"She
regards me as an enemy in the camp."
"Well, she is very brave."
"Precisely. And I am very timid."
"Didn't you fight once?"
"Yes; but it was in such a good cause!"
Ransom meant this allusion to the great Secession and, by comparison, to
the attitude of the resisting male (laudable even as that might be), to
be decently jocular; but Miss Birdseye took it very seriously, and sat
there for a good while as speechless as if she meant to convey that she
had been going on too long now to be able to discuss the propriety of
the late rebellion. The young man felt that he had silenced her, and he
was very sorry; for, with all deference to the disinterested Southern
attitude toward the unprotected female, what he had got into the car
with her for was precisely to make her talk. He had wished for general,
as well as for particular, news of Verena Tarrant; it was a topic on
which he had proposed to draw Miss Birdseye out. He preferred not to
broach it himself, and he waited awhile for another opening. At last,
when he was on the point of exposing himself by a direct inquiry (he
reflected that the exposure would in any case not be long averted), she
anticipated him by saying, in a manner which showed that her thoughts
had continued in the same train, "I wonder very much that Miss Tarrant
didn't affect you that evening!"
"Ah, but she did!" Ransom said, with alacrity.
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