which things smelled mustily sweet, with
dusty shadows that crept across the matting from a shielded lamp; and
later a most delicious yielding of one's self to the cool envelope of
soft white sheets, and a moment's wide-eyed staring at the ceiling;
and then forgetfulness.

Sometime later--it seemed hours--Joe was awakened by the clatter of an
automobile somewhere beneath his window. For a moment he lay still and
wondered and then, the bustle continuing, only in a much subdued and
muffled manner, he got up and in his bare feet walked over to the
window across the matting and looked out. He saw an oil lantern
sitting on the edge of the side steps, and he saw the open screen
door. And then from a black shadow a short distance away, behind the
old lilac bush he remembered so well, he saw a figure emerge, carrying
a glass jug. The figure was Zeke's, stooped over and shuffling, in the
same old peaked cap he had always worn. And in the jug was the
apotheosis of Mr. Mosby's contempt for Mr. Burrus, and as it passed
the light it gleamed and sparkled with a deep golden malevolence. And
hearing steps on the porch, and voices, and fearing lest he might be
seen spying at the window, Joe crept back to bed. And directly he
heard the familiar roaring clatter of a car starting up somewhere down
below there in the darkness, and after a while--silence. He fell into
a deep and satisfying sleep.

CHAPTER VI

Mary Louise had the power of concentration over her determinations as
well as over her desires. Once having decided on a course she could
keep herself driving at it without ceasing. If she made a digression,
it was with eyes set on the goal, and for the reason that to so
digress was to find a more facile path and save time in the end. Her
past attainments had been gained apparently without effort, for in the
little world she had known at Bloomfield all had been hers to do with
as she desired. And then had come the eighteen months in Louisville,
with its awakenings, its gradual undermining of her old standards and
conceptions, and its whetting of the keen edge of her desire.

She had been made to see her facts in another light. Those things that
had been wont to be considered as axioms and irrefutable postulates in
her daily acceptance were suddenly seen as the most ephemeral
hypotheses. The desirability of Bloomfield and the lustre about the
name "McCallum"--two rocks upon which she had builded the edifice of
her confidenc