She had been strange, perceptibly strange, had Eliza La Heu; that was the most which I could make out of it. I had angered her in some manner wholly beyond my intention or understanding and not all at one fixed point in our talk; her irritation had come out and gone in again in spots all along the colloquy, and it had been a displeasure wholly apart from that indignation which had flashed up in her over the negro question. This, indeed, I understood well enough, and admired her for, and admired still more her gallant control of it; as for the other, I gave it up.

A sense of guilt--a very slight one, to be sure--dispersed my speculations when I was preparing for dinner, and Aunt Carola's postscript, open upon my writing-table, reminded me that I had never asked Miss La Heu about the Bombos. Well, the Bombos could keep! And I descended to dinner a little late (as too often) to feel instantly in the air that they had been talking about me. I doubt if any company in the world, from the Greeks down through Machiavelli to the present moment, has ever been of a subtlety adequate to conceal from an observant person entering a room the fact that he has been the subject of their conversation. This company, at any rate, did not conceal it from me. Not even when the upcountry bride astutely greeted me with:--

"Why, we were just speaking of you! We were lust saying it would be a perfect shame if you missed those flowers at Live Oaks." And, at this, various of the guests assured me that another storm would finish them; upon which I assured every one that to-morrow should see me embark upon the Live Oaks excursion boat, knowing quite well in my heart that some decidedly different question concerning me had been hastily dropped upon my appearance at the door. It poked up its little concealed head, did this question, when the bride said later to me, with immense archness:--

"How any gentleman can help falling just daid in love with that lovely young girl at the Exchange, I don't see!"

"But I haven't helped it!" I immediately exclaimed.

"Oh!" declared the bride with unerring perception, "that just shows he hasn't been smitten at all! Well, I'd be ashamed, if I was a single gentleman." And while I brought forth additional phrases concerning the distracted state of my heart, she looked at me with large, limpid eyes. "Anybody could tell you're not afraid of a rival," was her resulting comment; upon which several of the et ceteras laughed more than seemed to me appropriate.

I left them all free again to say what they pleased; for John Mayrant called for me to go upon our walk while we were still seated at table, and at table they remained after I had excused myself.

The bruise over John's left eye was fading out, but traces of his spiritual battle were deepening. During the visit which he had paid (under compulsion, I am sure) to Juno at our boarding-house in company with Miss Josephine St. Michael, his recent financial triumph at the bedside had filled his face with diabolic elation as he confronted his victim's enraged but checkmated aunt; when to the thinly veiled venom of her inquiry as to a bridegroom's health he had retorted with venom as thinly veiled that he was feeling better that night than for many weeks, he had looked better, too; the ladies had exclaimed after his departure what a handsome young man he was, and Juno had remarked how fervently she trusted that marriage might cure him of his deplorable tendencies. But to-day his vitality had sagged off beneath the weight of his preoccupation: it looked to me as if, by a day or two more, the boy's face might be grown haggard.

Whether by intention, or, as is more likely, by the perfectly natural and spontaneous working of his nature, he speedily made it plain to me that our relation, our acquaintance, had progressed to a stage more friendly and confidential. He did not reveal this by imparting any confidence to me; far from it; it was his silence that indicated the ease he had come to feel in my company. Upon our last memorable interview he had embarked at once upon a hasty yet evidently predetermined course of talk, because he feared that I might touch upon subjects which he wished excluded from all discussion between us; to-day he embarked upon nothing, made no conventional effort of any sort, but walked beside me, content with my mere society; if it should happen that either of us found a thought worth expressing aloud, good! and if this should not happen, why, good also! And so we walked mutely and agreeably together for a long while. The thought which was growing clear in my mind, and which was decidedly worthy of expression, was also unluckily one which his new reliance upon my discretion completely forbade my uttering in even the most shadowy manner; but it was a conviction which Miss Josephine St. Michael should have been quick to force upon him for his good. Quite apart from selfish reasons, he had no right to marry a girl whom he had ceased to care for. The code which held a "gentleman" to his plighted troth in such a case did more injury to the "lady" than any "jilting" could possibly do. Never until now had I thought this out so lucidly, and I was determined that time and my own tact should assuredly help me find a way to say it to him, if he continued in his present course.

"Daddy Ben says you can't be a real Northerner."

This was his first observation, and I think that we must have walked a mile before he made it.

"Because I pounded a negro? Of course, he retains your Southern ante-bellum mythical notion of Northerners--all of us willing to have them marry our sisters. Well, there's a lady at our boarding-house who says you are a real gambler."

The impish look came curling round his lips, but for a moment only, and it was gone.

