“He was a traitor,” I said.
Mr. DeVere laughed musically, and stooping down drew a pine splinter from one of his toes. Then he approached his mother and saluted her with that chivalrous reverence and courtesy that still lingers among sons of the South.
“What shall we have for supper, mammy?” he said.
“Whatever you d—— please,” said Mrs. DeVere.
Aubrey DeVere reached out his hand and seized one of the chickens that roosted upon the piano. He wrung its neck and threw its quivering and fluttering body upon the delicate Brussels carpet. He took a long stride and stood before me, towering like an avenging god, with one arm upraised, the other pointing to the fowl, struggling in its death agonies.
“That is the South,” he cried, in a voice of thunder; “the bleeding and dying South after Gettysburg. Tonight you will feast upon its carcass, as your countrymen have been doing for the last thirty years.”
He hurled the head of the chicken into my face with a terrible oath, and then dropped on one knee and bowed his kingly head.
“Pardon me, Miss Cook,” he said, “I do not mean to offend you. Twenty-eight years ago today, my father was killed at the battle of Shiloh.”
When the supper bell rang I was invited into a long, lofty room, wainscoted with dark oak and lighted by paraffine candles.