But they did not hurry greatly.  They were young and it had been a long time since they had been in a city of forty thousand inhabitants, where the shop windows were brilliant to them and nobody on the streets was shooting at anybody else.  It was late July, the great heats were gone for the time at least, and they were brisk and elated.  They paused a little while in Capitol Square, and looked at the Bell Tower, rising like a spire, from the crest of which alarms were rung, then at the fine structure of St. Paul’s Church.  They intended to go into the State House now used as the Confederate Capitol, but that must wait until they reported to President Davis.

They arrived at the modest building called the White House of the Confederacy, and, after a short wait in the anteroom, they were received by the President.  They saw a tall, rather spare man, dressed in a suit of home-knit gray.  He received them without either warmth or coldness.  Harry, although it was not the first time he had seen him, looked at him with intense curiosity.  Davis, like Lincoln, was born in his own State, Kentucky, but like most other Kentuckians, he did not feel any enthusiasm over the President of the Confederacy.  There was no magnetism.  He felt the presence of intellect, but there was no inspiration in that arid presence.

A man of Oriental features was sitting near with a great bunch of papers in his hand.  Mr. Davis did not introduce Harry and Dalton to him, and he remained silent while the President was asking questions of the messengers.  But Harry watched him when he had a chance, interested strongly in that shrewd, able, Eastern face, the descendant of an immemorial and intellectual race, the man who while Secretary of State was trying also to help carry the tremendous burden of Confederate finance.  What was he thinking, as Harry and Dalton answered the President’s questions about the Army of Northern Virginia?

“You say that you left immediately after our army crossed the Potomac?” asked the President.

“Yes, sir,” replied Harry.  “General Meade could have attacked, but he remained nearly two days on our front without attempting to do so.”

A thin gray smile flitted over the face of the President of the Confederacy.

“General Meade was not beaten at Gettysburg, but I fancy he remembered it well enough.”

Harry glanced at Benjamin, but his Oriental face was inscrutable.  The lad wondered what was lurking at the back of that strong brain.  He was shrewd enough himself to know that it was not always the generals on the battlefield who best understood the condition of a state at war, and often the man who held the purse was the one who measured it best of all.  But Benjamin never said a word, nor did the expression of his face change a particle.

“The Army of Northern Virginia is safe,” said the President, “and it will be able to repel all invasion of Virginia.  General Lee gives especial mention of both of you in his letters, and you are not to return to him at once.  You are to remain here a while on furlough, and if you will go to General Winder he will assign you to quarters.”