"Oh no," said Waring—"very dull, good people, both of the Dehrs. Not two ideas to share between them. But there are a dozen tow-headed youngsters at home: they drive the old people into such out-of-the-way courses to scratch for a living. That man in white is the great Socialist, Schaus. The others are scientific fellows from New York and Boston."
"I wish Van Ness was here," said the judge, nodding ponderously. "Van Ness is better known in Richmond than any other Philadelphian, sir. Most remarkable man. Science is well enough as far as it goes, but for clear intelligence, give me Pliny Van Ness."
"No doubt," said Mr. Waring gravely. "Great reformer, I hear. Don't meet him in society. Of a new family."
"Mr. Laidley objected to his coming," said Cornelia.
"He did, eh? I'm astonished at that," said the judge. "I consider Van Ness—But Laidley had the right to object, of course. The meeting is one of the captain's famous schemes—to amuse Laidley. But they tell me that he knows he is dying, and has determined to bring a certain spirit out of the other world to ask an important question."
"I should think," said Miss Fleming dryly, "Mr. Laidley would always require supernatural aid to make up his mind for him. After I talk to him I have the feeling that I have been handling froth. Not clean froth either." When Miss Fleming made the men and women about her the subjects of her skill in dissection, her voice took a neat incisive edge, suggestive of the touch of a scalpel. Little Mr. Waring, pulling his moustache thoughtfully, studied her for a moment without reply.
"Hoh!" laughed the judge. "You have a keen eye! There can be no doubt," suddenly sobering, "that Laidley has been uncommonly fast. But his blood is good—none better in Maryland. High-toned family, the Laidleys. Mr. Waring here could give you his life chapter by chapter if he would. But he would skip over the dirty bits as carefully as he is doing in the road."
"Laidley's life is so very nearly over," suggested Mr. Waring quietly.
There was an awkward silence of a moment.
"Now, I can't understand," blustered the judge, "how Captain Swendon can nurse that fellow as tenderly as he is doing. I've got my share of humanity and forgiveness, and all that. But if any man had thrust my wife and child out of their property, as he has done, he had better have kept out of my sight, sir. I know all about them, you see, for two generations. Captain's wife was a New Orleans girl—Virginia Morôt. It wasn't a matter of property: it was starvation. Poor little Virginie—pretty creature she was too!—would have been alive to-day, there's no doubt of it, if she could have had proper food and medicines. And there's his daughter! What kind of a life has she had for a girl with such blood in her veins? Why, if I should tell you the sum on which that child has supported herself and her father in Baltimore and here since her mother died, you wouldn't believe me. And Laidley did nothing for them. Not a penny! Under the circumstances it was a crime for him to be alive."