Part 7

“Aptly said,” he admitted suavely, “and the colonel is one in a thousand, but you wind him around your little finger.”

“You do not know Colonel Royall,” said Colonel Royall’s daughter, with just pride.

Jacob lifted his hat. “_Vive le Roi!_” he said.

She gave him an indignant glance. “You are a mocker.”

“On my soul, no!”

“Jacob,” said Diana, “your soul, like the rich man’s, may scarcely pass through the eye of a needle.”

“My dear cousin, my soul has been passing through it under your rebukes. What shall I do to please you?”

Diana rode on, her chin up. The path was narrow, and Jacob, falling behind, had only the privilege of admiring the long slim lines of her athletic young back, and the way she sat her horse. Beyond the cedars the path forked on the road, and he came up again.

“I am chastened,” he said; “shall I be forgiven?”

She laughed softly, then her mood changed. “Jacob,” she said, quite seriously, “you are sure that you’ll renominate Governor Aylett?”

“My dear Di, I am sure of nothing in this world but death,” he retorted dryly, “but I’ll be--”

“Cut it out, Jacob,” she cautioned, her eyes twinkling.

“I won’t have Yarnall!” he finished lamely.

She nodded. “I understand, but what is this about the backwoodsmen being organized?”

“Your friend, the shyster,” he mocked, “he has that line of politics; he speaks well on top of a barrel. I suppose he can empty one, too.”

“Not as easily as you could, Jacob,” she retorted ruthlessly.

He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve been in love with you these many years, and thus do you trample on my feelings!”

“I wish you had feelings,” said Diana calmly; “you have mechanism.”

“Upon my word!” he cried; “this is the last straw.”

“You should be a successful politician,” she continued; “you are a successful business man. Success is your Moloch; beware, Jacob!”

“I am willing to sit at the feet of the prophetess,” he protested. “I’ve served seven years, I--”

“Jacob,” said Diana, “don’t be silly. There’s Kingdom-Come at the gate; they are waiting to turn the omelet. Come!” and she galloped down to the high gateway, the rhododendrons clustering at her saddle-bow and the sunshine in her face.

Kingdom-Come grinned. “Fo’ de Lawd, Miss Di, I reckon yo’ clean forgot dat folks eats in de mawnin’.”

XI

THE next morning Judge Hollis walked into Caleb Trench’s little back room.

In the broad daylight the judge was a stately figure, tall, stout, white-haired, with a high Roman nose and a mouth and chin like a Spartan’s. He always wore an old-fashioned, long frock coat, a high pointed collar and stiff black tie; in summer his waistcoat was white marseilles, with large buttons and a heavy watch-chain; he carried a gold-headed cane and he took snuff.

He found Trench in his shirt sleeves, plodding over some papers, his face flushed and his jaw set, a trick he had in perplexity. The judge eyed him grimly. “Well,” he said, “what’s the price of cockerels to-day?”

Trench, who had not noticed his entrance, rose and gave the old man a chair. “To-day I’m figuring out the price of men,” he replied; “every single investor in the Eaton Land Company has been notified--in one way or another--that only Aylett men are to go to the Democratic Convention.”

The judge whistled softly.

“It’s true,” said Trench, throwing back his head with a peculiar gesture of the right hand that was at once characteristic and striking. “I’m ashamed for you Democrats,” he added.

The judge squared his massive shoulders and gripped his gold-headed cane. “You young black Republican agitator,” he retorted bitterly, “produce your evidence.”

Trench brought his palm down sharply on his desk. “It’s here,” he said; “Aaron Todd has been threatened, but he did not put in his last savings and is standing firm; the rest are like frightened sheep. Because I pointed out this lever in my Cresset speech they seem to think it’s a fulfillment, and they’ve poured in on me to-day to beg me to get their investments out for them! Meanwhile the company has declared that no dividends will be paid until after election, neither will they refund. If I carry the cases into court against Eaton, he’ll take advantage of the bankruptcy law. The investors in the country are frightened to death, and they’d vote for Satan for governor if they thought it would insure their money. Yarnall’s an honest man, but there are fifty hand-bills in circulation accusing him of everything short of arson and murder. That’s your Democratic campaign.”

“And your Republican one is to stir up the niggers,” thundered the judge. “Peter Mahan’s been out in the Bottoms speaking to ten thousand blacks! By the Lord Harry, sir, I wish they were all stuffed down his throat!”

