Jack, a good deal subdued by what Olympia had left unsaid, rather than what she had said, blurted out:  “It was a campus shindy:  Vint led the rebel side and they got licked, that’s all.”

“Oh, was that all?” Olympia had ended her search in the basket and fastened a glance of satiric good humor upon the culprit, which did not tend to relieve the awkwardness of the moment.  Jack blushed under the glance and began to hum an air from Figaro, as if the conversation had ebbed into an impass from which it could only be rescued by a lively air.

Mrs. Sprague looked at the uneasy warrior, then at her daughter, darting the crochet-needles placidly through the wool.

“Well,” she said, “never mind what’s past; we must have Vincent out here for a visit before he goes.  I must send Mrs. Atterbury a number of things.  I hope she won’t think that we intend to let the war make any difference in our feeling toward the family.”

Jack was very glad to set out at once for his quondam foe, and in ten minutes was driving down the road to Warchester.  Vincent’s bruises were nearly healed, and he saluted Jack as a “chum” rather than as the agent of his late discomfiture.

“I’m mighty glad you’ve come to day.  I didn’t know whether you meant to break off or not.  I don’t cherish any rancor.  I don’t see any use in carrying the war into friendships.  We made the best fight we could.  We did better than your side.  You had the most men and the biggest fellows.  We showed good pluck, if we did get licked.  If you hadn’t come to-day I should have been gone without seeing you, for I began to think that you were as narrow as these prating abolitionists.  My commission is ready for me now at Richmond, and I’m just aching to get my regimentals on.  I’m to be with Johnston in the Shenandoah, you know, and—­”

“You mustn’t tell me your army plans, Vint.  I’m a soldier,” and Jack drew himself up with martial pomposity, “and—­and—­perhaps I ought to arrest you now as an enemy, you know.  I will look in the articles of war and find out my duty in such cases.”  Jack waved his arm reassuringly, as if to bid the rebel take heart for the moment—­he would not hurry in the matter.  Vincent eyed his comrade with such a woe-begone mingling of alarm and comic indignation that Jack forgot his possible part as agent of his country’s laws, and said, soothingly:  “Never mind, Vint, I’m not really a full soldier in the technical sense until the regiment is mustered in at Washington.  After that, of course, you know very well it would he treason to give aid or comfort to the country’s enemies.”