The old soldier suddenly seized her hand.
“Impossible, is it? Come with me a minute, Miss!”
He drew her into the library followed by Billy—the mother striving gently to keep the peace.
Holland led his eloquent daughter to the rack above the center bookcase and took from its place his army musket.
“That’s what they said, my girl, in ’61. Here’s the answer. That’s what your grandmother said to your grandfather. That’s why we’ve bungled every war we ever fought and paid for it in rivers of blood!”
The family row started anew—the father and boy for preparation against war, the daughter and mother for peace—peace at any price.
The quarrel was at its height when Waldron’s car arrived.
Old Peter, the stately negro butler of the ancient régime, closed the folding doors to drown the din before ushering the distinguished guest into the parlor. Waldron was a prime favorite of Peter’s. The millionaire had slipped him a twenty-dollar gold piece on a former occasion and no argument of friend or foe could shake his firm conviction that Charles Waldron was a gentleman of the old school. Besides, Peter was consumed with family pride in Virginia’s hold on so distinguished a leader of the big world.
The old butler bowed his stateliest at the door of the parlor with the slightest hesitation on his exit as if the memory of the twenty-dollar gold piece lingered in spite of his resolution to hold himself above the influence of filthy lucre.
“I tell Miss Virginia, right away, sah—yassah!”