Whereat Caleb Trench laughed suddenly. “Judge,” he said, “if Peter Mahan could be elected, you’d have a clean straight administration.”

“He can’t be, sir,” snapped the judge, “and I’m glad of it!”

“You’ll be sorry,” Trench remarked calmly, “unless you nominate Yarnall.”

“I’m for Aylett,” the judge said soberly. “I shall vote for Aylett in the convention; Yarnall will split the party. That’s what you want, you young cub!”

Caleb smiled. “I’m interested to know how much money it will take to nominate Aylett,” he said; “you’re for Aylett, judge, but you’re not strong enough to defeat Yarnall.”

“Neither are you strong enough to nominate him,” said the judge sharply. “You look out for the blood feud, Caleb; these fellows behind Jacob Eaton haven’t forgotten that the Yarnalls drew the last blood. They’re mighty like North American Indians, and your Cresset speech stirred up a hornet’s nest. I’m for Aylett and peace.”

Trench folded the papers on his desk reflectively. “I can’t make out Jacob Eaton,” he said.

The judge chuckled. “He’s a mighty queer package,” he said grimly, “a cross between a mollycoddle and a bully. Jinny Eaton raised him in jeweler’s cotton for fear he’d catch the measles, and he went to college with a silver christening mug and a silk quilt. When he got there he drank whiskey and played the races, and some poor devil, who was working his way through college, coached him for his exams. He got out with a diploma but no honors, and enough bad habits to sink a ship. Then Jinny introduced him to society as the Model Young Man. He’s been speculating ever since, and he’s got the shrewd business sense that old man Eaton had. He doesn’t care two cents for Aylett, but he’s going to fight Yarnall to the knife. He-- What the devil’s the matter with Zeb Bartlett?” the judge suddenly added, stooping to look out of the window. “He’s been walking past the front door, back and forth, four or five times since I’ve been sitting here, and he’s making faces until he looks like a sculpin.”

Trench laughed grimly. “He does that at intervals,” he replied, “because I won’t lend him a dollar to get tipsy on.”

The judge grunted, his head still lowered to command a view of the shambling figure of the idiot. Then he rose suddenly and went to the window, thrusting his hand into his pocket. “Here, Zeb!” he shouted, in his stentorian tones, “take that and get drunk, and I’ll have you arrested,” and he flung out fifty cents.

Bartlett groveled for it in the dust, found it and grinned idiotically. Then, retreating a few steps, he looked back and kissed his hand, still gurgling. The judge watched him out of sight, then he sat down and took snuff. “Don’t let that fool hang around here,” he said sharply; “it will get a crank into his head and the Lord knows how it’s going to come out. Give him a quarter and let him go.”

“I won’t,” said Caleb dryly. “I’d rather give it to his grandmother; she’ll need it.”

“To be sure,” said the judge ironically, “and she’d give it to him with a dime on top of it; that’s a woman down to the ground. If there’s anything worthless within a hundred miles, they’ll adore it!”

As he spoke, there was a rustle in the outer shop and Miss Sarah suddenly thrust her head in the door. She always wore the most extraordinary bonnets, and the one to-day had a long green plume that trembled and swayed behind her head like the pendulum of an eight-day clock.

“Judge,” she said, “I wish you’d get up and go home. It sounds rude, Caleb, but he’s always insisting on dinner at one o’clock sharp, because his grandmother had it, and he’s never there until the roast is overdone or the gravy is spoiled! Besides, I’m alarmed; I’ve discovered something about Juniper.” Miss Sarah came in and shut the door and put her back against it, her air conveying some deep and awful mystery. “He’s got fifty dollars.”

The judge brought down his heavy brows over his high nose in a judicial frown, but his eyes snapped. “What’s the nigger been up to?” he asked calmly; “been negotiating law business for him, Trench?”

Caleb shook his head, smiling.

“He’s been stealing,” said Miss Sarah with conviction.

“Think likely,” said the judge, “but from whom? Not me, Sarah; if it had been from me it would have been fifty cents.”

“I never thought it was from you,” she retorted scornfully, “but I’ve hunted the house over to see if he could have pawned anything and--”

The judge brought his hand down on his knee. “The silver teapot, Sarah!”

She shook her head. “Aunt Charity’s got it; she gave a supper last night and they had their usual fight and she locked him out. He sat on the step all night and came to our house for something to eat; then he showed the fifty-dollar bill. Of course he stole it.”

