card-table,
Cato!"

The four sat down, the card-table being so placed as to quite divide
Jacqueline and Ludwell Cary, at the harp, from Major Edward's small
table and Rand beside the sofa. "Edward!" said the Colonel. His brother
nodded, gathered up his cards, and turned squarely to the entertainment
of the Republican. "So, Mr. Rand, Mr. Monroe goes to Spain! What the
Devil is he going to do there? I wish that your party, sir, would send
Mr. Madison to Turkey and Colonel Burr to the Barbary States! And what,
may I ask, are you going to do with the Mississippi now that you've got
it? It's a damned expensive business buying from Buonaparte. Sixty
millions for a _casus belli_! That's what you have paid, and that's what
you have acquired, sir!"

"I don't think you can be certain that it's a _casus belli_, sir--"

"Sir," retorted the Major, "I may not know much, but what I know, I know
damned well! You cry peace, but there'll be no peace. There'll be war,
sir, war, war, war!"

Unity glanced from the card-table. "Sing again, Jacqueline, do! Sing
something peaceful," and Jacqueline, still with a colour and with
shining eyes, laughed, struck a sounding chord, and in her noble
contralto sang Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.

CHAPTER XI

IN THE GARDEN

In the forenoon of the next day Rand closed, for the second time that
morning, the door of the blue room behind him, descended the stairs,
and, passing through the quiet house, went out into the flower garden.
He was going away that afternoon. Breakfast had been taken in his own
room, but afterward, with some dubitation, he had gone downstairs. There
Colonel Churchill met him heartily enough, but presently business with
his overseer had taken the Colonel away. Rand found himself cornered by
Major Edward and drawn into a discussion of the impeachment of Judge
Chase. Rand could be moved to the blackest rage, but he had no surface
irritability of temper. To his antagonists his self-command was often
maddening. Major Churchill was as disputatious as Arthur Lee, and an
adept at a quarrel, but the talk of the impeachment went tamely on. The
Republican would not fight at Fontenoy, and at last the Major in a cold
rage went away to the library--first, however, watching the young man
well on his way up the stairs and toward the blue room. But Rand had not
stayed in the blue room. Restless and unhappy, the garden, viewed
through his window, invited him. He thought: "I'll walk i