ism towards public means of locomotion was not in the least
the outcome of snobbishness or pride; they had come from a race of people
accustomed to move in a small orbit in their own particular way, an
exclusive people, breeders and lovers of horses, a people to whom
locomotion had always meant pride in the means and the method; to take a
seat in a stuffy railway car at so much a mile, to grab a ticket and
squeeze into a tram car, to drive in a cab drawn by an indifferent horse
would have been hateful to these people; it was scarcely less so to their
descendants.

So Silas came to Charleston driving a pair of absolutely matched
chestnuts, a coloured manservant in the Grangerson livery in attendance.

After dinner he strolled into the bar of the hotel, met some friends, made
some bets on the forthcoming races and at eight o'clock retired upstairs
to dress.

He was one of the first of the guests to arrive.

The Rhetts' house in Legare Street was about the same size as Vernons and
equally old, but it had not the same charm, the garden was much larger
than that at Vernons, but it had not the same touch of the past. Houses,
like people, have personalities and the house of the Rhetts had a
telephone without resenting the intruder, electric everythings, even to an
elevator, modern cookers, modern stoves, everything in a modern way to
save labour and make life easy, and all so cunningly and craftily done
that the air of antiquity was supposed not to be disturbed.

Illusion! Nothing is gained without some sacrifice; you cannot hold the
past and the present in the same hand, the concealed elevator spoke in all
the rooms once its presence was betrayed, the telephone talked--everywhere
was evident the use of yesterday as a veneer of to-day.

However that may be, the old house was gay enough to-night with flowers
and lights, and Silas, looking better perhaps than he had ever looked in
his life, found himself talking to Frances Rhett with an animation that
surprised himself.

Frances had never had a chance of leading Silas behind her chariot; to
fool with her would have meant an expenditure of time and energy in
journeys to Charleston quite beyond his inclination. This aloofness
coupled with his good looks had set him apart from others.

But to-night he was quite a different being; to-night, in some mysterious
way, he managed to convey the impression, pleasing enough, that he had
come to see her and her alone.

As they stoo