if the militia go, too, it will be comforting for a defenceless city to know she has men of your experience to count on, Captain Lent."
"I am going to the front," observed the Captain.
"There may be much to be done in New York, sir."
"Then let the police do it," said Captain Lent calmly. "The Union must and shall be preserved. If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him upon the spot. Et cetera, sir, et cetera."
"Certainly. But it's a question of niggers, too, I believe."
"No, sir. It is not a question of niggers. It is a question of who's at the wheel, Union or State. I myself never had any doubts any more than I ever doubted the Unitarian faith! So it is no question for me, sir. What bothers me is to pick out the regiment most likely to be sent first."
"We've walked our legs off," said Camilla, aside, "and we've been in all kinds of frightful places where men are drilling and smoking and swearing and yelling; and I was dreadfully afraid a gun would go off or somebody would be impudent to uncle. The dear old thing," she whispered, "he is perfectly sure they want him and that he has only to choose a regiment and offer his sword. Oh, dear! I'm beginning to be terribly unhappy—I'm afraid they won't let him go and I'm deadly afraid they might! And I'm sure that Jim means to go. Oh, dear! Have you seen Ailsa Paige lately?"
"No. . . . I hope she is quite well."
"You are not very enthusiastic."
"I have every reason to be. She is a very winsome girl."
"She's a dear. . . . She has spoken of you several times."
"That is most amiable of her, and of you to say so."
"Oh, very," laughed Camilla, tossing her pretty head, "but it evidently does not interest you very much. In fact—" she glanced sidewise—"it is understood that no woman ever interests you for more than forty-eight consecutive hours."
"Pure slander, Camilla. You do."
"Oh—not in the way I mean."
"Well, but you don't expect me to be interested in Mrs. Paige—in the way you mean do you?"
"Why not?" she asked mischievously.
"Because, to begin properly, Mrs. Paige is not likely ever to become interested in me."
"I am heartily glad of it," retorted Camilla. "You'd forget her in a week,"
"That's more than forty-eight hours," he said, laughing. "You're flattering me now."
"Anyway," said Camilla, "I don't see why everybody that knows her isn't mad about Ailsa Paige. She has such high principles, such ideals, such wonderful aspirations—" She clasped her hands sentimentally: "At times, Phil, she seems too ethereal, scarcely of earth—and yet I breakfasted with her and she ate twice as much as I did. How does she keep that glorious figure!"
Plumpness was the bane and terror of Camilla's life. Her smooth, suave white skin was glossy and tight; distracting curves, entrancing contours characterised her now; but her full red lips fairly trembled as she gazed at her parents' portraits in her bedroom, for they had both been of a florid texture and full habit; and she had now long refused sugar and the comforts of sweetmeats dear to the palate of her age and sex. And mostly was this self-denial practised for the sake of a young and unobservant friend, one Stephen Craig, who had so far evinced no unusual inclination for her, or for anything except cigars and masculine society of his own age and condition.
She managed to get Philip Berkley to talk about Stephen, which ingenuity soothed her. But Philip was becoming bored, and he presently escaped to retrace his steps up Broadway, up Fifth Avenue, and then west to the exceedingly modest lodgings whither fate and misfortune had wafted him.
On the way he passed Colonel Arran's big double house with a sullen and sidelong scowl, and continued onward with a shrug. But he smiled no more to himself.
Burgess was in the room, cross-legged on the floor, ironing out his master's best coat.
"What the devil are you about," said Philip ungraciously. "Get up.
I need what floor I've got to stand on."
Burgess obediently laid the board and the coat on a trunk and continued ironing; and Philip scowled at him askance.
"Why don't you enlist?" he said. "Every car-driver, stage-driver, hackman, and racing-tout can become major-generals if they yell loud enough."
Burgess continued ironing, then stole a glance at his master.
"Are you thinking of enlisting, sir?"
"No; I can't pass the examination for lung power. By the way," he added, laughing, "I overlooked the impudence of your question, too. But now is your time, Burgess. If I wanted you I'd have to put up with your insolence, I suppose."
"But you don't want me, sir."
"Which restrains you," said Philip, laughing. "Oh, go on, my friend. Don't say 'sir' to me; it's a badge of servitude pasted onto the vernacular. Say 'Hi!' if you like."
"Sir?"
"Hell! I say don't behave like a servant to me."
"I am a servant, sir."
"You're not mine."
"Yes, sir, I am. Will you wear this coat this evening, sir?"
"God knows," said the young fellow, sitting down and gazing about at the melancholy poverty of the place. . . . "Is there any of that corn whisky?"
"No, sir."
"Damn it, you said there was this morning!"
"No, sir, I didn't."
The man lied placidly; the master looked at him, then laughed.
"Poor old Burgess," he said aloud as though
