“I could easily understand that, too,” he returned, with listless coldness, “although I don’t admit that revenge is an unmixed pleasure, even to a woman.”

“A woman!” she repeated indignantly.  “There is no sex in a war like this.”

“You are spoiling your flower,” he said quietly.  “It is very pretty, and a native one, too; not an invader, or even transplanted.  May I look at it?”

She hesitated, half recoiling for an instant, and her hand trembled.  Then, suddenly and abruptly she said, with a hysteric little laugh, “Take it, then,” and almost thrust it in his hand.

It certainly was a pretty flower, not unlike a lily in appearance, with a bell-like cup and long anthers covered with a fine pollen, like red dust.  As he lifted it to his face, to inhale its perfume, she uttered a slight cry, and snatched it from his hand.

“There!” she said, with the same nervous laugh.  “I knew you would; I ought to have warned you.  The pollen comes off so easily, and leaves a stain.  And you’ve got some on your cheek.  Look!” she continued, taking her handkerchief from her pocket and wiping his cheek; “see there!” The delicate cambric showed a blood-red streak.

“It grows in a swamp,” she continued, in the same excited strain; “we call it dragon’s teeth,—­like the kind that was sown in the story, you know.  We children used to find it, and then paint our faces and lips with it.  We called it our rouge.  I was almost tempted to try it again when I found it just now.  It took me back so to the old times.”

Following her odd manner rather than her words, as she turned her face towards him suddenly, Brant was inclined to think that she had tried it already, so scarlet was her cheek.  But it presently paled again under his cold scrutiny.

“You must miss the old times,” he said calmly.  “I am afraid you found very little of them left, except in these flowers.”

“And hardly these,” she said bitterly.  “Your troops had found a way through the marsh, and had trampled down the bushes.”

Brant’s brow clouded.  He remembered that the brook, which had run red during the fight, had lost itself in this marsh.  It did not increase his liking for this beautiful but blindly vicious animal at his side, and even his momentary pity for her was fading fast.  She was incorrigible.  They walked on for a few moments in silence.

“You said,” she began at last, in a gentler and even hesitating voice, “that your wife was a Southern woman.”

He checked an irritated start with difficulty.

“I believe I did,” he said coldly, as if he regretted it.

“And of course you taught her your gospel,—­the gospel according to St. Lincoln.  Oh, I know,” she went on hurriedly, as if conscious of his irritation and seeking to allay it.  “She was a woman and loved you, and thought with your thoughts and saw only with your eyes.  Yes, that’s the way with us,—­I suppose we all do it!” she added bitterly.