"It's not only themselves," he declared, "but each man has got the honor of his state to defend. Suppose, when they met in the railway office at Atlanta this morning, Dangerfield had drawed his gun. Do you suppose, gentlemen, that if North Carolina had drawed South Carolina wouldn't have followed suit? I declare, young man, you don't know what you're talking about. If Bill Dangerfield won't fight, I don't know fightin' blood when I see it."
"Well, sir," began the Alabama man, "my brother-in-law in Charleston went to college with Osborne, and many's the time I've heard him say that he was sorry for the man who woke up Charlie Osborne. Charlie—I mean the governor, you understand—is one of these fellows who never says much, but when you get him going he's terrible to witness. Bill Dangerfield may be Governor of North Car'line, and I reckon he is, but he ain't Governor of South Car'line, not by a damned good deal."
The discussion had begun to bore Griswold, and he went back to his own section, having it in mind to revise a lecture he was preparing on The Right of Search on the High Seas. It had grown dark, and the car was brilliantly lighted. There were not more than half a dozen other persons in his sleeper, and these were widely scattered. Having taken an inventory of his belongings to be sure they were all at hand, he became conscious of the presence of a young lady in the opposite section. In the seat behind her sat an old colored woman in snowy cap and apron, who was evidently the young lady's servant. Griswold was aware that this dusky duenna bristled and frowned and pursed her lips in the way of her picturesque kind as he glanced at her, as though his presence were an intrusion upon her mistress, who sat withdrawn to the extreme corner of her section, seeking its fullest seclusion, with her head against a pillow, and the tips of her suède shoes showing under her gray traveling skirt on the further half of the section. She twirled idly in her fingers a half-opened white rosebud—a fact unimportant in itself, but destined to linger long in Griswold's memory. The pillow afforded the happiest possible background for her brown head, her cheek bright with color, and a profile clear-cut, and just now—an impression due, perhaps, to the slight quiver of her nostrils and the compression of her lips—seemingly disdainful of the world. Griswold hung up his hat and opened his portfolio; but the presence of the girl suggested Ardmore and his ridiculous quest of the alluring blue eye, and it was refreshing to recall Ardmore and his ways. Here was one man, at least, in this twentieth century, at whose door the Time Spirit might thump and thunder in vain.
The black woman rose and ministered to her mistress, muttering in kind monotone consolatory phrases from which "chile" and "honey" occasionally reached Griswold's ears. The old mammy produced from a bag several toilet bottles, a fresh handkerchief, a hand mirror and a brush, which she arranged in the empty seat. The silver trinkets glowed brightly against the blue upholstery.
"Thank you, Aunt Phœbe, I'm feeling much better. Just let me alone now, please."
The girl put aside the white rose for a moment and breathed deeply of the vinaigrette, whose keen, pungent odor stole across the aisle to Griswold. She bent forward, took up the hand mirror, and brushed the hair away from her forehead with half a dozen light strokes. She touched her handkerchief to the cologne flask, passed it across her eyes, and then took up the rose again and settled back with a little sigh of relief. In her new upright position her gaze rested upon Griswold's newspapers, which he had flung down on the empty half of his section. One of them had fallen open and lay with its outer page staring with the bold grin of display type.
TWO GOVERNORS AT WAR!
What Did the Governor of North Carolina Say
to the Governor of South Carolina?
The color deepened in the girl's face; a slight frown gathered in her smooth forehead; then she called the colored woman and a brief colloquy followed between them. In a moment Griswold was addressed in a tone and manner at once condescending and deferential.
"If yo' please, suh, would yo' all 'low my mistus t' look at yo' newspapahs?"
"Certainly. Take them along."