nches of an old
sycamore the thinnest fragment of a new moon hung trembling like a
luminous thread. The twilight was intensely still, and the noises of the
city fell with a metallic sound on his ears, as if a multitude of bells
were ringing about him. While he walked on past the bald outline of the
restored and enlarged Capitol, this imaginary concert grew gradually
fainter, until he heard above it presently the sudden closing of a
window in the Governor's mansion--as the old gray house was called.

Pausing abruptly, the young man frowned as his eyes fell on the charming
Georgian front, which presided like a serene and spacious memory over
the modern utilitarian purpose that was devastating the Square. Alone in
its separate plot, broad, low, and hospitable, the house stood there
divided and withdrawn from the restless progress and the age of
concrete--a modest reminder of the centuries when men had built well
because they had time, before they built, to stop and think and
remember. The arrested dignity of the past seemed to the young man to
hover above the old mansion within its setting of box hedges and
leafless lilac shrubs and snow-laden magnolia trees. He saw the house
contrasted against the crude surroundings of the improved and disfigured
Square, and against the house, attended by all its stately traditions,
he saw the threatening figure of Gideon Vetch. "So it has come to this,"
he thought resentfully, with his gaze on the doorway where a round
yellow globe was shining. Ragged frost-coated branches framed the
sloping roof, and the white columns of the square side porches emerged
from the black crags of magnolia trees. In the centre of the circular
drive, invaded by concrete, a white heron poured a stream of melting ice
from a distorted throat.

The shutters were not closed at the lower windows, and the firelight
flickered between the short curtains of some brownish muslin. As Stephen
passed the gate on his way down the hill, a figure crossed one of the
windows, and his frown deepened as he recognized, or imagined that he
recognized, the shadow of Gideon Vetch.

"Gideon Vetch!" At the sound of the name the young man threw back his
head and laughed softly. A Gideon Vetch was Governor of Virginia! Here
also, he told himself, half humorously, half bitterly, democracy had
won. Here also the destroying idea had triumphed. In sight of the bronze
Washington, this Gideon Vetch, one of "the poor white trash," born in a