"Go on, then, go on!"
"Well, this was such a place—great, wide, flat place. The lord lived there. He was called the Lord Harry—got his name from the way he acted; he was always making forced marches——"
Again suspicion, which Lounsbury ignored.
"And violent demands. Oo! my shin!" (This to James, whose heels were curled up under him.) "Violent demands, I said. And so he had the cheek—um—the impudence to love, to love——" He shut his eyes in silent rhapsody.
"What uz her name?"
"Ah!" Lounsbury threw up his well hand helplessly. "No name was splendid enough for her—not one. But he called her—for want of a better, mind you—he called her the Rose of the South."
"Bully! bully!" accompanied by the clapping of hands.
The door from the entry opened. Dallas came slowly out.
"Go on," urged Felicia, "'Rose of the South?'"
But Lounsbury was looking at Dallas. "Rose of the South," he repeated, a queer tremor running around his mouth; "as far south as—as Texas."