"Sir Henry makes no secret of it," he continued; "it's talked over and disparaged openly at mess and at headquarters. I can see no indiscretion in mentioning it here."

It was at such moments that I felt a loathing for myself, and such strong self-disgust must surely have prevailed in the end to make me false to duty if, as I have said, I had not an absolute faith that his Excellency required no man to tarnish his honor for the motherland's salvation.

"What's afoot?" inquired Harkness curiously.

"Why, you remember how the rebel General Sullivan went through the Six Nations, devastating the Iroquois country, laying waste, burning, destroying their orchards and crops—which, after all, accomplished the complete destruction of our own granary in the North?"

"'Twas a dhirty thrick!" muttered O'Neil. "Sure, 'tis the poor naked haythen will pay that score wan day, or I'm a Hessian!"

"They'll pay it soon if Walter Butler has his way," said Sir Peter. "Sir John Johnson and the Butlers and Colonel Ross are gathering in the North. Haldimand's plan is to strike at the rebels' food supply—the cultivated region from Johnstown south and west—do what Sullivan did, lay waste the rebel grain belt, burn fodder, destroy all orchards—God! it will go hard with the frontier again." He swung around to Harkness: "It's horrible to me, Captain—and Walter Butler not yet washed clean of the blood of Cherry Valley. I tell you, loyal as I am, humble subject of my King, whom I reverence, I affirm that this blackened, blood-soaked frontier is a barrier to England which she can never, never overcome, and though we win out to-day, and though we hang the rebels thick as pears in Lispenard's orchards, that barrier will remain, year by year fencing us in, crowding us back to the ocean, to our ships, back to the land from whence we English came. And for all time will the memory of these horrors set America's face against us—if not for all time, yet our children's children and their children shall not outlive the tradition burned into the heart of this quivering land we hold to-day, half shackled, still struggling, already rising to its bleeding knees."

"Gad!" breathed O'Neil, "'tis threason ye come singin' to the chune o' Yankee Doodle-doo, Sir Peter."

"It's sense," said Sir Peter, already smiling at his own heat.

"So Ross and the Butlers are to strike at the rebel granaries?" repeated Harkness, musing.

"Yes; they're gathering on the eastern lakes and at Niagara—Butler's Rangers, Johnson's Greens, Brant's Iroquois, some Jägers, a few regulars, and the usual partizan band of painted whites who disgrace us all, by Heaven! But there," added Sir Peter, smiling, "I've done with the vapors. I bear no arms, and it is unfit that I should judge those who do. Only," and his voice rang a little, "I understand battles, not butchery. Gentlemen, to the British Army! the regulars, God bless 'em! Bumpers, gentlemen!"

I heard O'Neil muttering, as he smacked his lips after the toast, "And to hell with the Hessians! Bad cess to the Dootch scuts!"

"Did you say the rendezvous is at Niagara?" inquired Harkness.

"I've heard so. I've heard, too, of some other spot—an Indian name—Thend—Thend—plague take it! Ah, I have it—Thendara. You know it, Carus?" he asked, turning so suddenly on me that my guilty heart ceased beating for a second.

"I have heard of it," I said, finding a voice scarce like my own. "Where is it, Sir Peter?"

"Why, here in New York there has ever been a fable about a lost town in the wilderness called Thendara. I never knew it to be true; but now they say that Walter Butler has assigned Thendara as his gathering place, or so it is reported in a letter to Sir Henry, which Sir Henry read to me. Have you no knowledge of it, Carus?"

"None at all. I remember hearing the name in childhood. Perhaps better woodsmen than I know where this Thendara lies, but I do not."

"It must lie somewhere betwixt us and Canada," said Harkness vaguely. "Does not Sir Henry know?"

"He said he did not," replied Sir Peter, "and he sent out a scout for information. No information has arrived. Is it an Iroquois word, Carus?"

"I think it is of Lenape origin," I said—"perhaps modified by the Mohawk tongue. I know it is not pure Oneida."

Harkness glanced at me curiously. "You'd make a rare scout," he said, "with your knowledge of the barbarians."

"The wonder is," observed Sir Peter, "that he is not a scout on the other side. If my home had been burned by the McDonalds and the Butlers, I'm damned if I should forget which side did it!"

