“Yes,” the girl said, “I don’t know why I should object to that. Things are different nowadays, father.”

Demon said, “She comin’, Mist Ty. She make great big smoke.”

Tyler threw away his cigar and came over to the carriage wheel. “At least you don’t slop all over me, lady,” he said. “I declare, I’ve a better soldier’s wife than a lot of chaps.”

“Ty.” She put her arms around his neck.

He whispered quickly, “Maybe we ought to have a child. Give you something to think about … I’ve been too damn miserable, that’s all. Probably I’m a poor excuse for a husband. The war takes it all out of me … just the same, I’m glad I’m going back. Mother would put me in the madhouse, in another week. Give us a kiss.”

She kissed him; his lips were dry and his breath hot and unpleasant. Then he caught up the straps of the russet knapsack and hurried out across the tracks; his father followed, limping, the sharp pebbles punching up through his carpet slippers. Tyler had drawn out a clean silk handkerchief and was stuffing it inside the collar of his blouse. His sword swayed evenly beside the gathered folds of purple cloth in his rear; sunshine glittered on the polished flap of his revolver holster. He walked with an alert, nervous importance, as if he had stepped out of a stuffy room which was never to his liking, and now breathed the keener air of swishing winds.

Irene nodded in her mind: “He’s glad he’s got that over with. I wonder if he has anything to do with those women—camp followers, they call them. Maybe he’d be glad to, because they are a part of his adventure. He’ll be a general if he lives, and if it all lasts long enough. Even getting killed in a battle would give him much satisfaction … Goodbye, my lover, goodbye, goodbye, once I thought I loved you, once I thought we might be happy. I made my bed, and now I’ll lie in it all alone.” She closed her eyes and listened to the gigantic respiration of the locomotive as it limped closer and closer.