The judge meditated, looking grim.

It was Trench who made the suggestion. “Isn’t that rather large for campaign money?” he asked mildly.

The judge swore, then he got up and reached for his hat. “I’ll make him take it back,” he said viciously.

“Take it where?” demanded Miss Sarah vaguely.

“To Ballyshank!” retorted the judge, jamming his hat down on his head.

They all emerged into the outer room just as Miss Royall appeared in the shop-door. She was dressed in a pink muslin with a wide straw hat trimmed with pink roses, and looked like a woodland nymph. The judge swung off his hat.

“We’ve been having a political tournament,” he said, “and now comes the Queen of Love and Beauty.”

Diana liked the old man and smiled her most charming smile. Miss Sarah went up and pecked her cheek, a rite that elderly ladies still like to perform in public. Trench, longing to play the host but too proud to risk a rebuke, bowed silently. Something in Diana’s eye warned him that she was minded to make him repent the dance she had given him; the scoldings she had received were rankling in her mind. Unhappily, too, something in the judge’s manner said, “So ho! is this a flirtation?” Her cheeks burned.

The judge blundered. “Let me offer a chair,” he said, with old-fashioned courtesy, “then we will ask you to help us solve a riddle of Sarah’s. She has found that Juniper is unusually rich, a kind of ebony John Jacob Astor, the proud possessor of fifty dollars.”

Diana declined the chair. “Juniper?” she repeated. “Oh, yes, I know all about it!”

“Did he steal it from you, dear?” Miss Sarah asked excitedly.

“Jacob Eaton gave it to him,” Diana replied simply, “he thought he needed it; he’s been out of work, and you know what a nuisance Lysander is.”

“But fifty dollars, my dear!” protested Miss Hollis faintly.

Diana caught the glances between the judge and Trench and stiffened. “My cousin is generous,” she said.

The judge took snuff.

Poor Caleb fell into the snare. “Miss Royall, do sit down,” he urged, pushing forward the chair.

Diana’s chin went up; her eyes sparkled. “Thank you, I only came for that bolt of pink ribbon,” she said grandly, indicating it with her parasol, and then, opening her purse, “How much is it?”

“It’s sold,” said Trench, and shut his lips like a steel trap.

Diana turned crimson. “Oh,” she said, then she swung around and drew her arm through Miss Sarah’s thin black silk-clad elbow, that was like the hook of a grappling iron. “I think you were going?” she cooed.

The old lady hesitated, confused. “I--I--” she began.

“Here’s the carriage,” said Diana sweetly, and drew her out of the door; “there’s room for you, judge,” she called back, not even glancing at Trench.

“I’ll walk,” said the judge, “I’m a young man yet; don’t you forget it, my girl!”

Diana laughed. “The youngest I know, in heart,” she said, and waved her hand as they drove off.

The judge looked at Caleb soberly. “You’ve done it, young man,” he said quietly.

A slow painful blush went up to Caleb’s hair. “So be it,” he said bitterly. “I’m human and I’ve borne all I can,” and he turned away. “My God!” he added, with a violence so unusual and so heartfelt that it startled the judge, “does that girl think me the dirt under her feet because I’ve sold ribbon? I’m a gentleman; I’m as well-born and as well-bred as she is, but she won’t recognize it--more than half an hour. One day she’s--she’s an angel of courtesy and kindness, the next she insults me. She and Eaton have made my life here a hell!” He clenched his hands until the nails bit into the flesh.

“She’s young,” said Judge Hollis slowly, “and ill advised.”

Trench struggled to be calm; his face paled again, the light died out of his eyes. “Let her leave me in peace!” he cried at last.

The judge drew a pattern on the floor with his stick. “She admires you immensely,” he said deliberately, “and she respects you.”

Trench laughed bitterly.

The judge put on his hat again and held out his hand. “I’ll give you the odds on the money, Caleb,” he said, “but I’d like to know--by the Lord Harry, I’d like to know--what Eaton’s buying niggers for at this late date?”

He got no answer. Caleb’s face was as set as flint.

XII

SOMETIMES early in the morning, and often at evening, Caleb Trench took long walks alone with his dog. It was after sunset, in the sweet long twilight of July, that he came up through the woods behind Colonel Royall’s place, and approached the long elbow of the road, shadowed by the tall walnuts and hickories, and clothed here and there with the black-jack oak. Before him lay the beautiful valley. He could see the curl of the mist below Paradise Ridge, and beyond, the long gray folds of the distant mountains. He looked up toward the beaten trail that led to Angel Pass, and he could perceive the fragrance of wild magnolias.

