Again the aguish mirth agitated the other, as he put aboard a hamper and one of the motor's lamps, which Valiant added as an afterthought. "Ah _knows_ et," he said ingenuously, "but Ah don' know _why_. Ah'll jes'

twis' er rope eroun' yo' trunk. Whut yo' gwineter do wid dat-ar?" he asked, pointing to the car. "Ah kin come wid ole Sukey--dat's mah mule--en fotch it in in de mawnin'. Ain' gwineter rain ter-night nohow."--

This matter having been arranged, they started jogging down the green-bordered road, the bulldog prospecting alongside. A meadow-lark soared somewhere in the overarching blue, dropping golden notes; dusty b.u.mble-bees boomed hither and thither; genial crickets tuned their fiddles in the "tickle-gra.s.s" and a hawking dragon-fly paused for an impudent siesta between the mule's gyrating ears.

"S'pose'n de Co'ot done ben sold en yo' gwineter fix it up fo' de new ownah," hazarded Uncle Jefferson presently.

Valiant did not answer directly. "You say the place hasn't been occupied for many years," he observed. "Did you ever hear why, Uncle Jefferson?"

"Ah done _heerd_," said the other vaguely, "but Ah disremembahs. Sumpin dat happened befo' Ah come heah f'om ol' Post-Oak Plantation. Reck'n Majah Bristow _he_ know erbout it, er Mis' Judith--dat's Miss Shirley's mothah. Her fathah wus Gen'l Tawm Dandridge, en he died fo' she wus bawn."

Shirley Dandridge! A high-sounding name, with something of long-linked culture, of arrogant heritage. In some subtle way it seemed to clothe the personality of which Valiant had had that fleeting roadside glimpse.

Uncle Jefferson stared meditatively skyward whence dropped the bubbling lark song. "Dat-ar buhd kin _sing_!" he said. "Queeh dat folkses cyan'

do dat, dey so moughty much smahtah. Nevah knowed n.o.body _could_, dough, cep'n on'y Miss Shirley. Tain' er buhd nowhah in de fiel's dat she cyan'

mock."

"You mean she knows their calls?"

"Yas, suh, ev'y soun'. Done fool me heap er times. Dah's de cook's li'l boy et Rosewood dat wuz sick las' summah, en he listen ev'y day ter de mockin'-buhd dat nes' in one ob de tulip-trees. He jes' love dat buhd next ter he mammy, en when et come fall en et don' come no mo', he ha'at mos' broke. He jes' lay en cry en git right smaht wussur. Et las' seems lak de li'l boy gwine die. When Mis' Shirley heah dat, she try en try till she jes' git dat buhd's song ez pat ez de Lawd's Prayah, en one evenin' she gwine en say ter he mammy ter tell him he mockin'-buhd done come back, en he mammy she bundle him all up in de quilt en open de winder, en sho' nuff, dah's Mistah Mockin'-buhd behin' de bushes, jes'

bus'in' hisse'f. Well, suh, seems lak dat chile hang on ter living jes'

ter heah dat buhd, en ev'y evenin', way till when de snow on de groun', Mis' Shirley she hide out in de trees en sing en sing till de po' li'l feller gwine ter sleep."

Valiant leaned forward, for Uncle Jefferson had paused. "Did the child get well?" he asked eagerly.

The old man clucked to the leisurely mule. "Yas, _suh_!" he said. "He done git well. He 'bout de on'riest young'un roun' heah now!

"Reck'n yo'-all come f'om New York?" inquired Uncle Jefferson, after a little silence. "So! Dey say dat's er pow'ful big place. But Ah reck'n ol' Richmon's big ernuf fo' me." He clucked to the leisurely mule and added, "_Ah_ bin ter Richmon' onct. Yas, _suh_! Ah nevah see sech houses--mos' all bigger'n de county co'ot-house."

John Valiant expressed a somewhat absent interest. He was looking thoughtfully at the blossom in his hand, in an absorption through which Uncle Jefferson's reminiscences oozed on:

"Mos' cur'ousest thing wus how e'vybody dar seem ter know e'vybody else.

Dey got street-kyahs dar, no hoss en no mule, jes' shoot up de hill en down ergen, lak de debble skinnin' tan-bahk. Well, suh, Ah got on er kyah en gib de man whut stan' on de flatfawm er nickel, en Ah set dar lookin' outen de win'ow, till de man he call out 'Adams,' en er gemman whut wah sittin' ercross f'om me, he git up en git off. De kyah start ergen en de nex co'nah dat ar man on de flatfawm he yell out 'Monroe.'

En Mistah Monroe, he was sittin' up at de end, en he jump up en git off.

Den de kyah took anuddah staht, en bress mah soul, dat ar man on de flatfawm he hollah 'Jeffe'son!' Ah clah' ter goodness, suh, Ah nebbah skeered so bad en mah life. How dat man know me, suh? Well, suh, Ah jump up lak Ah be'n shot, en Ah says, 'Fo' de _Lawd_, boss, Ah wa'n't gwineter git off at dis co'nah, but ef yo' _says_ so, Ah reck'n Ah _got_ ter!' So Ah git off en Ah walk erbout fo' miles back ter de deepo!"

Uncle Jefferson's inward and volcanic amus.e.m.e.nt shook his pa.s.senger from his reverie. "En dat ar wa'n't de wust. When Ah got ter de deepo, Ah didn' have mah pocketbook. Er burglar had 'scaped off wid it en lef me es nickelless ez er convic'."