"That shook Daddy Ben up a good deal."

"Having his grandson do it, do you mean?"

"Oh, he's used to his grandson! Grandsons in that race might just as well be dogs for all they know or care about their progenitors. Yet Daddy Ben spent his savings on educating Charles Cotesworth and two more--but not one of them will give the old man a house to-day. If ever I have a home--" John stopped himself, and our silence was no longer easy; our unspoken thoughts looked out of our eyes so that they could not meet. Yet no one, unless directly invited by him, had the right to say to hint what I was thinking, except some near relative. Therefore, to relieve this silence which had ceased to be agreeable, I talked about Daddy Ben and his grandsons, and negro voting, and the huge lie of "equality" which our lips vociferate and our lives daily disprove. This took us comfortably away from weddings and cakes into the subject of lynching, my violent condemnation of which surprised him; for our discussion had led us over a wide field, and one fertile in well-known disputes of the evergreen sort, conducted by the North mostly with more theory than experience, and by the South mostly with more heat than light; whereas, between John and me, I may say that our amiability was surpassed only by our intelligence! Each allowed for the other's standpoint, and both met in many views: he would have voted against the last national Democratic ticket but for the Republican upholding of negro equality, while I assured him that such stupid and criminal upholding was on the wane. He informed me that he did not believe the pure blooded African would ever be capable of taking the intellectual side of the white man's civilization, and I informed him that we must patiently face this probability, and teach the African whatever he could profitably learn and no more; and each of us agreed with the other. I think that we were at one, save for the fact that I was, after all, a Northerner--and that is a blemish which nobody in Kings Port can quite get over. John, therefore, was unprepared for my wholesale denunciation of lynching.

"With your clear view of the negro," he explained.

"My dear man, it's my clear view of the white! It's the white, the American citizen, the 'hope of humanity,' as he enjoys being called, who, after our English-speaking race has abolished public executions, degenerates back to the Stone Age. It's upon him that lynching works the true injury."

"They're nothing but animals," he muttered.

"Would you treat an animal in that way?" I inquired.

He persisted. "You'd do it yourself if you had to suffer from them."

"Very probably. Is that an answer? What I'd never do would be to make a show, an entertainment, a circus, out of it, run excursion trains to see it--come, should you like your sister to buy tickets for a lynching?"

This brought him up rather short. "I should never take part myself," he presently stated, "unless it were immediate personal vengeance."

"Few brothers or husbands would blame you," I returned. "It would be hard to wait for the law. But let no community which treats it as a public spectacle presume to call itself civilized."

He gave a perplexed smile, shaking his head over it. "Sometimes I think civilization costs--"

"Civilization costs all you've got!" I cried.

"More than I've got!" he declared. "I'm mortal tired of civilization."

"Ah, yes! What male creature is not? And neither of us will live quite long enough to see the smash-up of our own."

"Aren't you sometimes inconsistent?" he inquired, laughing.

"I hope so," I returned. "Consistency is a form of death. The dead are the only perfectly consistent people."

"And sometimes you sound like a Socialist," he pursued, still laughing.

"Never!" I shouted. "Don't class me with those untrained puppies of thought. And you'll generally observe," I added, "that the more nobly a Socialist vaporizes about the rights of humanity, the more wives and children he has abandoned penniless along the trail of his life."

He was livelier than ever at this. "What date have you fixed for the smash-up of our present civilization?"

"Why fix dates? Is it not diversion enough to watch, and step handsomely through one's own part, with always a good sleeve to laugh in?"

Pensiveness returned upon him. "I shall be able to step through my own part, I think." He paused, and I was wondering secretly, "Does that include the wedding?" when he continued: "What's there to laugh at?"

"Why, our imperishable selves! For instance: we swear by universal suffrage. Well, sows' ears are an invaluable thing in their place, on the head of the animal; but send them to make your laws, and what happens? Bribery, naturally. The silk purse buys the sow's ear. We swear by Christianity, but dishonesty is our present religion. That little phrase 'In God We Trust' is about as true as the silver dollar it's stamped on--worth some thirty-nine cents. We get awfully serious about whether or no good can come of evil, when every sky-scraping thief of finance is helping hospitals with one hand while the other's in my pocket; and good and evil attend each other, lead to each other, are such Siamese twins that if separated they would both die. We make phrases about peace, pity, and brotherhood, while every nation stands prepared for shipwreck and for the sinking plank to which two are clinging and the stronger pushes the weaker into the flood and thus floats safe. Why, the old apple of wisdom, which Adam and Eve swallowed and thus lost their innocence, was a gentle nursery drug compared with the new apple of competition, which, as soon as chewed, instantly transforms the heart into a second brain. But why worry, when nothing is final? Haven't you and I, for instance, lamented the present rottenness of smart society? Why, when kings by the name of George sat on the throne of England, society was just as drunken, just as dissolute! Then a decent queen came, and society behaved itself; and now, here we come round again to the Georges, only with the name changed! There's nothing final. So, when things are as you don't like them, remember that and bear them; and when they're as you do like them, remember it and make the most of them--and keep a good sleeve handy!"

