Colonel Royall picked up his broad-brimmed Panama and twirled it thoughtfully on the top of his stick. “What’s your objection to Aylett?� he asked meditatively.
Trench was momentarily embarrassed, then he plunged boldly. “In the parlance, we would call him a machine man,� he said; “he was elected by the same system that has ruled this State for years; he’s bound hand and foot to it, and his reëlection means—a continuance of the present conditions.�
It was now Colonel Royall’s turn to smile. “You mean a continuance of Jacob Eaton? Well, I expect it will, and I don’t know but what it’s a good thing. You haven’t converted me to your heresy, Mr. Trench, but I’ve tasted of your hospitality, and if you don’t come and taste mine I’ll feel it a disgrace. Why have you not come to see me, sir? I asked you when I came here to acknowledge your courtesy to my daughter.�
Trench reddened again. “I’m coming, Colonel,� he said at once, “but�—he hesitated—“are you sure that a man of my political faith will be entirely welcome?�
Colonel Royall straightened himself. “Sir, Mr. Eaton does not choose my guests. I appreciate your feeling and understand it. I shall be happy, sir, to see you next Sunday afternoon,� and he bowed formally, having risen to his full height.
Caleb took his proffered hand heartily, and walked with him to the door. Yet he did not altogether relish the thought of a call at Broad Acres; he remembered too vividly his visit there to refund Diana’s money, and reddened at the thought of a certain receipt which he still carried in his pocket. He had set out to restore her change because he did not wish her to think she had been overcharged, and it was not until he had fairly embarked upon the interview that he had regretted not sending it by mail, and had reached a point where stealing it would have seemed a virtue! The fact that the Broad Acres people seldom, if ever, came to his shop had made its return in the natural course of events doubtful, and the matter had seemed to him simple and direct until Diana met it. The Quaker in him received its first shock that night, and he recoiled from giving them another opportunity to mortify his pride. Before that he had regarded Miss Royall as supremely and graciously beautiful; since then he had realized that she could be both thoughtless and cruel.
He stood in his door watching the old colonel’s erect figure walking up the long road under the shadow of the great trees that lined it at intervals. There was something at once stately and appealing in the old man’s aspect, yet there was power in his eyes and the pose of his white head. He reminded Caleb of an old lion, sorely stricken but magnificent; some wound had gone deep. As yet the younger man had no notion of it; when he did know he marveled much at the strange mingling of knight-errantry and tenderness in the breast of one of Nature’s noblemen. As it was, he was supremely conscious that he liked Colonel Royall and that Colonel Royall liked him, but that the colonel was vividly aware that the shopkeeper at the Cross-Roads was not his social equal; Caleb wondered bitterly if he went further, and considered that the gentleman of good blood and breeding was his equal when in law and politics?
He turned from the door with a whimsical smile and patted his dog’s uplifted head; then, as his eyes lighted on the worn leather chair in which the colonel had just sat, he turned it abruptly to the wall.
VIII
BEFORE Sunday Caleb’s settlement of his first case was celebrated in Eshcol. Judge Hollis got the facts from Juniper and spread the story abroad. It was too good to keep. The cockerel was valued at three dollars, being rare, and the pullets cost seventy-five cents each. The attorney for the defendant had paid the costs without pleading the case at the bar.