"She's twenty-one," answered the old man, with difficulty.
"Old enough to set the world right," suggested Pierre, still mocking.
"She was forced away, she regarded you as her natural protector, she
believed you her father: they broke the law," said the soldier.
"There was Moses, and Solomon, and Caesar, and Socrates, and now....!"
murmured Pierre in assumed abstraction.
A red spot burned on Halby's high cheekbone for a minute, but he
persistently kept his temper.
"I'm expected elsewhere," he said at last. "I'm only one man, yet I wish
I could go to-day--even alone. But--"
"But you have a heart," said Pierre. "How wonderful--a heart! And
there's the half a lung, and the boneset and camomile tea, and the
blister, and the girl with an eye like a spot of rainbow, and the sacred
law in a Remington rifle! Well, well! And to do it in the early
morning--to wait in the shelter of the trees till some go to look after
the horses, then enter the house, arrest those inside, and lay low for
the rest."
Halby looked over at Pierre astonished. Here was raillery and good
advice all in a piece.
"It isn't wise to go alone, for if there's trouble and I should go down,
who's to tell the truth? Two could do it; but one--no, it isn't wise,
though it would look smart enough."
"Who said to go alone?" asked Pierre, scrawling on the table with a
burnt match.
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