"Well, sir, what can I do for you?"
The impertinence of the remark, to say nothing of its bad taste under the circumstances, for a moment staggered even the Northerner's good breeding, and, for one brief breathing spell, Mr. Howard felt impelled to imperil the whole situation by the trenchant reply:
"Not a damned thing, sir!"
But his self-control came to his rescue, and with it a determination to master the natural and inevitable irritation which many Northern men feel at being called upon to transact business with a Southern man, and which all Southern men feel when doing business with Northern men. The whole code is different and all the conditions misunderstood. Nor will there be harmony until each endeavours to obtain and comprehend the other's point of view.
It was only by detaining the conversation upon strictly neutral grounds for a few moments that Mr. Howard was able to see that the fault lay largely with himself. Perhaps Colonel Yancey was unaware that his visitor knew anything of his private history or was at all interested in the Lees. It was only Mr. Howard's smarting under the real injuries Colonel Yancey had inflicted on Winchester Lee's children which caused him to resent Colonel Yancey's assumption of the role which he essayed on all occasions and inevitably with strangers. At first, he was the bland, suave, genial, open-hearted Southerner. But at the first hint of Mr. Howard's errand, the openness snapped shut. The thin lips were compressed, the crafty eyes narrowed, and Colonel Wayne Yancey, like a pirate craft, "prepared to repel boarders."
"Now, Mr. Howard," he said, "in broaching the subject of the purchase of Guildford, may I ask whom you are representing?"
"Why should you imagine that I am representing any one?" inquired Mr. Howard. "Why not imagine that I want Guildford for my own use? It is a good property. It has a water-front. It is picturesque. Why not suppose that I merely want to acquire a winter home in South Carolina?"
"Then why not look at property just as good, nearer to the town of Enterprise than Guildford lies, and with a good stone house already on it? For instance, my sister's late husband's place, Whitehall, is for sale."
"Thank you for mentioning it," said Mr. Howard, "but I especially want Guildford."
"Then--pardon me for saying so--you must have some ulterior motive for wanting it, for the place is worth no more than the adjoining property of Sunnymede or half a dozen other contiguous estates."