the country in a private car."

"I don't see the logic of that as long as it's somebody else's car."

"You'd see it if you had two hundred thousand dollars of debt."

"Well, I've been worse off. I've had two hundred thousand devils of
gout. Here, come along with me. Bring Sally, bring the youngster. I'll
take the whole bunch of 'em."

When I declined, he still urged me, showing his annoyance plainly, as a
man does in whom opposition even in trifles arouses a resentful, almost
a violent, spirit of conquest. So, I knew, he had pursued every aim,
great or small, of his life, with the look in his face of an intelligent
bulldog, and the conviction somewhere in his brain that the only method
of overcoming an obstacle was to hang on, if necessary, until the
obstacle grew too weak to put forth further resistance. Once, and once
only, to my knowledge, had this power to hang on, this bulldog grip,
availed him but little, and that was when his violence had encountered a
gentleness as soft as velvet, yet as inflexible as steel. In his whole
life only poor little Miss Matoaca had withstood him; and as I met the
angry, indomitable spirit in his eyes, there rose before me the figure
of his old love, with her look of meek, unconquerable obstinacy and with
the faint fragrance and colour about her that was like the fragrance and
colour of faded rose-leaves.

"There's no use, General. I can't do it," I said at last; and parting
from him at the corner, I signalled the car for Church Hill, while he
drove slowly up-town in his buggy.

It was a breathless June afternoon. A spell of intense early heat had
swept over the country, and the summer flowers were unfolding as if
forced open in the air of a hothouse. At the door Sally met me with a
telegram from Jessy announcing her marriage to Mr. Cottrel in New York;
but the words and the fact seemed to me to have no nearer relation to my
life than if they had described the romantic adventures of a girl, in a
crimson blouse, who was passing along the pavement.

"Well, she's got what she wanted." I remarked indifferently, "so she's
to be congratulated, I suppose. My head is throbbing as if it would
break open. I'll go in and lie down in the dusk, before supper."

"Do the flowers bother you? Shall I take them away?" she asked,
following me into the bedroom, and closing the shutters.

"I don't notice them. This confounded headache is the only thing I can
think of. It hasn't let up a single mi