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“Why couldn’t you have told the Army that?”

“They didn’t ask me.”

“The idea, their saying Taylor got them!”

“So happens he did, some of them.”

“... Taylor got some? How?”

“They walked into his camp. Not all of those boys were paroled, and some of them, with shoes on, decided they wanted to fight. So they joined Taylor. I was scared to death, I can tell you, that one of them might get captured by some Union picket up there. My shoes on his feet could have hung me.”

“My, I’m glad I didn’t know it!”

“All’s well that ends well,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, sounding rather strange. “Yes.”

That brought us to Lavadeau’s, and I hopped out to hand her down. She kissed him, then peeped down the back of his collar. “Your neck,” she told him, “looks like an old crow’s wing, and what causes that is dirt! You bathe when you get home! You hear me? You get in the tub and bathe! ”

“Daughter, I’ve been confined.”

“I said, you take a brush and scrub! ”

“I will, but don’t make personal remarks!”

I took her across the street, raised my hat, and went back for the rest of the block-and-a-half ride with him. He said: “Mr. Cresap, my daughter admires you extravagantly.”

“I equally admire her.”

“She’s a fine, upstanding girl.”

It was all pretty flat, not at all what I’d pictured in the way of a wild celebration of the triumph I’d hoped for and got. Still, he was her father, and I took things as they came. When the cab stopped, I shook hands, said I looked forward to seeing him that night, and stood waving as he rolled on toward Royal. Then I crossed the street and started into the hotel. I had my hand on the door when I heard running feet; looking, I saw her racing toward me and waving. I ran to her and caught her in my arms, as she stood on the banquette panting. She said: “I couldn’t have him — know I was coming here — spending the day with you — can we go somewhere and sit?”

I took her into the ladies’ parlor, and we sat till she’d caught her breath. Then I took her up to the suite, and when I’d put her things away, she sank down on the sofa and said: “I ran so hard, trying to catch you before you went in, I’ve got a stitch in my side.”

“Want me to rub it?”

“Just hold your hand there, please.”

I pretended her dress was in the way, and reached my hand up under it, expecting her to resist. But she reached her hand under too, and undid the knot of the tape, to loosen her pantalette waist so my hand could slip inside. It touched soft, warm skin and soft, warm fuzz. As I pressed the stitch, she relaxed in my other arm, and pretty soon whispered: “You were so wonderful, Willie! Just like a bull! Same as a rampaging bull!”

“I’m sorry about the cussing.”

“I’m not! Oh, don’t worry, I know all the words — and I loved it when you told him ‘you stupid son of a bitch!’ It was just thrilling to hear! Willie, I never knew a bull could mean something to me, but now I do! He can be the most beautiful thing there is! The most beautiful—” She broke off and started to cry.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing! I’m just happy, that’s all!”

For quite a while she sobbed, snuggled close, and kissed, so I inhaled her, the Russian Leather, her spit, and her tears, all in one fragrant cloud. Then I asked: “Stitch any better?”

“All gone! You made it well!”

I started to move my hand, but she grabbed it and held it to her. I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.

The rest of the day was wild, if that’s what I wanted, but it was other things too — sad, intimate, holy, and just plain silly. We lay close for a while and whispered, and then she started exploring — every part of me, including especially my scar. She wanted to know how I got it, something a soldier likes to forget, but I told her: my dive for the rear when the Rebs burst out of the woods, my stumble, the Reb’s lunge with his saber, the pistol-shot in my ear as one of my men got him. She listened, kissed it, then snuggled to me, patting it. Then she jumped up, slipped bare feet in her shoes, and paraded in front of the pier glass. “You think,” she said, “that it’s you I came here for — that’s a mistake. It’s this full-length mirror, so I can see if I’m getting pot-gutted. Well?”

“No,” I said, “you’re not.”

“You better say so.”

“I can only speak the truth.”

“Ever notice how a girl without inny clothes is nothing but a thing? Just a bunch of dabs, dewlaps, and dimples shaking up and down? But lift her heels with shoes and then you got a nymph — a regular stone nymph in a garden, pouring water out of a cup.”

“I never saw a girl without any clothes.”

“You’ve been missing something.”

What I’d been missing was so beautiful I had to look, even though I felt I shouldn’t. And it wasn’t all full, round curves, but partly the way she moved. That, she said, came “from the way they beat it into me, at the convent in Grand Coteau — they make you walk like a lady, whether you want to or not, and won’t have you walking like a camel.” I asked if she was Catholic, and she said no, “but the sisters will take you in, whatever you are, if you’re worth taking , and they seemed to think I was. I’m Episcopalian.” She was pleased that I was Episcopalian too, and asked where I went to school. I told her St. John’s College, and that started her on her childhood in Alexandria — especially Hilda Schmidt, the girl who’d lived next door to her, and how they had played, chasing each other around, “before she died of the fever, up and down the cistrens, over the roof, and down through the skylights.” It seemed that her father’s store was a double one, half of which, with the flat above it, he used himself, and half he rented to Mr. Schmidt, who had a sugar-mill supply place. Alexandria seemed to enchant her, and suddenly she asked: “Where you taking us?”

“Tonight? You know the places. Say.”

“How about Galpin’s, then?”

“Galpin’s is fine.”

“It’s just a few steps from us, Willie, and after we’ve finished dinner we can all three go to the flat and I’ll show you some pictures I have. Of Alexandria. Then you can see what it’s like.”

“I’d love it.”

“Incidentally: I’ve been working today.”

“At Lavadeau’s, you mean you’re telling your father?”

“That’s it — I’m all tuckered out, but will go home to dress and we’ll come to you. And, incidentally, if I’d known what was scheduled today, at headquarters and all, I’d have put something on. Better than what I’m wearing. At least I have a few things left from before the war.”

“I haven’t complained, have I?”

“No, but I have my pride.”

She stared as I talked about her dress, giving the fine points on why I loved it. Then she kicked off her shoes and came close to hear more about it. I don’t think she really believed all I said about its lines, and the way it swung so soft from the swell of her bottom, but how much I’d thought about it seemed to touch her. Around five she gave me one last kiss, then got up to dress.

“I hope they hang that Burke.”

We’d had quite a dinner, with cocktails, a soup called crayfish bisque, some kind of chicken with white wine, and ice cream with brandied cherries — and as we ate we talked. I told Mr. Landry of the way I’d smashed up Jenkins by making use of Olsen, and he made acute observations, comprehending at once the tactics I’d had to employ. She filled in with details on the way I “whipped — that was the thing, he whipped! ” I mentioned in passing the twenty-five thousand dollars I must find, but didn’t get much reaction. He named a banker he’d take me to, but didn’t really show much interest, and I saw the reason was that — to him as well as to her — a channel out to the Gulf cut by the river itself didn’t mean a great deal. Alexandria was what they lived for, so Alexandria was what we looked at as soon as dinner was over. We walked a block to their flat, which was on the second floor of a house between two saloons, a toasty-warm little place from heat coming up through a register, because, she explained, “the landlord’s wife has palsy, and he must keep the fire up for her.” It had walnut-and-horsehair furnishing, a potted rubber tree, and framed mottoes on the walls. While he was lighting candles she was getting her album out, and then we sat with it in front of us on the table, she turning the pages.