CHAPTER X

WHAT HAPPENED THIRTY YEARS AGO

When Shirley came across the lawn at Rosewood, Major Montague Bristow sat under the arbor talking to her mother.

The major was ma.s.sive-framed, with a strong jaw and a rubicund complexion--the sort that might be supposed to have attained the utmost benefit to be conferred by a consistent indulgence in mint-juleps. His blue eyes were piercing and arched with brows like sable rainbows, at variance with his heavy iron-gray hair and imperial. His head was leonine and he looked like a king who has humbled his enemy. It may be added that his linen was fine and immaculate, his black string-tie precisely tied and a pair of gold-rimmed eye-gla.s.ses swung by a flat black cord against his white waistcoat. There was a touch of the military in the squareness of shoulder and the lift of the rugged head, no less than in the gallant little bow with which he rose to greet the girl coming toward them.

"Shirley," said her mother, "the major's brutal, and he shan't have his mint-julep."

"What has he been doing?" asked the other, her brows wrinkling in a delightful way she had.

"He has reminded me that I'm growing old."

Shirley looked at the major skeptically, for his chivalry was undoubted.

During a long career in law and legislature it had been said of him that he could neither speak on the tariff question nor defend a man for murder, without first paying a tribute to "the women of the South, sah."

"Nothing of the sort," he rumbled.

Mrs. Dandridge's face softened to wistfulness. "Shirley, _am_ I?" she asked, with a quizzical, almost a droll uneasiness. "Why, I've got every emotion I've ever had. I read all the new French novels, and I'm even thinking of going in for the militant suffragette movement."

The girl had tossed her hat and crop on the table and seated herself by her mother's chair. Now reaching down, she drew one of the fragile blue-veined hands up against her cheek, her bronze hair, its heavy coil loosened, dropping over one shoulder like sunlit seaweed. "What was it he said, dearest?"

"He thinks I ought to wear a worsted shawl and arctics." Her mother thrust out one little thin-slippered foot, with its slender ankle gleaming through its open-work stocking like mother-of-pearl. "Imagine!

In _May_. And he knows I'm vain of my feet! Major, if you had ever had a wife, you would have learned wisdom. But you mean well, and I'll take back what I said about the julep. You mix it, Shirley. Yours is even better than Ranston's.

"She makes me one every day, Monty," she continued, as Shirley went into the house. "And when she isn't looking, I pour it into the bush there.

See those huge, maudlin-looking roses? That's the shameless result. It's a new species. I'm going to name it _Tipsium Gigantic.u.m_."

Major Bristow laughed as he bit the end off a cigar. "All the same," he said in his big rumbling voice, "you need 'em, I reckon. You need more than mint-juleps, too. You leave the whisky to me and the doctor, and you take Shirley and pull out for Italy. Why not? A year there would do you a heap of good."

She shook her head. "No, Monty. It isn't what you think. It's--here."

She lifted her hand and touched her heart. "It's been so for a long time. But it may--it can't go on forever, you see. Nothing can."

The major had leaned forward in his chair. "Judith!" he said, and his hand twitched, "it isn't true!" And then, "How do you know?"

She smiled at him. "You remember when that big surgeon from Vienna came to see the doctor last year? Well, the doctor brought him to me. I'd known it before in a way, but it had gone farther than I thought. No one can tell just how long it may be. It may be years, of course, but I'm not taking any sea trips, Monty."

He cleared his throat and his voice was husky when he spoke. "Shirley doesn't know?"

"Certainly _not_. She mustn't." And then, in sudden sharpness: "You shan't tell her, Monty. You wouldn't dare!"

"No, indeed," he a.s.sured her quickly. "Of course not."

"It's just among us three, Doctor Southall and you and me. We three have had our secrets before, eh, Monty?"

"Yes, Judith, we have."

She bent toward him, her hands tightening on the cane. "After all, it's true. To-day I _am_ getting old. I may look only fifty, but I feel sixty and I'll admit to seventy-five. It's joy that keeps us young, and I didn't get my fair share of that, Monty. For just one little week my heart had it all--_all_--and then--well, then it was finished. It was finished long before I married Tom Dandridge. It isn't that I'm empty-headed. It's that I've been an empty-_hearted_ woman, Monty--as empty and dusty and desolate as the old house over yonder on the ridge."

"I know, Judith, I know."

"You've been empty in a way, too," she said. "But it's been a different way. You were never in love--really in love, I mean. Certainly not with me, Monty, though you tried to make me think so once upon a time, before Sa.s.soon came along, and--Beauty Valiant."

The major blinked, suddenly startled. It was out, the one name neither had spoken to the other for thirty years! He looked at her a little guiltily; but her eyes had turned away. They were gazing between the catalpas to where, far off on a gentle rise, the stained gable of a roof thrust up dark and gaunt above its nest of foliage. "Everything changed then," she continued dreamily, "everything."

The major's fingers strayed across his waistcoat, fumbling uncertainly for his eye-gla.s.ses. For an instant he, too, was back in the long-ago past, when he and Valiant had been comrades. What a long panorama unfolded at the name; the times when they had been boys fly-fishing in the Rapidan and fox-hunting about Pilot-k.n.o.b with the yelping hounds--crisp winters of books and pipes together at the old university at Charlottesville--later maturer years about Damory Court when the trail of s.e.x had deepened into man's pa.s.sion and the devil's rivalry. It had been a curious three-sided affair--he, and Valiant, and Sa.s.soon.