the piece of land for which he paid ten or twelve hundred dollars, probably, at forty-five thousand! About a week ago I discovered, through O'Grady, that the title was in your name until quite recently."
"It was," Francis answered, with a queer smile, "it was; but, with unusual business foresight, I sold it to Mr. McDermott myself for eleven hundred dollars. He said he was going to raise eagles on it," he explained, with a laugh.
The flowers, the lights, and the music of the night he had dined at the lodge came back to him. He recalled a touch on his arm, an upturned face with wistful gray eyes, and remembered Katrine's warning. As he did so a great anger came to him at the way he had been used, and his newly awakened manhood called to him for action. There should be another side to the matter, he determined. McDermott's overheard misprisement of the South! His statement of his intentions toward Katrine! The cut of the words, "She is but eighteen, and one protects that age," came back to him. There had never come a time in his life before when he would have been in the mood to do the thing he now offered.
"Phil," he said, "there is another bank to the Silver Fork River."
"
But it is in your own plantation, and we knew the hopelessness of any proposition to you, Southerner that you are!"
"It would be at least nine miles from Ravenel House," Frank answered, determinedly. "I find I have changed a great deal in my views of things lately," and here he leaned forward on the table toward his friend. "De Peyster," he said, "let us build the railroad together!"
[XIV]
DERMOTT DISCOVERS A NEW SIDE TO FRANK'S CHARACTER
The next morning news came to McDermott that his land on the Silver Fork was no longer desired by the newly formed company. It was nearly a fortnight, however, before he learned the railroad was to be built on the Ravenel side of the river.