miss fanny glen's especial detestation was an assumption of authority on the part of the other sex. if there was a being on earth to whom she would not submit, it was to a masterful man; such a man as, if appearances were a criterion, rhett sempland at that moment assumed to be.
the contrast between the two was amusing, or would have been had not the atmosphere been so surcharged with passionate feeling, for rhett sempland was six feet high if he was an inch, while fanny glen by a procrustean extension of herself could just manage to cover the five-foot mark; yet such was the spirit permeating the smaller figure that there seemed to be no great disparity, from the standpoint of combatants, between them after all.
rhett sempland was deeply in love with miss fanny glen. his full consciousness of that fact shaded his attempted mastery by ever so little.
he was sure of the state of his affections and by that knowledge the weaker, for fanny glen was not at all sure that she was in love with rhett sempland. that is to say, she had not yet realized it; perhaps better, she had not yet admitted the existence of a reciprocal passion in her own breast to that she had long since learned had sprung up in his. by just that lack of admission she was stronger than he for the moment.
when she discovered the undoubted fact that she did love rhett sempland her views on the mastery of man would probably alter—at least for a time! love, in its freshness, would make her a willing slave; for how long, events only could determine. for some women a lifetime, for others but an hour, can elapse before the chains turn from adornments to shackles.
the anger that miss fanny glen felt at this particular moment gave her a temporary reassurance as to some questions which had agitated her—how much she cared, after all, for lieutenant rhett sempland, and did she like him better than major harry lacy? both questions were instantly decided in the negative—for the time being. she hated rhett sempland; per contra, at that moment, she loved harry lacy. for harry lacy was he about whom the difference began. rhett sempland, confident of his own affection and hopeful as to hers, had attempted, with masculine futility and obtuseness, to prohibit the further attentions of harry lacy.
just as good blood, au fond, ran in harry lacy's veins as in rhett sempland's, but lacy, following in the footsteps of his ancestors, had mixed his with the water that is not water because it is fire.
he "crooked the pregnant hinges" of the elbow without cessation, many a time and oft, and all the vices—as they usually do—followed en train. one of the oldest names in the carolinas had been dragged in the dust by this latest and most degenerate scion thereof. nay, in that dust lacy had wallowed—shameless, persistent, beast-like.
to lacy, therefore, the civil war came as a godsend, as it had to many another man in like circumstances, for it afforded another and more congenial outlet for the wild passion beating out from his heart. the war sang to him of arms and men—ay, as war has sung since troia's day, of women, too.
he did not give over the habits of a lifetime, which, though short, had been hard, but he leavened them, temporarily obliterated them even, by splendid feats of arms. fortune was kind to him. opportunity smiled upon him. was it running the blockade off charleston, or passing through the enemy's lines with despatches in virginia, or heading a desperate attack on little round top in pennsylvania, he always won the plaudits of men, often the love of women. and in it all he seemed to bear a charmed life.
when the people saw him intoxicated on the streets of charleston that winter of '63 they remembered that he was a hero. when some of his more flagrant transgressions came to light, they recalled some splendid feat of arms, and condoned what before they had censured.
he happened to be in charleston because he had been shot to pieces at gettysburg and had been sent down there to die. but die he would not, at least not then. ordinarily he would not have cared much about living, for he realized that, when the war was over, he would speedily sink back to that level to which he habitually descended when there was nothing to engage his energies; but his acquaintance with miss fanny glen had altered him.
lacy met her in the hospital and there he loved her. rhett sempland met her in a hospital, also. poor sempland had been captured in an obscure skirmish late in 1861. through some hitch in the matter he had been held prisoner in the north until the close of 1863, when he had been exchanged and, wretchedly ill, he had come back to charleston, like lacy, to die.
he had found no opportunity for distinction of any sort. there was no glory about his situation, but prison life and fretting had made him show what he had suffered. at the hospital, then, like lacy, he too had fallen in love with miss fanny glen.
by rights the hero—not of this story, perhaps, but the real hero—was much the handsomer of the two. it is always so in romances; and romances—good ones, that is—are the reflex of life. such a combination of manly beauty with unshakable courage and reckless audacity was not often seen as lacy exhibited. sempland was homely. lacy had french and irish blood in him, and he showed it. sempland was a mixture of sturdy dutch and english stock.
