He dropped his voice.
"You know perhaps that I sent him a few days ago a scurrilous attack on the South by a Yankee woman—a new novel?"
"He received it."
"Has he read it?"
"Carefully. He has read it twice."
"Good!"
The planter breathed deeply, squared his shoulders and paced the floor with a single quick turn. He stopped before Mrs. Lee and spoke in sharp emphasis.
"I'm going to spring a little surprise on the public, Madame! A sensation that will startle the country, and God knows we need a little shaking just now—"
He paused and whispered.
"I'm so sure of what the Colonel will say that I've brought a reporter from the Washington Daily Globe with me—"