There was a comical gleam in Josey’s eyes, and Everard’s face was scarlet as he said,
“I have the pleasure of knowing Miss Fleming, I believe.”
Seeing an opening in the crowd, Allen tried to pass on; but Josey had no intention of leaving that locality, and, as soon as she could, she disengaged herself from him, and standing close to Everard, said, in a low tone:
“Present me to your father.”
He had no alternative but to obey, and in a few moments Josey’s great blue eyes were looking up coyly and deferentially at the stern old judge, and, a few moments later, her arm was linked in his, and he was leading her toward an open window, where it was cooler, and the crowd was not so great. She had complained that it was warm and close, and asked the judge if he would mind taking her near the conservatory, where it must be more comfortable.
And so the judge gave her his arm and piloted her to the window, where she got between him and the people and compelled him to stand and listen, while she talked in her most flattering strain, telling him how glad she was to meet him, she had heard so much of him from his son, who sometimes visited at her mother’s, and how much he was like what she had fancied him to be from Everard’s description, only so much more youthful looking.
If there was anything the judge detested it was for an old man to look younger than his years. It was in some sense a living lie, he thought, and he abominated anything like deception. So when Josephine spoke of his youthful appearance, he answered gruffly, “I am sixty, and look every day of it. If I thought I didn’t, I’d proclaim it aloud, for I hate deception of every kind.”
“Yes, I should know you did, and there we agree perfectly,” Josephine replied, and she leaned a little more heavily upon his arm and made what Agnes called her eyes at him, and asked him to hold her fan while she buttoned her glove, and asked him about Charleston as it was before the war, and wished that she could have seen it in its glory.
“Do you know,” and she spoke very low and looked straight up into his face, “it is very naughty in me, I admit, but at heart I believe I’m a bit of a rebel, and though, of course, I was very young when the war broke out, and didn’t quite know what it was about, I secretly sympathized with you Southerners, and held a little jubilee by myself when I heard of a Southern victory. Do you think me a traitor?” and she smiled sweetly into the face which never relaxed a muscle, but was cold and frigid as ice.
Judge Forrest was, to his heart’s core, a Southerner, and had sympathized with his people during the rebellion, because they were his people; but had he been born North he would have been just as strong a Federal as he was a Confederate, so, instead of thinking more highly of Miss Josey for her rebel sentiments, he thought the less of her, and answered rebukingly, “Young woman, I do not quite believe you know all the word traitor implies; if you did, you wouldn’t voluntarily apply it to yourself.”