The Eternal Masculine by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

Captain Fitzhugh told me this story as we sat in the last seat of the last car of the Empire State Express, west-bound, and flung off the line of the Hudson River Railway from the reel of the gilt-iron observation-car just outside. Misty mountains lay on turquoise sky, cotton-wool clouds hung over the broad silver of the river; patches of vivid green-yellow-green of juicy grass, gray-green of shadowy willows, black-green of pine-trees-shouted aloud of the spring. "There's the old Point! " Captain Fitzhugh said suddenly, breaking off a sentence to say it.

The low mass of the West Point stables lay gray across the river, and beside it the round-arched end of the Riding School. The Memorial Building, new and magnificent, stood higher up, and the slender shaft of the War Monument shot above the trees by the Parade Ground. A bit of the hotel showed near it. If you knew the Point you could see the whole well-groomed place through the scrap of foreground-the crossing paths, the sweeping drives, the big empty Parade, the row of officers' quarters that looked across from white-curtained, hospitable windows.