“That, no doubt, depends on the invalid relative,” suggested her guest; “the place looks very beautiful in this dim light; the cedars along the road there are magnificent.”
“I have heard they are nearly two hundred years old. Years ago it was the great show place of the country, but two generations of very extravagant sportsmen did much to diminish its wealth––generous, reckless and charming men––but they planted mortgages side by side with their rice fields. Those encumbrances have, I fancy, prevented Gertrude from being as fond of the place as most girls would be of so fine an ancestral home.”
“Possibly she lacks the gamester blood of her forefathers and can have no patience with their lack of the commercial instinct.”
“I really do believe that is just it,” said Mrs. McVeigh. “I never had thought of it in that way myself, but Gertrude certainly is not at all like the Lorings; she is entirely of her mother’s people, and they are credited with possessing a great deal of the commercial instinct. I can’t fancy a Masterson gambling away a penny. They are much more sensible; they invest.”
The cedar avenues had been left a mile behind, and they had entered again the pine woods where even the moon’s full radiance could only scatter slender lances of light. The 177 Marquise leaned back with half-shut slumberous eyes, and confessed she was pleased that it would be later, instead of this evening, that she would have the pleasure of meeting the master and mistress of Loringwood––the drive through the great stretches of pine had acted as a soporific; no society for the night so welcome as King Morpheus.
The third woman in the carriage silently adjusted a cushion back of Madame’s head. “Thank you, Louise,” she said, yawning a little. “You see how effectually I have been mastered by the much remarked languor of the South. It is delightfully restful. I cannot imagine any one ever being in a hurry in this land.”
Mrs. McVeigh smiled and pointed across the field, where some men were just then running after a couple of dogs who barked vociferously in short, quick yelps, bespeaking a hot trail before them.
“There is a living contradiction of your idea,” she said; “the Southerners are intensity personified when the game is worth it; the game may be a fox chase or a flirtation, a love affair or a duel, and our men require no urging for any of those pursuits.”
They were quite close to the men now, and the Marquise declared they were a perfect addition to the scene of moonlit savannas backed by the masses of wood now near, now far, across the levels. Two of them had reached the road when the carriage wheels attracted attention from the dogs, and they halted, curious, questioning.
“Why, it’s our Pluto!” exclaimed Mrs. McVeigh; “stop the carriage. Pluto, what in the world are you doing here?”