"I never see ye drive, Ravenel," he cried, "but I think of the olden days. Ye've a style all your
own when you hold the lines. Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I'm seized with rhyme." He stood silent, his eyes drawn together at the corners, his gaze concentrated, glass in hand, before he began with a hypnotic look and great lightness of bearing to recite, waiting every little while for the right word to come to him:
"When Ravenel drives four-in-hand,
There's something in his style and way
That takes us to a by-gone day
Of statelier times and manners grand:
When ladies gay,
In bright array,
And patch and powder held their sway."
"I rather fancy that last!" he cried, repeating it:
"When ladies gay,
In bright array,
And patch and powder held their sway.
"When Ravenel drives four-in-hand,
The days of chivalry return,
Hearts with an old-time passion burn,
And lords and ladies fill the Strand,
Our thoughts in that old time abide
When Raleigh lived
And Rizzio died,
And fair Queen Mary sinned and sighed—
That olden land,
That golden land,
When Ravenel drives four-in-hand.
"To you, Mr. Ravenel!" he cried, draining his glass.
"Thank you, McDermott," Francis answered, with a pleased smile, "you have, indeed, the gift of rhyme." And Katrine knew as Frank spoke that his distrust of Dermott had been laid aside for the present, and that he was in a state of mind to grant anything which Dermott might demand of him.
The thought troubled her after she had left them together for the coffee and cigars. She had believed for a long time, as she had told Frank in the rose-garden, that Dermott was in Carolina on some business connected with Ravenel, and she had an instinct that the affair was to be brought to a head to-night.