"Have you got any creed at all?" he demanded.

"Certainly; but I don't live up to it."

"That's not expected. May I ask what it is?"

"It's in Latin."

"Well, I can probably bear it. Aunt Eliza had a classical tutor for me."

I always relish a chance to recite my favorite poet, and I began accordingly:--

"Laetus in praesens animus quod ultra est Oderit curare et--"

"I know that one!" he exclaimed, interrupting me. "The tutor made me put it into English verse. I had the severest sort of a time. I ran away from it twice to a deer-hunt." And he, in his turn, recited:--

"Who hails each present hour with zest
Hates fretting what may be the rest,
Makes bitter sweet with lazy jest;
Naught is in every portion blest."

I complimented him, in spite of my slight annoyance at being deprived by him of the chance to declaim Latin poetry, which is an exercise that I approve and enjoy; but of course, to go on with it, after he had intervened with his translation, would have been flat.

"You have written good English, and very close to the Latin, too," I told him, "particularly in the last line." And I picked up from the bridge which we were crossing, an oyster-shell, and sent it skimming over the smooth water that stretched between the low shores, wide, blue, and vacant.

"I suppose you wonder why we call this the 'New Bridge,'" he remarked.

"I did wonder when I first came," I replied.

He smiled. "You're getting used to us!"

This long structure wore, in truth, no appearance of yesterday. It was newer than the "New Bridge" which it had replaced some fifteen years ago, and which for forty years had borne the same title. Spanning the broad river upon a legion of piles, this wooden causeway lies low against the face of the water, joining the town with a serene and pensive country of pines and live oaks and level opens, where glimpses of cabin and plantation serve to increase the silence and the soft, mysterious loneliness. Into this the road from the bridge goes straight and among the purple vagueness gently dissolves away.

We watched a slow, deep-laden boat sliding down toward the draw, across which we made our way, and drew near the further end of the bridge. The straight avenue of the road in front of us took my eyes down its quiet vista, until they were fixed suddenly by an alien object, a growing dot, accompanied by dust, whence came the small, distorted honks of an automobile. These fat, importunate sounds redoubled as the machine rushed toward the bridge, growing up to its full staring, brazen dimensions. Six or seven figures sat in it, all of the same dusty, shrouded likeness, their big glass eyes and their masked mouths suggesting some fabled, unearthly race, a family of replete and bilious ogres; so that as they flew honking by us I called out to John:--

"Behold the yellow rich!" and then remembered that his Hortense probably sat among them.

The honks redoubled, and we turned to see that the drawbridge had no thought of waiting for them. We also saw a bewildered curly white dog and a young girl, who called despairingly to him as he disappeared beneath the automobile. The engine of murder could not, as is usual, proceed upon its way, honking, for the drawbridge was visibly swinging open to admit the passage of the boat. When John and I had run back near enough to become ourselves a part of the incident, the white dog lay still behind the stationary automobile, whose passengers were craning their muffled necks and glass eyes to see what they had done, while one of their number had got out, and was stooping to examine if the machine had sustained any injuries. The young girl, with a face of anguish, was calling the dog's name as she hastened toward him, and her voice aroused him: he lifted his head, got on his legs, and walked over to her, which action on his part brought from the automobile a penetrating female voice:--

"Well, he's in better luck than that Savannah dog!"

But General was not in luck. He lay quietly down at the feet of his mistress and we soon knew that life had passed from his faithful body. The first stroke of grief, dealt her in such cruel and sudden form, overbore the poor girl's pride and reserve; she made no attempt to remember or heed surroundings, but kneeling and placing her arms about the neck of her dead servant, she spoke piteously aloud:--

"And I raised him, I raised him from a puppy!"

The female voice, at this, addressed the traveller who was examining the automobile: "Charley, a five or a ten spot is what her feelings need."

The obedient and munificent Charley straightened up from his stooping among the mechanical entrails, dexterously produced money, and advanced with the selected bill held out politely in his hand, while the glass eyes and the masks peered down at the performance. Eliza La Heu had perceived none of this, for she was intent upon General; nor had John Mayrant, w............