“Thanks. I’ll be mighty glad to,” Lockwood accepted, after a momentary shrinking from the idea of sitting at supper with his enemy. But the meeting would have to come sooner or later.
“I dunno what she’s fixed to eat, but she’s been making the niggers fly round the kitchen all mornin’,” Jackson added. “We kin sure give you something to drink, anyway, and maybe we’ll play a little cards after supper. I’ll come over with the car, and carry you across.”
“No, don’t trouble to do that. I can ride, or walk,” said Lockwood.
Lockwood returned to camp rather earlier than usual that afternoon, shaved with care, and changed his clothes. It had come—the moment for confronting his enemy, and a last-moment fear of being recognized overcame him. He examined himself in the mirror, and then from his baggage he rummaged out a small photograph, which he scrutinized in comparison.
The picture showed a rather boyish face, with a short, soft, pointed beard, and hair worn just a little longer than usual. He had had a fancy in those days for looking artistic. That was less than seven years ago, and it might have been twenty, he thought, looking at himself in the glass. The absence of the beard and mustache threw out the strong, rather hard lines of the mouth and chin. The hair was short now, and slightly touched with premature gray—prison gray. The face was crossed with scores of tiny wrinkles—prison wrinkles. The expression had changed; it was no longer the same man. There was little chance that any one from his former life would recognize him.
A little before six o’clock he reached the broken-down gate of the old mansion. From the driveway he discerned a row of men in rocking-chairs on the front gallery—Henry Power and his two boys, and a fourth, Hanna himself.
The boys shouted a welcome to him at twenty yards, and a negro rushed up to take his horse. Old Henry shook hands with him in a ceremonious fashion, making him welcome in old-fashioned phrases; and then he was introduced to Hanna. He had braced himself to the ordeal of shaking hands, but at the last moment he could not bring himself to it. He created a diversion by dropping his hat, which rolled down the gallery steps.
A selection of chairs was offered him, but Tom Power beckoned him mysteriously into the house with a wink. Inside, signs of age and neglect were plain enough. Evidently the Powers had done little in the way of repairs; but there was a new and gorgeously gaudy rug on the hard-pine floor, and a magnificent hall lamp hung by gilded chains from the ceiling. When Tom led him into the dining room there was the same incongruity—a new table and sideboard of magnificent mahogany, worthless new pictures on the walls in blinding frames. There were cracked windowpanes and plaster, and smoked ceiling, and a vast old-fashioned fireplace, big enough to roast a whole hog, yawning black and sooty over its hearth of uneven red brick.
The table was already laid for supper, shining with new china and silver. At that moment Louise came in hurriedly on some affair of preparation. She gave a startled exclamation, shook hands charmingly with Lockwood, and looked slightly disapproving as her brother led him toward the sideboard. Then she disappeared again toward the kitchen.
“What’ll you take?” Tom inquired. “We’ve got ’most everything.”