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“But I’ve reason to suppose–I mean,” said Courtland correcting himself with some deliberation, “that any one who knows Miss Dows’ opinions knows that these are not her views. Why should she take them up?”

“Because she takes HIM up,” returned Champney hurriedly; “and even if she didn’t believe in them herself, she’d have to share the responsibility with him in the eyes of every unreconstructed rowdy like Tom Higbee and the rest of them. They’d make short work of her niggers all the same.”

“But I don’t see why she should be made responsible for the opinions of her cousin, nor do I exactly knew what ‘taking him up’ means,” returned Courtland quietly.

Champney moistened his dry lips with the julep and uttered a nervous laugh. “Suppose we say her husband–for that’s what his coming back here means. Everybody knows that; you would, too, if you ever talked with her about anything but business.”

A bright flash of lightning that lit up the faces of the two men would have revealed Champney’s flushed features and Courtland’s lack of color had they been looking at each other. But they were not, and the long reverberating crash of thunder which followed prevented any audible reply from Courtland, and covered his agitation.

For without fully accepting Champney’s conclusions he was cruelly shocked at the young man’s utterance of them. He had scrupulously respected the wishes of Miss Sally and had faithfully–although never hopelessly–held back any expression of his own love since their conversation in the cemetery. But while his native truthfulness and sense of honor had overlooked the seeming insincerity of her attitude towards Champney, he had never justified his own tacit participation in it, and the concealment of his own pretensions before his possible rival. It was true that she had forbidden him to openly enter the lists with her admirers, but Champney’s innocent assumption of his indifference to her and his consequent half confidences added poignancy to his story. There seemed to be only one way to extricate himself, and that was by a quarrel. Whether he did or did not believe Champney’s story, whether it was only the jealous exaggeration of a rival, or Miss Sally was actually deceiving them both, his position had become intolerable.

“I must remind you, Champney,” he said, with freezing deliberation, “that Miss Miranda Dows and her niece now represent the Drummond Company equally with myself, and that you cannot expect me to listen to any reflections upon the way they choose to administer their part in its affairs, either now, or to come. Still less do I care to discuss the idle gossip which can affect only the PRIVATE interests of these ladies, with which neither you nor I have any right to interfere.”

But the naivete of the young Englishman was as invincible as Miss Sally’s own, and as fatal to Courtland’s attitude. “Of course I haven’t any RIGHT, you know,” he said, calmly ignoring the severe preamble of his companion’s speech, “but I say! hang it all! even if a fellow has no chance HIMSELF, he don’t like to see a girl throw herself and her property away on a man like that.”

“One moment, Champney,” said Courtland, under the infection of his guest’s simplicity, abandoning his former superior attitude. “You say you have no chance. Do you want me to understand that you are regularly a suitor of Miss Dows?”

“Y-e-e-s,” said the young fellow, but with the hesitation of conscientiousness rather than evasion. “That is–you know I WAS. But don’t you see, it couldn’t be. It wouldn’t do, you know. If those clannish neighbors of hers–that Southern set–suspected that Miss Sally was courted by an Englishman, don’t you know–a poacher on their preserves–it would be all up with her position on the property and her influence over them. I don’t mind telling you that’s one reason why I left the company and took that other plantation. But even that didn’t work; they had their suspicions excited already.”