I resolved that moment to let my cousin shape his own destiny—­a task which in no way appeared to trouble him.  And, indeed, now that I look back to it, why should he have troubled himself?  He had a comfortable if not luxurious apartment in Macdougal Street; a daily dinner that asked only to be eaten; a wardrobe that was replenished when it needed replenishing; a weekly allowance that made up for its modesty by its punctuality.  If ever a man was in a position patiently to await the obsequious approach of large opportunities that man was Washington Flagg.  He was not insensible to the fact.  He passed his time serenely.  He walked the streets—­Flagg was a great walker—­sometimes wandering for hours in the Central Park.  His Southern life, passed partly among plantations, had given him a relish for trees and rocks and waters.  He was also a hungry reader of novels.  When he had devoured our slender store of fiction, which was soon done, he took books from a small circulating library on Sixth Avenue.  That he gave no thought whatever to the future was clear.  He simply drifted down the gentle stream of the present.  Sufficient to the day was the sunshine thereof.

In spite of his unforgivable inertia, and the egotism that enveloped him like an atmosphere, there was a charm to the man that put my impatience to sleep.  I tried to think that this indifference and sunny idleness were perhaps the natural reaction of that larger life of emotion and activity from which he had just emerged.  I reflected a great deal on that life, and, though I lamented the fact that he had drawn his sword on the wrong side, there was, down deep in my heart, an involuntary sympathetic throb for the valor that had not availed.  I suppose the inexplicable ties of kinship had something to do with all this.

Washington Flagg had now been with us five weeks.  He usually lingered awhile after dinner; sometimes spent the entire evening with the family, or, rather, with me, for Mrs. Wesley preferred the sitting-room to my den when I had company.  Besides, there were Sheridan and Ulysses to be looked to.  Toward the close of the sixth week I noticed that Flagg had fallen into a way of leaving immediately after dinner.  He had also fallen into another way not so open to pleasant criticism.

By degrees—­by degrees so subtle as almost to escape measurement—­he had glided back to the forbidden and dangerous ground of the war.  At first it was an intangible reference to something that occurred on such and such a date, the date in question being that of some sanguinary battle; then a swift sarcasm, veiled and softly shod; then a sarcasm that dropped its veil for an instant, and showed its sharp features.  At last his thought wore no disguise.  Possibly the man could not help it; possibly there was something in the atmosphere of the house that impelled him to say things which he would have been unlikely to say elsewhere.  Whatever was the explanation, my cousin Flagg began to make himself disagreeable again at meal-times.