And when the party sat down on the rocky ledges of the river-bank, Captain Demeré was beside Odalie, and they talked not of this new country lying before them, with the unread, unrecorded mystery of its past, and the unsolved, impenetrable question of its future, but of his own people. With her delicate tact she had evaded the continual occupation of the general attention with her experiences and expectations, and the details of her new home, and led him to speak of himself and his own interests, which he was insensibly brought to do with little disguise, so potent were the reminiscent effects of the murrey-colored gown, and the dainty freshness of the cambric fichu, and the delicate feminine attraction that hung about her like an exquisite fragrance, and seemed, because of her lack of arrogation, less peculiar to herself than some sweet quality appertaining to the whole species of womankind. She noted how the future of men like these is not with the future of the country. They were not to participate in the prosperity which their presence here might foster. While all the others looked forward they looked backward, or perhaps aside, as at a separate life. Such is the part a garrison must always play. She doubted if many felt it. With Mrs. Halsing, she, too, marveled if Captain Stuart felt the need of aught. But Demeré, looking into the past as the tide of reminiscence rose, said to a sympathetic heart a thousand things of home. Trifles came back, hitherto forgotten; sorrows seared over by time; old jests that had outworn the too frequent laugh at last; resolutions failing midway, half-hearted; friends heretofore dead even to memory; old adventures conjured up anew; affections lingering about an old home, like the scent of roses when the fallen petals have left but the bare stalk; vanished joys, reviviscent with a new throb that was more like pain than pleasure. And if he did not look to the future that sweet December night of Saint Martin's summer by the placid Tennessee River, perhaps it was as well,--oh, poor Captain Demeré! CHAPTER V