It was the source of perennial amusement to Isabey as to Lyddon, the feudal relationship between master and man in Virginia, and he was touched by the jealous regard for the family credit which Hector, in common with so many of his race, showed. Isabey said so to Mrs. Tremaine, but Mrs. Tremaine only opened her eyes in gentle surprise. She was really much more concerned for Hector’s feelings in the serving of so homely a repast than she was for her own or for those of her guests. Then Colonel Tremaine came in and presently it was three o’clock, and dinner was served. After dinner all the ladies took their siesta according to the Virginia summer fashion. Lyddon and Isabey went out and smoked in the garden. Isabey liked Lyddon’s conversation and always listened to it with pleasure. But on this day he found himself woolgathering. He listened with his usual courteous attention, but he felt still within his lean, brown hand the involuntary touch of Angela’s rosy palm. It was an impulsive thing for any girl to do, but to Isabey, unused to the Anglo-Saxon freedom between man and woman, it was a phenomenal thing. He attributed it to the fact that Angela had been brought up with a boy and almost as a boy, but upon the absolute innocence and purity of her act he would have staked his life. And the turn of her head and the dewy freshness of her face haunted him. It was easy to feel pity for so charming a creature. How wholly different was she from Adrienne--one the perfect flower of civilization, the other a wood violet. Angela lay upon the great four-posted bed in her room, with the window shutters closed. The summer afternoon was still--so still she could actually hear the beatings of her own heart and she was thinking of Isabey. She knew that she had done an unconventional thing in suddenly putting her hand in his, but her intention had been too innocently pure to give her any sense of shame. With closed eyes she lived over the two or three seconds when her hand lay in his. Suddenly she thought of Neville. She rose from her bed quickly and, going to the dressing table on which she kept a daguerreotype of Neville, she clasped her hands and hung her head as if overwhelmed with guilt. She was a wife, and she had dared not only to think of another man, but to touch his hand with hers! If Neville were there it would be so easy, she thought, to confess it to him. She would even write him a letter and tell him about it. But some instinct of common sense restrained her. It occurred to her that the singular change in all her other relations of life affected her with regard to Neville himself. Some things which she had once told him frankly she must now consider well whether she should tell him at all. Of one thing, however, she was certain--she must stop thinking of Isabey. She took a book and read resolutely until the cool of the afternoon when it was time to dress. But because she tried to put Isabey out of her mind, his presence was there the more.