第8章

"And pray who are these spies, and who is the informer?" said Mistress Thankful, facing the soldier, with one hand truculently placed on her flexible hip, and the other slipped behind her.

"Methinks 'tis only honest we should know when and how we have entertained both.""Your father, Mistress Thankful," said Major Van Zandt gravely, "has long been suspected of favoring the enemy; but it has been the policy of the commander-in-chief to overlook the political preferences of non-combatants, and to strive to win their allegiance to the good cause by liberal privileges.But when it was lately discovered that two strangers, although bearing a pass from him, have been frequenters of this house under fictitious names--""You mean Count Ferdinand and the Baron Pomposo," said Thankful quickly,--"two honest gentlefolk; and if they choose to pay their devoirs to a lass--although, perhaps, not a quality lady, yet an honest girl--""Dear Mistress Thankful," said the major with a profound bow and smile, that, spite of its courtesy, drove Thankful to the verge of wrathful hysterics, "if you establish that fact,--and, from this slight acquaintance with your charms, I doubt not you will,--your father is safe from further inquiry or detention.The commander-in-chief is a gentleman who has never underrated the influence of your sex, nor held himself averse to its fascinations.""What is the name of this informer?" broke in Mistress Thankful angrily."Who is it that has dared--""It is but king's evidence, mayhap, Mistress Thankful; for the informer is himself under arrest.It is on the information of Capt.Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent."Mistress Thankful whitened, then flushed, and then whitened again.

Then she stood up to the major.

"It's a lie,--a cowardly lie!"

Major Van Zandt bowed.Mistress Thankful flew up stairs, and in another moment swept back again into the room in riding hat and habit.

"I suppose I can go and see--my father," she said, without lifting her eyes to the officer.

"You are free as air, Mistress Thankful.My orders and instructions, far from implicating you in your father's offences, do not even suggest your existence.Let me help you to your horse."The girl did not reply.During that brief interval, however, Caesar had saddled her white mare, and brought it to the door.

Mistress Thankful, disdaining the offered hand of the major, sprang to the saddle.

The major still held the reins."One moment, Mistress Thankful.""Let me go!" she said, with suppressed passion.

"One moment, I beg."

His hand still held her bridle-rein.The mare reared, nearly upsetting her.Crimson with rage and mortification, she raised her riding-whip, and laid it smartly over the face of the man before her.

He dropped the rein instantly.Then he raised to her a face calm and colorless, but for a red line extending from his eyebrow to his chin, and said quietly,--"I had no desire to detain you.I only wished to say that when you see Gen.Washington I know you will be just enough to tell him that Major Van Zandt knew nothing of your wrongs, or even your presence here, until you presented them, and that since then he has treated you as became an officer and a gentleman."Yet even as he spoke she was gone.At the moment that her fluttering skirt swept in a furious gallop down the hillside, the major turned, and re-entered the house.The few lounging troopers who were witnesses of the scene prudently turned their eyes from the white face and blazing eyes of their officer as he strode by them.Nevertheless, when the door closed behind him, contemporary criticism broke out:--"'Tis a Tory jade, vexed that she cannot befool the major as she has the captain," muttered Sergeant Tibbitts.

"And going to try her tricks on the general," added Private Hicks.

Howbeit both these critics may have been wrong.For as Mistress Thankful thundered down the Morristown road she thought of many things.She thought of her sweetheart Allan, a prisoner, and pining for HER help and HER solicitude; and yet--how dared he--if he HAD really betrayed or misjudged her! And then she thought bitterly of the count and the baron, and burned to face the latter, and in some vague way charge the stolen kiss upon him as the cause of all her shame and mortification.And lastly she thought of her father, and began to hate everybody.But above all and through all, in her vague fears for her father, in her passionate indignation against the baron, in her fretful impatience of Allan, one thing was ever dominant and obtrusive; one thing she tried to put away, but could not,--the handsome, colorless face of Major Van Zandt, with the red welt of her riding-whip overlying its cold outlines.