“I jes’ know Mis’ Judith wish she well ernuf ter see her chile bein’ queens en things ’mongst all th’ othah qual’ty! When they want er queen they jes’ gotter come fo’ her little girl. Talk ’bout th’ stars—she ’way above them! Ranston he say Mistah Valiant ’bout th’ bestes’ dancer in th’ world; say th’ papers up in New York think th’ sun rise en set in his heels. ’Spec’ ter-night he dance er little with th’ othahs jes’ ter be p’lite, till he git back ter th’ one he put th’ crown on. So-o-o tired she is! But Em’line gwine ter bresh away all th’ achiness—en she got yo’ baid all turned down fo’ yo’—en yo’ pretty little night-dress all ready—en yo’ gwineter sleep—en sleep—till yo’ kyan sleep no mo’ nohow!” Under these ministrations Shirley lay languid and speechless, her eyes closed. The fear that had stricken her heart by turns seemed a cold hand pressing upon its beating and an algid vapor rising [Pg 342]stealthily over it. But her hands were hot and her eyelids burned. Finally she roused herself. “Thank you, Emmaline,” she said in a tired voice, “good night now; I’m going to sleep, and you must go to bed, too.” But alone in the warm wan dark, Shirley lay staring open-eyed at the ceiling. Slowly the terror was seizing upon her, the dread, noiseless and intangible, folding her in the shadow of its numbing wings. Was her mother the one over whom that old duel had been fought? Was it she whose love had been wrecked in that long-ago tragedy that all at once seemed so horribly near and real? Was that the explanation of her fainting? She remembered the cape jessamines. Was the date of that duel—of the death of Sassoon—the anniversary her mother kept? She sat up in bed, trembling. Then she rose, and opening the door with caution, crept down the stair, sliding her hot hand before her along the cool polished banister. Only a subdued glimmer came through the curtained windows, stealing in with the ever-present scent of the arbors. It was so still she thought she could hear the very heart of the dark beating. As she passed through the lower hall, a hound on the porch, scenting her, stirred, thumped his tail on the flooring, and whined. Groping her way to the dining-room, she lighted a candle and passed through a corridor into a low-ceilinged chamber [Pg 343]employed as a general receptacle—a glorified garret, as Mrs. Dandridge dubbed it. It showed a strange assemblage! A row of chests, stored with winter clothing, gave forth a clean pungent smell of cedar, and at one side stood an antique spinet and a worn set of horsehair furniture. Sofa and chairs were piled with excrescences in the shape of old engravings in carved ebony frames, ancient scrap-books and what-not, and on a table stood a rounded glass case with a flat base—the sort in which an older generation had been wont to display to awestruck admiration its terrifying concoctions of wax fruit.