Shot, who was running ahead, stopped suddenly and stood at attention, one shaggy ear erect. Then Caleb saw the gleam of a white dress, and Miss Diana Royall appeared, walking toward them. Over her head the green boughs locked, and in the soft light she had a beauty that seemed to Trench more than the right of a girl so apparently heartless. He would have passed by the other road, merely raising his hat, but she called to him.

“Good evening, Mr. Trench,” she said, with that bewitching little drawl of hers, which made her voice almost caressing and deceived the unwary. “Your dog remembers me more often than you do.”

Caleb’s face stiffened. Oh, the mockery of women! “I remember you more often than you remember me,” he replied courteously.

Diana bit her lip. She had not expected this, and she hated him for it; yet he had never looked so strong and fine as he did to-night. In the soft light the harsh lines were softened, the power remained, and something of sweetness in the eyes. “Oh,” she said, “have I ever failed to remember you?”

Trench made no direct reply, but smiled. Something in her way, at the moment, was very girlish, the whim of a spoiled child. She had been gathering some ferns, and she arranged them elaborately, standing in the path. His attitude vexed her, his manner was so detached; she was accustomed to adulation. She swept him a look from under her thick dark lashes. “I remember dancing with you at Kitty Broughton’s ball,” she observed.

“You were very kind,” he replied at once, “I remember it, too; you danced with me twice.”

“Because I promised to dance if you asked me; I promised Judge Hollis,” she said demurely.

“But the second?” Caleb was human, and his heart quickened under the spell of her beauty. “I hope that was on my own account.”

“The second?” Diana rearranged the ferns. “I danced then because my cousin did not wish me to,” she said.

Trench reddened. “I am sorry that you felt compelled to do it--twice,” he said involuntarily, for he was angry.

“You are very rude,” replied Diana, unmoved.

“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly, aware that he had been foolish and lost his temper; “pray forgive me.”

“It’s a matter of no consequence,” she said sweetly.

His heart was filled with sudden wrath. Why need the girl be so brutal? He did not know that Diana had been goaded by Mrs. Eaton and Jacob until she was beyond reason; besides, his manner, which defied her, was like tossing the glove at her feet. He had no appreciation of her condescension, and he did not bear her flouting with meekness. Yet, all the while, his strength and his repose made him immeasurably more interesting than the young men of her acquaintance, which, of course, was another reason to be unreasonable.

“I did not see you at the Wilton-Cheyneys,” she said agreeably, pressing the ferns against her cheek.

“Quite naturally,” he replied coolly; “I was not asked.”

“Oh!”

There was a silence. The sweet soft twilight seemed to enfold them with a touch like velvet; a Bob White whistled once in the stillness.

“Miss Royall.”

She looked up with her soft little smile, but his face froze it on her lips. He looked stern and cold. “Yes?” she said, faintly startled.

“Why do you say such things to me? You know that I’m not asked, that I’m an outsider. A poor Yankee shopkeeper, I believe your set calls me; I do not know. Certainly I do not care; a man must live, you know, even out of your class. I have a right to live. I also have a right to my own pride. I am a gentleman.”

They stood looking at each other, the width of the woodland path between them, and that indefinable, impalpable thing which is neither sympathy nor antagonism but which, existing once between two souls, can, never be forgotten,--a white flame that burns at once through all barriers of misunderstanding, the divine spark of a love that is as far beyond commonplace passion as the soul is above the body that it must leave forever. The man felt it and bowed reluctantly before it; the girl struggled and resisted.

“If I did not know that you were,” she said, as quietly as she could, “I would not be here talking to you now. I’m afraid you think me very ill mannered. The last was really thoughtlessness.”

He looked at her relentlessly. “But the first?”

She blushed scarlet. “I--I did not mean it.”

His eyes still searched her, but there was no tenderness in them; they were cold and gray. “That is not quite true, Miss Royall.”

Diana winced; she felt ten years old and knew it was her own fault. “I think it is you who are rude now,” she said, rallying, “but”--it choked her, she held out her hand--“let us be friends.”

He shook his head slowly. “No,” he said, “that can’t be until you are sure I am your equal. I’ve picked up crumbs long enough, Miss Royall,--forgive me.”

