Lance was sorry to be so late, but he had abundant material for agreeable revery with which to occupy himself until he should get back to the society of Miss Jessie and her father. Some three weeks had passed since he had come to the hospitable shelter of the colonel's roof, and he had had time to become much interested in other things than the errand which had originally brought him hither.
The young man, it should be explained, was a New Yorker, whose tastes were cultivated and progressive; fortunately for him, he likewise had money enough to admit of following his bent.
"He is the son of my agent's former partner in business," Colonel Floyd had told his daughter, when he received the letter which led to his sending Lance an invitation to visit them. "You don't know his name, my dear, and indeed it is unfamiliar to me. Mr. Lance senior died some years since, before my relations with Mr. Hedson, who was in business with him, began. But I understand that he is an accomplished young gentleman, who wishes to inquire into the resources of our State—more especially the coast-belt."
"That's where we live, isn't it, pa?" Miss Jessie inquired.
"Yes, my child," said the colonel, impressively. "He desires to study our fisheries and other industries—with a view, perhaps, to establishing some manufacturing or agricultural enterprise. It would not be at all strange, Jessie, if he were to put capital into something in our neighborhood. I think he may invest. Yes; he is probably seeking a field for his capital."
Colonel Floyd said all this as if he were reading a letter or quoting from a cyclopædia. That was his habitual way of saying things. I should hardly call it an affectation, but he seldom spoke at any length without producing the effect of his being a standard work of reference, which would always tell you exactly what you wanted to know, and would state it in the best language.
He was a slender man, with a small but well-shaped head encased in closely cut hair that had begun to silver; the gray and the black intermingled, and shone with a glimmering changefulness, like the sheen of mica. He wore spectacles, and had that precise, tactical expression noticeable in Confederate veterans of the war and so wholly at variance with our conventional idea of the romantic Southern type. As the colonel held the lease of a turpentine plantation which he was working, near his own modest estate, he was naturally interested in the development of the "coast-belt," and was disposed to welcome the young Northern capitalist of whom his agent, Hedson, spoke so highly.
"What do you say, my daughter?" he asked Jessie, after a pause. "Would it be agreeable to you to have a visitor? Shall we invite Mr. Lance to stay with us?"
He inspected her kindly through his glasses, as if she had been some harmless little prisoner of war.
"It shall be just as you like, pa dear," said Jessie, artlessly. "And if Mr. Lance is coming—why, there's no other place for him to stay. Is there?"