Now here was a curious condition of things. If anyone had been asked to name the most popular officer at Sandy, there would have been no end of discussion. Perhaps the choice would have lain between Sanders, Cutler, and old Westervelt--good and genial men. Asked to name the least popular officer, and, though men, and women, too, would have shrunk from saying it, the name that would have occurred to almost all was that of Blakely. And why? Simply because he stood alone, self-poised, self-reliant, said his few friends, "self-centered and self_ish_," said more than Mrs. Bridger, whereas a more generous man had never served at Sandy. That, however, they had yet to learn. But when a man goes his way in the world, meddling with no one else's business, and never mentioning his own, courteous and civil, but never intimate, studying a good deal but saying little, asking no favors and granting few, perhaps because seldom asked, the chances are he will win the name of being cold, indifferent, even repellent, "too high, mighty, and superior." His very virtues become a fault, for men and women love best those who are human like themselves, however they may respect. Among the troopers Blakely was as yet something of an enigma. His manner of speaking to them was unlike that of most of his fellows--it was grave, courteous, dignified, never petulant or irritable. In those old cavalry days most men better fancied something more demonstrative. "I like to see an officer flare up and--say things," said a veteran sergeant. "This here bug-catcher is too damned cold-blooded." They respected him, yes; yet they little understood and less loved him. They had known him too short a time.