Phyl was silent. She resented his criticism of her friend, and just in this moment the something mad and harum scarum in the character of Silas seemed shown up to her with electrical effect. Criticism is a most dangerous thing to indulge in, unless anonymously in the pages of a journal, for the right to criticise has to be made good in the mind of the audience, unless the audience is hostile to the criticised. Then she said: "I don't know anything about Mint Juleps or race courses, but I do know that Mr. Pinckney has been--is--is my friend, and I'd rather not talk about him, if you please." "Now, you're huffed," cried Silas exultingly, as though he had scored a point at some game. "I'm not." "You are--you've flushed." Phyl turned pale, a deadly sign. "I'd never dream of getting out of temper with _you_," said she. It was his turn to flush. You might have struck Silas Grangerson without upsetting his balance, but the slightest suspicion of a sneer raised all the devil in him. Had Phyl been a man he would have knocked him off the log. He cast the stump of his cigarette on the ground and pounded it with his heel. Had there been anything breakable within reach he would have broken it. Her anger with him vanished and she laughed. "You've flushed now," said she. CHAPTER III When they came round to the front of the house they found Colonel Grangerson and Miss Pinckney coming down the steps. They were going to the garden in search of Phyl. "We've been looking at the horses," said Silas, after he had greeted Miss Pinckney. "No, sir, I did not leave any of the doors open, but I've been looking for Sam with a blacksnake whip to liven him up. He left the grey without grooming after she was brought in this morning, and I was rubbing her down myself when this lady came into the yard." "I'll skin that nigger," cried the Colonel. "I reckon I'll save you that trouble, sir," replied the son, as they turned garden-wards. Silas had little use for "r's" and said "suh" for "sir" and "wah" for "war." He was also quite a different person in the presence of his father from what he was when alone or in the presence of strangers. In the presence of his father, past generations spoke in his every word and action, he became sedate, deferential, leisurely. It was not fear of the elder man that caused this change, it was reflection from him. The shadows were long in the garden, and away across the pastures, glimpsed beyond the cypress hedge and bordering the cotton fields, the pond-shadows cast by the live oaks at noon had become river shadows, flowing eastward; the murmur of bees filled the air like a haze of sound, and here and there as they passed a bush coloured flowers detached themselves and became butterflies. They sat down on a great old stone bench lichened and sun warmed to enjoy the view, and the Colonel talked of tobacco and politics and cotton, including them all in his conversation in the grand patriarchal manner.