The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop Part 17

"But they are so gross and so cruel!"

"I don't deny but they are, sometimes, both gross and cruel, but so are civilized men. The scalp-dance no more represents them than a bayonet charge represents us. It isn't just to condemn all for the faults of a few. You wouldn't destroy servant-girls because some of them are ugly and untidy, would you?"

"The cases are not precisely similar."

"I'll admit that, but the point is here: as an artist you can't afford to dispose of a race on the testimony of their hereditary enemies. You wouldn't expect a sympathetic study of the Greek by the Saracen, would you?"

"It isn't that so much, but they are so perfectly unimportant. They have no use in the world. What does it matter if they die, or don't?"

"Perhaps not so much to them; but to me, if I can help them and fail to do it, it matters a great deal. We can't afford to be unjust, for our own sake. The bearer of the torch should not burn, he should illumine."

"I don't understand that," she said, genuinely searching for his meaning.

"There is where you disappoint me," he retorted. "Most women quiver with altruistic pa.s.sion the moment they see helpless misery. If you saw a kitten fall into a well what would you do?"

"I should certainly try to save it."

"Your heart would bleed to see it drown?"

She s.h.i.+vered at the thought. "Why, of course!"

"And yet you can share in your father's exterminating vengeance as he sweeps ten thousand redmen into their graves?"

"The case is different--the kitten never did any harm."

"The wrong is by no means all on the redman's side. But even if it were, Christ said, 'Love them that hate you,' and as a Christian nation we should not go out in vindictive warfare against even those who despitefully use us. I haven't a very high seat in the synagogue. I have a soldier's training for warfare, but I acknowledge the splendor of Christ's precepts and try to live up to them. I always liked Grant's position as regards the soldier. But more than that--I like these red people. They are a good deal more than rude men. It is a great pleasure to feel their trust and confidence in me. It touches me deeply to have them come and put their palms on me reverently, as though I were superhuman in wisdom, and say: 'Little Father, we are blind. We cannot see the way. Lead us and we will go.' At such times I feel that no other work in the world is so important. If human souls are valuable anywhere on earth they are valuable here; no selfish land-l.u.s.t should blind us to see that."

As he spoke, the girl again felt something large and sweet and powerful, like a current of electrical air which came out of wide s.p.a.ces of human emotion and covered her like a flood. She was humbled by the high purpose and inexplicable enthusiasm of the man before her.

"I suppose you consider me cruel and heartless!" she cried out. "But I am not to blame for being what I am."

"If you are not free, who is? You have it all--youth, wealth, beauty.

Nothing enslaves you but indifference."

She was thinking that Lawson had never moved her so, and wis.h.i.+ng Curtis were less inexorable in his logic, when he checked himself by saying: "I beg your pardon again. I came to see your pictures, not to preach forgiveness of sins. I here pull myself up short."

"I think you could make me feel personal interest in brickbats or--or spiders," she said, with a quaint, relaxing smile. "You were born to be a preacher, not a soldier."

"Do you think so? I've had a notion all along that I was a fairly good commander and a mighty poor persuader; what I don't intend to be is a bore." He rose and began to walk slowly round the walls, studying the paintings under her direction. He was struggling with obscure impulses to other and more important speech, but after making the circuit of the room he said, as though rendering a final verdict:

"You have great talent; that is evident. What do you intend to do with it? It should help some one."

"You are old-fas.h.i.+oned," she replied. "In our modern day, art is content to add beauty to the world; it does not trouble itself to do good. It is _un_moral."

"Perhaps I _am_ a preacher, after all, for I like the book or picture that has a motive, that stands for something. Your conception of art's uses is French, is it not?"

"I suppose it is; clearly, it isn't Germanic. What would you have me do--paint Indians to convince the world of their sufferings?"

"Wouldn't that be something like the work Millet did? Seems to me I remember something of that sort in some book I have read."

She laughed. "Unfortunately, I am not Millet; besides, he isn't the G.o.d of our present idolatry. He's a dead duck. We paint skirt-dancers and the singers in the cafes now. Toiling peasants are 'out.'"

"You are a woman, and a woman ought--"

"Please don't hand me any of that stupid rot about what a woman _ought_ to be, and isn't. What I am I am, and I don't like dirty, ragged people, no matter whether they are Roman beggars or Chinese. I like clean, well-dressed, well-mannered people and no one can make me believe they are less than a lot of ill-smelling Indians."

"Miss Brisbane, you must not do me an injustice," he earnestly entreated. "It was not my intention to instruct you to-day. I am honestly interested in your pictures, and had no thought of renewing an appeal. I was tempted and fell. If you will forgive me this time, I'll never preach again."

"I don't say I object to your preachment. I think I rather like it. I don't think I ever met a man who was so ready to sacrifice his own interest for an idea. It's rather amusing to meet a soldier who is ready to knock one down with a moral war-club." She ended with a mocking inflection of voice.

His face lost its eager, boyish expression. "I'm delighted to think I have amused you," he said, slowly. "It makes amends."

"Please don't be angry," she pleaded. "I didn't mean to be flippant."

"Your words were explicit," he replied, feeling at the moment that she was making a mock of him, and this duplicity hurt him.

She put forth her sweetest voice. "Please forgive me! I think your work very n.o.ble, only I can't understand how you can exile yourself to do it.

Let us go down; it is time for lunch, and papa is waiting for you, I know."

It was unaccountable that a mocking tone, a derisive smile from this chance acquaintance, should so shake the soldier and so weaken him, but he descended the stair-way with a humiliating consciousness of having betrayed his heart to a fleering, luring daughter of wealth.

At the door of the library the girl paused. "Papa, are you asleep?"

The abrupt rustle of a newspaper preceded Brisbane's deep utterance.

"Not at all--just reading the _Star_. Come in, Captain. Is lunch nearly ready?" he asked of Elsie.

"I think so. They are a little late. I'll go see."

As she left the room Brisbane cordially rumbled on. "Sit down, Captain.

I'm sorry I missed your talk to-day. I am curious to know what your notion is about the Tetongs. Of course, I understood you couldn't go into the case the other night, but, now that your testimony is all in, I hope you feel free to give me your reasons for opposing our plan for a removal of the tribe."

Curtis took a seat, while Brisbane stretched himself out in a big chair and fixed his cold, gray-blue eyes on the soldier, who hesitated a moment before replying, "I don't think it wise to go into that matter, Senator."

"Why not?"

"Well, we differ so radically on the bill, and your interests make it exceedingly difficult for you to be just in the case. Nothing would be gained by argument."

"You think you know what my interests are?" There was a veiled sarcasm in the great man's smile.

"I think I do. As a candidate for re-election to the Senate you can't afford to antagonize the cattle and mining interests of your State, and, as I am now officially the representative of the Tetongs, I sincerely hope you will not insist on a discussion of the motives involved." The young officer spoke firmly, but with impressive dignity and candor.

Brisbane's ambiguous manner took a sudden s.h.i.+ft to cordiality, and, leaning forward, he said:

"Curtis, I like you. I admire your frankness. Let me be equally plain.

You're too able a man to be shelved out there on a bleak reservation.

What was your idea of going into the Indian service, anyway?"

The young officer remained on guard despite this genial glow. "I considered it my duty," he replied. "Besides, I was rusting out in garrison, and--but there is no need to go into my motives. I am agent, and shall stand firmly for the right of my wards so long as I am in position to do so."