car's down on the siding. They're at
the judge's--he's chief counsel for the road in this state. They'll be
at the tournament, I reckon. You'll be there, won't you?"

The doctor was putting some phials and instruments into a worn leather
bag. "No," he said, shortly. "I'm going to take a ten-mile drive--to add
to this county's population, I expect. But I'm coming to the dance.
Promised Valiant I would in a moment of temporary aberration."

CHAPTER XXXII

A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE

"June in Virginia is something to remember."

To-day the master of Damory Court deemed this a true saying. For the air
was like wine, and the drifting white wings of cloud, piled above the
amethystine ramparts of the far Blue Ridge, looked down upon a violet
world bound in green and silver.

In his bedroom Valiant stood looking into the depths of an ancient
wardrobe. Presently he took from a hook a suit of white flannel in which
he arrayed himself. Over his soft shirt he knotted a pale gray scarf.
The modish white suit and the rolling Panama threw out in fine contrast
the keen sun-tanned face and dark brown eyes.

In the hall below he looked about him with satisfaction. For the last
three days he had labored tirelessly to fit the place for the evening's
event. The parlor now showed walls rimmed with straight-back chairs and
the grand piano--long ago put in order--had been relegated to the
library. That instinct for the artistic, which had made him a last
resort in the vexing problems of club entertainments, had aided him in
the Court's adornment. Thick branches of holly, axed from the hollows
by Uncle Jefferson, lined the balustrade of the stairway, the burnished
green of ivy leaves was twined with the prisms of the chandelier in the
big yellow-hung parlor, and bands of twisted laurel were festooned along
the upper walls. The massed green was a setting for a prodigal use of
flowers. Everywhere wild blossoms showed their spreading clusters, and
he had searched every corner of the estate, even climbing the ragged
forest slope, to the tawdry edge of Hell's Half-Acre, to plunder each
covert of its hidden blooms.

He had intended at first to use only the wild flowers, but that morning
Ranston had arrived from Rosewood with a load of red roses that had made
him gasp with delight. Now these painted the whole a splendid riotous
crimson. They stood banked in windows and fireplaces. Great clumps
nodded from shadowed corners and a veritable b