"If I took service with the rebels," said I, "it would not be because of personal loss. Nor would that same private misfortune deter me from serving King George. The men who burned my home represent no great cause. When I have leisure I can satisfy personal quarrels."

"Lord!" laughed Sir Peter, "to hear you bewail your lack of leisure one might think you are now occupied with one cause or t'other. Pray, my dear Carus, when do you expect to find time to call out these enemies of yours?"

"You wouldn't have me deprive the King of Walter Butler's services, would you?" I asked so gravely that everybody laughed, and we rose in good humor to join the ladies in the drawing-rooms.

Sir Peter's house on Wall Street had been English built, yet bore certain traces of the old Dutch influence, for it had a stoop leading to the front door, and the roof was Dutch, save for the cupola; a fine wide house, the façade a little scorched from the conflagration of '78 which had ruined Trinity Church and the Lutheran, and many fine buildings and homes.

The house was divided by a wide hallway, on either side of which were drawing-rooms, and in the rear of these was a dining-room giving on a conservatory which overlooked the gardens. The ground floor served as a servant's hall, with a door at the area and another in the rear leading out through the garden-drive to the stables.

The floor above the drawing-rooms had been divided into two suites, one in gold leather and blue for Sir Peter and his lady, the other in crimson damask for guests. The third floor, mine, was similarly divided, I occupying the Wall Street side, with windows on that fashionable street and also on Broadway.

Thus it happened that, instead of entering the south drawing-room where I saw the ladies at the card-table playing Pharaoh, I turned to the right and crossed the north, or "state drawing-room," and parted the curtains, looking across Broadway to see if I might spy my friend the drover and his withered little mate. No doubt prudence and a dislike for the patrol kept them off Broadway at that hour, for I could not see them, although a few street lamps were lit and I could make out wayfarers as far north as Crown Street.

Standing there in the dimly lighted room, my nose between the parted curtains, I heard my name pronounced very gently behind me, and, turning, beheld Miss Grey, half lying on a sofa in a distant corner. I had not seen her when I entered, my back being turned to the east, and I said so, asking pardon for an unintentional rudeness—which she pardoned with a smile, slowly waving her scented fan.

"I am a little tired," she said; "the voyage from Halifax was rough, and I have small love for the sea, so, Lady Coleville permitting, I came in here to rest from the voices and the glare of too bright candle-light. Pray you be seated, Mr. Renault—if it does not displease you. What were you looking for from the window yonder?"

"Treason," I said gaily. "But the patrol should be able to see to that. May I sit here a moment?"

"Willingly; I like men."

Innocence or coquetry, I was clean checked. Her white eyelids languidly closing over the pure eyes of a child gave me no clue.

"All men?" I inquired.

"How silly! No, very few men. But that is because I only know a few."

"And may I dare to hope that—" I began in stilted gallantry, cut short by her opening eyes and smile. "Of course I like you, Mr. Renault. Can you not see that? It's a pity if you can not, as all the others tease me so about you. Do you like me?"

"Very, very much," I replied, conscious of that accursed color burning my face again; conscious, too, that she noted it with calm curiosity.

"Very, very much," she repeated, musing. "Is that why you blush so often, Mr. Renault—because you like me very, very much?"

Exasperated, I strove to smile. I couldn't; and dignity would not serve me, either.

"If I loved you," said I, "I might change color when you spoke. Therefore my malady must arise from other causes—say from Sir Peter's wine, for instance."

"I knew a man who fell in love with me," she said. "You may do so yet."

"Do you think it likely?" I asked, scarcely knowing how to meet this cool attack.

"I think it possible—don't you?" she asked.

I considered, or made pretense to. My heart had begun to beat too fast; and as for her, I could no more fathom her than the sea, yet her babble was shallow enough to strand wiser men than I upon its sparkling shoals.

"I do like men," she said thoughtfully, "but not all men, as I said I did. Now at supper I looked about me and I found only you attractive, save Sir Peter, and he counts nothing in a game of hearts."

"When you come to mingle with New York society you will, no doubt, find others far more attractive," I said stupidly.