She experienced a curious feeling of defeat, as her hand dropped at her side. She was angry, yet she admired him for it. She remembered that night when he brought the hateful six pennies and she had behaved disgracefully. Would he always put her in the wrong? “I am sorry,” she said haughtily; “I was offering you my friendship.”

He smiled bitterly. “Were you, or mocking me with it?”

“Mr. Trench!”

“Forgive me,” he said, in a low voice, but with less self-control, “I came here a poor man; it was necessary to make my bread, and I would have swept offices to do it. I asked nothing and I received”--he smiled with exceeding bitterness--“nothing. Then, unhappily, Judge Hollis found out that I was well-born; he told a few people that I was a gentleman. It was a serious mistake; I have been treated like a dog ever since.” He was thrashing the wayside brush with his stick, and unconsciously beheaded a dozen flowers; they fell at Diana’s feet, but neither of them looked down. “I do not wish to force myself upon your acquaintance, Miss Royall,” he went on, the torrent of pent-up passion unspent. “I understand the reason of your condescension at the ball, but couldn’t you have found a more agreeable way to chastise your cousin? I must have been insufferable?”

The intensity of the man’s wounded pride had forced itself upon Diana; she was crimson with mortification, yet she understood him--understood him with a temperamental sympathy that sent a thrill of alarm through her consciousness. “I never knew before how very bad my manners were,” she said simply.

He turned and looked at her. All that was womanly and beautiful in her face was crystallized in the colorless atmosphere; her eyes dwelt upon him with a kindness that was at once new and wholly unbearable. “I’m a cub!” he retorted harshly; “how you must hate me!”

“On the contrary,” she said very sweetly, “I like you.”

Their eyes met with a challenge of angry pride, then a whimsical smile quivered at the corners of her mouth, and she clasped her hands innocently over her ferns. “When you begin to like me we shall be friends,” she said.

There was an instant of awkward silence, and then they both laughed, not happily, but with a nervous quiver that suggested hysterical emotion.

“I do not know when I began--to dislike you,” he said.

“I deserved it from the first, I fancy,” she retorted, hurrying on with her determination to show her repentance; “I have behaved like a snob.”

He did not reply; he stooped, instead, to pick up the flowers that he had broken. “My mother would never step on a flower or leave it to die in the road,” he explained simply; “whenever I remember it I pick them up. As a boy I recollect thinking that there was some significance in it, that I must not leave them to die.”

Diana looked at him curiously, from under her lashes. What manner of man was he? “It is a sweet thought,” she said, “in a woman--a tenderness of heart.”

“Her heart was as tender as her soul was beautiful,” said Caleb Trench; “she died when I was twenty years old.”

Diana held out her hand. “Will you give me the flowers?” she asked simply.

He gave them with a slight flush of surprise. “They are poor and broken,” he apologized lamely.

“I see that you think I have neither a heart nor a soul,” she replied.

He smiled. “I do not let myself think of either, Miss Royall,” he said; “I fancy that a wise man will always avoid the dizzy heights, and even a foolish one will see a precipice.”

Diana was silent; that she understood him would have been apparent to the initiated, for her little ears were red, but the proud curve of her lips remained firm and the steady glance of her eyes rested on the darkening valley. The hills had purpled to gray, the sky was whitening, and in the west the evening star shone like a point of flame.

Out of the stillness her voice sounded unusually soft and sweet. “I’m going to have some friends to tea to-morrow afternoon, Mr. Trench,” she said; “will you come?”

“No,” he replied, and then added: “Pardon me, that seems discourteous, but I am not going out again here, Miss Royall.”

Almost involuntarily she smiled. “We are playing the game of tit-for-tat, Mr. Trench, and you’ve won.”

“I have been a bear,” he replied, “but--Miss Royall, it’s growing dark; let me take you home.”

“I am waiting for my cousin,” she replied, and then blushed hotly. “I promised to wait five minutes,” she explained hastily, “while he talked to Mr. Saxton at the farm. I suppose it’s politics; we’ve been here long enough to quarrel three times.”

Trench assumed her engagement to Jacob Eaton and would not offer his escort a second time. “I am taking the dog through the woods,” he said; “shall we walk as far as the farm gate?”

Diana laughed merrily. “I never went in search of a lost knight in my life,” she said. “I’m going on; it’s quite light and beautiful yet--good evening.”