A longer pause.
"Assuming that I'd acted in self defense, would there be much of a stir about it?"
"Hm," came the noncommital response, but this time with closed eyes, for the Master of Arden had passed the point of active interest.
It was a morning to invite sleep. No leaf stirred, but the shaded air was fresh and comforting. Great cumulus clouds lazily, ponderously, glided across the sky, prototypes of nomadic wandering. Somewhere back by the stables a mellow farm bell proclaimed across the smiling fields the hour of noon; then negroes straightened up from the rows of young tobacco, stretched their tired backs, and in groups wandered toward a cool spring where their dinner buckets had been left. Yet it was some little while before the Colonel's midday meal.
Again Brent asked (or perhaps he only thought, for thoughts have a knack of seeming loud to those at the threshold of Nod):
"I wonder how it would feel to stop drinking and buckle all the way down?"
No answer.
"If she could only care for me—after I've wiped the bad spots out!"
No answer.
"But I'm such a pup—and what a devilishly sweet miracle she is!"