"No doubt. Still, in the interim"—she looked straight at me from under her delicate level brows—"in the meanwhile, will you not amuse me?"

"How, madam?"

"I shall not tell you if you call me 'madam.'"

"Will the Hon. Elsin Grey inform me how I may amuse her ladyship?"

"Nor that, either."

I hesitated, then leaned nearer: "How may I amuse you, Elsin?"

"Why, by courting me, silly!" she said, laughing, and spreading her silken fan. "How else is a woman amused?"

Her smooth hand lay across the velvet arm of the sofa; I took it and raised it to my lips, and she smiled approval, then drew a languid little sigh, fanned, and vowed I was the boldest man she had ever known.

I told her how exquisite her beauty was, I protested at her coldness, I dedicated myself to her service, vowing eternal constancy; and presently my elaborate expressions rang truer and grew more simple, and she withdrew her hand with a laugh, looking at me out of those beautiful eyes which now were touched with curiosity.

"For a jester, Carus, you are too earnest," she said.

"Does pretense frighten you?"

She regarded me, silent, smiling, her fan at her lips.

"You are playing with fire," she said.

"Tell me, heart of flint, am I the steel to strike a spark from?" I asked, laughing.

"I do not know yet of what metal you are made, Carus," she said thoughtfully, yet with that dim smile hovering ever upon her lips.

She dropped her fan and held up one finger. "Listen; let me read you. Here is my measure of such a man as you: First of all, generous!—look at your mouth, which God first fashions, then leaves for us to make or mar. Second, your eyes—sincere! for though you blush like a maiden, Carus, your eyes are steady to the eyes that punish. Third, dogged! spite of the fierce impatience that sets your chiseled nose a-quiver at the nostrils. There! Am I not a very gipsy for a fortune? Read me, now."

After a long silence I said, "I can not."

"Truly?"

"Truly. I can not read you, Elsin."

She opened her palm and held her fingers, one by one, frowning in an effort to be just: "First, I am a fool; second, I am a fool; third, I am a fool; fourth–"

I caught her hand, and she looked at me with a charming laugh.

"I am," she insisted, her hand resting in mine.

"Why?"

"Why, because I—I am in love with Walter Butler—and—and I never liked a man as well as I like you!"

I was astounded. She sighed, slowly shaking her head. "That is it, you see. Love is very different from having a good time. He is so proud, so sad, so buried in noble melancholy, so darkly handsome, and all afire with passion—which advances him not a whit with me nor commends him to my mercy—only when he stands before me, his dark golden eyes lost in delicious melancholy; then, then, Carus, I know that it must be love I feel; but it is not a very cheerful sentiment." She sighed again, picking up her fan with one hand—I held the other.

"Now, with you—and I have scarce known you a dozen hours—it is so charming, so pleasant and cheerful—and I like you so much, Carus!—oh, the sentiment I entertain for you is far pleasanter than love. Have you ever been in love?"

"I am, Elsin—almost."

"Almost? Mercy on us! What will the lady say to 'almost'?"

"God knows," I said, smiling.

"Good!" she said approvingly; "leave her in God's care, and practise on me to perfect your courtship. I like it, really I do. It is strange, too," she mused, with a tender smile of reminiscence, "for I have never let Captain Butler so much as touch my hand. But discretion, you see, is love; isn't it? So if I am so indiscreet with you, what harm is there?"

"Are you unhappy away from him?" I asked.

"No, only when with him. He seems to wring my heart—I don't know why, but, oh, I do so pity him!"

"Are you—plighted?"

"Oh, dear me, yes—but secretly. Ah, I should not have told you that!—but there you are, Carus; and I do believe that I could tell you everything I know if our acquaintance endures but twelve more hours. And that," she added, considering me calmly, "is rather strange, I think. Don't you?"

Ere I could reply came Sir Peter, talking loudly, protesting that it was a monstrous shame for me to steal away their guest, that I was a villain and all knew it, he himself best of all; and without more ado he tucked her arm under his and marched triumphantly away, leaving me there alone in the deserted room.

But as Elsin gained the door she turned, looking back, and, laying her hand upon her lips, threw me a kiss behind Sir Peter's shoulders.