Clarence

by Harte, Bret

  "All, I think. Come, General, you seemed just now to be uncertain about your enemies. Let me assure you, you need not be so in regard to your friends."

  "I dare to hope I have found one, sir," said Brant with almost boyish timidity.

  "Oh, not me!" said the President, with a laugh of deprecation. "Some one much more potent."

  "May I know his name, Mr. President?"

  "No, for it is a woman. You were nearly ruined by one, General. I suppose it's quite right that you should be saved by one. And, of course, irregularly."

  "A woman!" echoed Brant.

  "Yes; one who was willing to confess herself a worse spy than your wife—a double traitor—to save you! Upon my word, General, I don't know if the department was far wrong; a man with such an alternately unsettling and convincing effect upon a woman's highest political convictions should be under some restraint. Luckily the department knows nothing of it."

  "Nor would any one else have known from me," said Brant eagerly. "I trust that she did not think—that you, sir, did not for an instant believe that I"—

  "Oh dear, no! Nobody would have believed you! It was her free confidence to me. That was what made the affair so difficult to handle. For even her bringing your dispatch to the division commander looked bad for you; and you know he even doubted its authenticity."

  "Does she—does Miss Faulkner know the spy was my wife?" hesitated Brant.

  The President twisted himself in his chair, so as to regard Brant more gravely with his deep-set eyes, and then thoughtfully rubbed his leg.

  "Don't let us travel out of the record, General," he said after a pause. But as the color surged into Brant's cheek he raised his eyes to the ceiling, and said, in half-humorous recollection,—

  "No, I think THAT fact was first gathered from your other friend—Mr. Hooker."

  "Hooker!" said Brant, indignantly; "did he come here?"

  "Pray don't destroy my faith in Mr. Hooker, General," said the President, in half-weary, half-humorous deprecation. "Don't tell me that any of his inventions are TRUE! Leave me at least that magnificent liar—the one perfectly intelligible witness you have. For from the time that he first appeared here with a grievance and a claim for a commission, he has been an unspeakable joy to me and a convincing testimony to you. Other witnesses have been partisans and prejudiced; Mr. Hooker was frankly true to himself. How else should I have known of the care you took to disguise yourself, save the honor of your uniform, and run the risk of being shot as an unknown spy at your wife's side, except from his magnificent version of HIS part in it? How else should I have known the story of your discovery of the Californian conspiracy, except from his supreme portrayal of it, with himself as the hero? No, you must not forget to thank Mr. Hooker when you meet him. Miss Faulkner is at present more accessible; she is calling on some members of my family in the next room. Shall I leave you with her?"

  Brant rose with a pale face and a quickly throbbing heart as the President, glancing at the clock, untwisted himself from the chair, and shook himself out full length, and rose gradually to his feet.

  "Your wish for active service is granted, General Brant," he said slowly, "and you will at once rejoin your old division commander, who is now at the head of the Tenth Army Corps. But," he said, after a deliberate pause, "there are certain rules and regulations of your service that even I cannot, with decent respect to your department, override. You will, therefore, understand that you cannot rejoin the army in your former position."

  The slight flush that came to Brant's cheek quickly passed. And there was only the unmistakable sparkle of renewed youth in his frank eyes as he said—

  "Let me go to the front again, Mr. President, and I care not HOW."

  The President smiled, and, laying his heavy hand on Brant's shoulder, pushed him gently towards the door of the inner room.

  "I was only about to say," he added, as he opened the door, "that it would be necessary for you to rejoin your promoted commander as a major-general. And," he continued, lifting his voice, as he gently pushed his guest into the room, "he hasn't even thanked me for it, Miss Faulkner!"

  The door closed behind him, and he stood for a moment dazed, and still hearing the distant voice of the President, in the room he had just quitted, now welcoming a new visitor. But the room before him, opening into a conservatory, was empty, save for a single figure that turned, half timidly, half mischievously, towards him. The same quick, sympathetic glance was in both their faces; the same timid, happy look in both their eyes. He moved quickly to her side.

  "Then you knew that—that—woman was my wife?" he said, hurriedly, as he grasped her hand.

  She cast a half-appealing look at his face—a half-frightened one around the room and at the open door beyond.

  "Let us," she said faintly, "go into the conservatory."

  * * *

  It is but a few years ago that the veracious chronicler of these pages moved with a wondering crowd of sightseers in the gardens of the White House. The war cloud had long since lifted and vanished; the Potomac flowed peacefully by and on to where once lay the broad plantation of a great Confederate leader—now a national cemetery that had gathered the soldier dead of both sections side by side in equal rest and honor—and the great goddess once more looked down serenely from the dome of the white Capitol. The chronicler's attention was attracted by an erect, handsome soldierly-looking man, with a beard and moustache slightly streaked with gray, pointing out the various objects of interest to a boy of twelve or fourteen at his side.

  "Yes; although, as I told you, this house belongs only to the President of the United States and his family," said the gentleman, smilingly, "in that little conservatory I proposed to your mother."

  "Oh! Clarence, how can you!" said the lady, reprovingly, "you know it was LONG after that!"

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