Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/52

 interests are bound up with yours, there is no separating them. That has been proved, and the proof was a grave one, as you who shed your blood, as I who lost my patrimony in the awful proving, know full well."

"But you brought it on yourselves, after all. As you made your bed, so must you lie on it. Can a parent love the child that has turned and struck at her life, as she does the one that gave his own to defend it?"

"Do you remember the parable of the prodigal son? Methinks that the husks have been fed to us too long, and that, despite the well-fed elder brother, the fatted calf should be slain. But, General, I did not come to talk politics with you, sir, but to take my revenge for my defeat of last evening. Are you in the mood for a game of chess?"

It was as well that Rondelet had turned the conversation, as it might soon have become a heated one. The bitterness which had crept into his voice was most unusual with him. In all his intercourse with the old officer, he had never shown the feeling he had just expressed. It is not improbable that this state of mind was produced by what had gone before in the studio. The General was too well-bred a man not to abandon the topic, though it cost him something of a struggle to do so. He was one of those