"And he died for a damned brute," was what he said.
VI
It was the afternoon of election day, and Eugenia sat in her drawing-room with Sally Bassett.
Outside there was the sound of tramping feet, for the people were giving him burial. They had been passing so for half an hour and they still went on, on, on—he was going to his grave in state.
"There are the drums," said Sally, turning her ear. "All Virginia has come to town, I believe. The whole city is in mourning, and by and by they will put up his statue in the Capitol Square—but if he had lived, would he have had the senatorship?"
"Ah, who knows?" said Eugenia. She played idly with the spoon of her teacup, her eyes on the coals.
"As you say—who knows?" murmured the other. "And, after all, it is perhaps better that he died just now. He would have tried to lift us too high, and we should have fallen back. He was a hero, and the public can't always keep to the heroic level."
There were tears in her voice.
Eugenia turned from her and said nothing.