"Oh, very well," said Blake, "Although I'm absurdly self-conscious."
"The Exchange needed new blood, I'm told. I think you are a happy choice. Opportunity has singled you out and evidently intends to bear you forward on her shoulders whether you wish or not. Jove! you have made strides! Let me see, you are thirty—"
"Two! This makes me look older than I am." Norvin touched his hair, which was gray, and Bernie nodded.
"Funny how your hair changed so suddenly. I remember seeing you four years ago at the Lexington races just after you returned from Europe the second time. You were dark then. I saw you a year later and you were gray. Did the wing of sorrow brush your brow?"
Blake shrugged. "They say fear will turn men gray."
Dreux laughed lightly. "Fancy! You afraid!"
"And why not? Have you never been afraid?"
"I? To be sure. I rather like it, too! It's invigorating—unusual. You know there's a kind of fascination about certain emotions which are in themselves unpleasant. But—my dear boy, you can't understand. We were talking about you the other night at the Boston Club after your election, and Thompson told about that affair you had with those niggers up the State, when you were sheriff. It was quite thrilling to hear him tell it."
"Indeed?"
"Oh, yes! He made you out a great hero. I never knew why you went in for politics, or at least why, if you went in at all, you didn't try for something worth while. You could have gone to the legislature just as easily. But for a Blake to be sheriff! Well, it knocked us all silly when we heard of it, and I don't understand it yet. We pictured you locking up drunken men, serving subpoenas, and selling widows' farms over their heads."