"They say the South has never lacked audacity, Miss Barton. I'm wondering if they are really going to make good such words with deeds."
He spoke with a cold detachment that chilled and angered the impulsive girl. A hot answer was on her lips when she remembered suddenly that he was a foreigner.
"Of course, Signor, you can not understand our feelings!"
"On the other hand, I assure you, I do—I'm just wondering in a cold intellectual way whether the oratorical temperament—the temperament of passion, of righteous wrath of the explosive type which we have just witnessed, will win in the trial by fire which war will bring—"
"You doubt our courage?" she interrupted, with a slight curve of the proud little lips.
"Far from it—I assure you! I'm only wondering if it has the sullen, dogged, staying qualities these stolid Northern men down there have exhibited while they listened—"
The girl threw him a quick surprised look and he stopped. His voice had unconsciously taken the tones of a soliloquy.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Barton," he said, with sudden swing to the polite tones of society. "I'm annoying you with my foreign speculations—"
A sudden murmur swept the galleries and all eyes were turned on the tall slender figure of Jefferson Davis as he slowly entered the Senate Chamber.