omy heads because the
water is all running by the mill!"

"And you are--how old?"--McCalloway's eyes were twinkling with the
question, "--in your hopeless celibacy?"

"Twenty-one," came the exact answer. "But it's not just that. Boone
still has his way to make. This fall the legislature--two years hence a
race for Congress. It's all a very long road."

The soldier nodded his head in understanding. "Yes, it's the waiting
game that strains the staunchest morale," he admitted. "And you realize
that it won't grow easier. But what of Morgan himself?"

"I guess if there were no Boone," she made candid admission, "Morgan
would have won. He has force and power--and I am a worshipper of those
things in a man. I thought at first he was a prig, but he's developed.
It may be generosity or it may be calculation, but he will neither
consent to give me up--nor try to hurry me. He plays the game hard, but
he plays it fair."

McCalloway rekindled the pipe that had died, and his next words followed
a meditative cloud of smoke from his lips. "It's not hard to understand
any man's loving you. I happen to know that more than a few have. Yet if
any one might escape, I'd pick Morgan. For him social values and
externals are ruling passions. For you they are incidental only."

Anne nodded, but her answer went arrow-straight to the core of the
truth. "Morgan fancies me because he thinks I'm popular and well-born.
It would make no difference to Boone if I were friendless."

Her confidant laughed. "Here comes Boone himself," he said, rising. "Of
late he's been building his political fences and hasn't seen enough of
you. I am going to leave you, but at any time that the counsel of an old
fellow can help you, call on me, my dear. I'm always at your
command--yours and his."

As he turned his steps toward the house, McCalloway saw the Colonel
rouse himself from his afternoon nap in his verandah chair. That
morning's _Courier-Journal_ slipped down from the forehead it had been
screening against the sun, and the Colonel became aware of a presence at
his side. Moses, his butler, stood there with juleps on a tray.

As McCalloway arrived on the verandah and took his glass from the negro,
his host rose with a yawning and apologetic smile. "If you'll pardon me,
sir," he said, "I'll leave you long enough to dip my sleepy face into a
basin of cold water." But when the master had gone the servant lingered
until, with an inquisitive impulse, McCalloway