he came upon the
higher levels and saw below him the wide and dark plain. In the east
there was heat lightning. Here on the mountain-top the air blew, and a
man was free from the dust of the valley. He drew a long breath, checked
Selim for a moment, and, sitting there, looked out over the vast
expanse; but the eyes of the past grew troublesome, and he hurried on.
It was striking nine when a negro opened the house gate for him and,
following him to the portico, took the horse from which he dismounted.
Light streamed from the open door, and from the library windows. Except
for a glimmer in the Abbe Correa's room, the rest of the house was in
darkness. If Mrs. Randolph and her daughters were there, they had
retired. He heard no voices. In the hot and sulphurous night the
pillared, silent house with its open portal provoked a sensation of
strangeness. Rand crossed the portico and paused at the door. Time had
been when he would have made no pause, but, familiar to the house and
assured of his welcome, would have passed through the wide hall to the
library and his waiting friend and mentor. Now he laid his hand upon the
knocker, but before it could sound, a door halfway down the hall opened,
and there appeared the tall figure of the President. He stood for a
moment, framed in the doorway, gazing at his visitor, and there was in
his regard a curious thoughtfulness, an old regret, and--or so Rand
thought--a faint hostility. The look lasted but a moment; he raised his
hand, and, with a movement that was both a gesture of welcome and an
invitation to follow him, turned and entered the passage which led to
the library. Rand moved in silence through the hall, where Indian
curiosities, horns of elk, and prehistoric relics were arranged above
the marble heads of Buonaparte and Alexander the First, Franklin and
Voltaire, and down the narrow passage to the room that had been almost
chief of all his sacred places. It was now somewhat dimly lit, with
every window wide to the night. Jefferson, sitting beside the table in
his particular great chair, motioned the younger man to a seat across
from him, evidently placed in anticipation of his coming. Rand took the
chair, but as he did so, he slightly moved the candles upon the table so
that they did not illumine, as they had been placed to illumine, his
face and figure. It was he who began the conversation, and he wasted no
time upon preliminaries. The night was in his blood, and he was weary