But she had already entered, brushing scornfully past the officer, and
drawing her skirt aside, as if contaminated: a very pretty Southern
girl, scornful and red-lipped, clad in a gray riding-habit, and still
carrying her riding-whip clenched ominously in her slim, gauntleted
hand!
"You have my permit in your hand," she said brusquely, hardly raising
her eyes to Brant. "I suppose it's all straight enough,--and even if it
isn't, I don't reckon to be kept waiting with those hirelings."
"Your 'permit' is 'straight' enough, Miss Faulkner," said Brant, slowly
reading her name from the document before him. "But, as it does not seem
to include permission to insult my officers, you will perhaps allow them
first to retire."
He made a sign to the officer, who passed out of the door.
As it closed, he went on, in a gentle but coldly unimpassioned voice,--
"I perceive you are a Southern lady, and therefore I need not remind you
that it is not considered good form to treat even the slaves of those
one does not like uncivilly, and I must, therefore, ask you to keep your
active animosity for myself."
The young girl lifted her eyes. She had evidently not expected to meet
a man so young, so handsome, so refined, and so coldly invincible in
manner. Still less was she prepared for that kind of antagonism. In
keeping up her preconcerted attitude towards the "Northern hireling,"
she had been met with official brusqueness, contemptuous silence, or
aggrieved indignation,--but nothing so exasperating as this. She even
fancied that this elegant but sardonic-looking soldier was mocking her.
She bit her red lip, but, with a scornful gesture of her riding-whip,
said,--
"I reckon that your knowledge of Southern ladies is, for certain
reasons, not very extensive."
"Pardon me; I have had the honor of marrying one."
Apparently more exasperated than before, she turned upon him abruptly.
"You say my pass is all right. Then I presume I may attend to the
business that brought me here."
"Certainly; but you will forgive me if I imagined that an expression of
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