yet if women found lacy charming they instinctively depended upon sempland. there was something thoroughly attractive in sempland, and fanny glen unconsciously fell under the spell of his strong personality. the lasting impression which the gayety and passionate abandon of lacy could not make, sempland had effected, and the girl was already powerfully under his influence—stubbornly resistant nevertheless.
she was fond of both men. she loved lacy for the dangers he had passed, and sempland because she could not help it; which marks the relative quality of her affections. which one she loved the better until the moment at which the story opens she could not have told.
nobody knew anything about fanny glen. at least there were only two facts concerning her in possession of the general public. these, however, were sufficient. one was that she was good. the men in the hospital called her an angel. the other was that she was beautiful. the women of the city could not exactly see why the men thought so, which was confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ!
she had come to charleston at the outbreak of the war accompanied by an elderly woman of unexceptional manner and appearance who called herself miss lucy glen, and described herself as miss fanny glen's aunt. they had taken a house in the fashionable quarter of the city—they were not poor at any rate—and had installed themselves therein with their slaves.
they made no attempt to enter into the social life of the town and only became prominent when charleston began to feel acutely the hardships of the war which it had done more to promote than any other place in the land.
then fanny glen showed her quality. a vast hospital was established, and the young women of the city volunteered their services.
the corps of nurses was in a state of constant fluxion. individuals came and went. some of them married patients, some of them died with them, but fanny glen neither married nor died—she abided!
not merely because she stayed while others did not, but perhaps on account of her innate capacity, as well as her tactful tenderness, she became the chief of the women attached to the hospital. many a sick soldier lived to love her. many another, more sorely stricken, died blessing her.
in charleston she was regarded as next in importance to the general who commanded the troops and who, with his ships, his forts, his guns, and his men, had been for two years fighting off the tremendous assaults that were hurled upon the city from the union ironclads and ships far out to sea. it was a point of honor to take, or to hold, charleston, and the confederates held it till 1865!
fanny glen was a privileged character, therefore, and could go anywhere and do anything, within the lines.
under other circumstances there would have been a thorough inquiry by the careful inhabitants of the proud, strict southern city into her family relationships; but the war was a great leveller, people were taken at their real value when trouble demonstrated it, and few questions were asked. those that were asked about fanny glen were not answered. it made little difference, then.
toward the close of 1863, however, there was an eclipse in the general hospital, for fanny glen fell ill.
she was not completely recovered, early in 1864, when she had the famous interview with rhett sempland, but there was not the slightest evidence of invalidism about her as she confronted him that afternoon in february.
wounded pride, outraged dignity, burning indignation, supplied strength and spirit enough for a regiment of convalescents.
the difference between the two culminated in a disturbance which might aptly be called cyclonic, for sempland on nearly the first occasion that he had been permitted to leave the hospital had repaired to fanny glen's house and there had repeated, standing erect and looking down upon her bended head, what he had said so often with his eyes and once at least with his lips, from his bed in the ward: that he loved her and wanted her for his wife.
pleasant thing it was for her to hear, too, she could not but admit.
yet if fanny glen had not rejected him, neither had she accepted him.
she had pleaded for time, she had hesitated, and would have been lost, had sempland been as wise as he was brave. perhaps he wasn't quite master of himself on account of his experience in war, and his lack of it in women, for he instantly conceived that her hesitation was due to some other cause than maidenly incertitude, and that harry lacy, of whom he had grown mightily jealous, was at the bottom of it.
he hated and envied lacy. more, he despised him for his weaknesses and their consequences. the two had been great friends once, but a year or two before the outbreak of the war they had drifted apart.
sempland did not envy lacy any talents that he might possess, for he was quite confident that the only thing he himself lacked had been opportunity—fate had not been kind to him, but the war was not yet over. consequently when he jumped to the conclusion that fanny glen preferred lacy, he fell into further error, and made the frightful mistake of depreciating his rival.
assuming with masculine inconsistency that the half acceptance she had given him entitled him to decide her future, he actually referred to lacy's well-known habits and bade her have nothing to do with him.
