“Not there, but not far from it,” said the general.  “Make a dot at that point, Bathurst, and make another dot here about twenty miles to the east, which represents my opinion.”

Bathurst made the dots and the men, wholly absorbed, bent lower over their plans, which were growing almost unconsciously into a map, and a good one too.  Harry was as much interested as they, and he still kept himself in the background, owing to his youth and minor rank.

The door to the room was open a little and the music, a waltz, came in a soft ripple from the drawing room.  It was rhythmic and languorous, and Harry’s feet would have moved to its tune at any other time, but he was too deeply absorbed in the conjectures and certainties that they were drawing with their pencils on the white canvas.

Many of the details, he knew, were absolutely true, and others he was quite sure must be true, because these were men of high rank who carried in their minds the military secrets of the Confederacy.

“I think we’re pretty well agreed on the general nature of the plan,” said Bathurst.  “We differ only in details.”

“That’s so,” said the general, “but we’re lingering too long here.  God knows that we see little enough of our women folks, and, when we have the chance to see them, and feel the touch of their hands, we waste our time like a lot of fools making military guesses.  If I’m not too old to dance to the tune of the shells I’m not too old to dance to the tune of the fiddle and the bow.  That’s a glorious air floating in from the ballroom.  I think I can show some of these youngsters like Kenton here how to shake a foot.”

“After you, General,” laughed Bathurst.  “We know your capacity on both the field and the floor, and how you respond to the shell and the bow.  Come on!  The ballroom is calling to us, and I doubt whether we’ll explain to the satisfaction of everybody why we’ve been away from it so long.  You, too, Harry!”

They rose in a group and went out hastily.  Harry was last, and his hand was on the bolt of the door, preparatory to closing it, when the general turned to Bathurst and said: 

“You’ve that diagram of ours, haven’t you, Bathurst?  It’s not a thing to be left lying loose.”

“Why, no, sir, I thought you put it in your pocket.”

The general laughed.

“You’re suffering from astigmatism, Bathurst,” he said.  “Doubtless it was Colton whom you saw stowing it away.  I think we’d better tear it into little bits as we have no further use for it.”

“But I haven’t it, sir,” said Colton, a veteran colonel, just recovering from a wound in the arm.  “I supposed of course that one of the others took it.”

An uneasy look appeared in the general’s eyes, but it passed in an instant.

“You have it, Morton?”

“No, sir.  Like Bathurst I thought one of the others took it.”

“And you, Kitteridge?”