"Once is quite sufficient," said the General. "First impressions often endure. But stay. Draw your chairs. I was only saying that I may be required to leave here shortly." "You have been transferred?" asked Marjorie. "No! But I have written to Washington begging for a command in the navy. My wounds are in a fair way and less painful than usual, though there is little prospect of my being able to be in the field for a considerable time." They sat down as requested, opposite Peggy and the General. "But, General, have you not taken us into your consideration?" asked Anderson. "I have, yet the criticism is becoming unendurable. Of course you have heard that matters have already become strained between the civil government and myself. Only last week my head aide-de-camp sent for a barber who was attached to a neighboring regiment, using as a messenger the orderly whom I had stationed at the door. For this trifling order there has been aroused a hornet's nest." "Wherein lay the fault?" asked Marjorie. "In this. It appears from a letter which I have already received from the father of the sergeant (Matlack is his name, to be exact) that the boy was hurt by the order itself and the manner of it, and as a freeman would not submit to such an indignity as to summon a barber for the aide of a commanding officer. We have a proud, stubborn people to rule, who are no more fitted for self-government than the Irish----" He stopped short. Marjorie bit her lip. "I wish, General, you would withdraw your comparison. It is painful to me." "I am sorry, Mistress Allison. As a matter of fact I hardly knew what I had said. I do withdraw it." "Thank you so much." Then he went on. "These Americans are not only ungrateful, but stupidly arrogant. What comparison can be drawn between this dullard, Matlack, whose feelings as a citizen were hurt by an order of an aide-de-camp, and I, when I was obliged to serve a whole campaign under the command of a gentleman who was not known as a soldier until I had been some time a brigadier. My feelings had to be sacrificed to the interest of my country. Does not the fool know that I became a soldier and bear the marks upon me, to vindicate the rights of citizens?" He talked rapidly, yet impassionately. It was plain, however, that he was seriously annoyed over the turn of events, on which subject he conversed with his whole being. He made gestures with violence. His face became livid. His attitude was menacing. "On my arrival here, my very first act was condemned. It became my duty, because of sealed orders from the Commander-in-chief, who enclosed a resolution adopted by Congress, to close the shops. From the day, censure was directed against me. I was not the instigator of it. Yet I was all to blame." He sat up with his hands on his knees, looking fiercely into the next room.