"There is a way," she contradicted. "You can thank me by feeling just
that way about it."
"Then, I do thank you."
She sat looking up at him, her eyes wide and questioning.
"Exactly what do you feel, Samson," she asked. "I mean about me?"
He leaned a little toward her, and the fragrance and subtle beauty of
her stole into his veins and brain, in a sudden intoxication. His hand
went out to seize hers. This beauty which would last and not wither
into a hag's ugliness with the first breath of age--as mountain beauty
does--was hypnotizing him. Then, he straightened and stood looking down.
"Don't ask me that, please," he said, in a carefully controlled voice.
"I don't even want to ask myself. My God, Drennie, don't you see that
I'm afraid to answer that?"
She rose from her seat, and stood for just an instant rather
unsteadily before him, then she laughed.
"Samson, Samson!" she challenged. "The moon is making us as foolish as
children. Old friend, we are growing silly. Let's go in, and be
perfectly good hostesses and social lions."
Slowly, Samson South came to his feet. His voice was in the dead-level
pitch which Wilfred had once before heard. His eyes were as clear and
hard as transparent flint.
"I'm sorry to be of trouble, George," he said, quietly. "But you must
get me to New York at once--by motor. I must take a train South to-
night."
"No bad news, I hope," suggested Lescott.
For an instant, Samson forgot his four years of veneer. The century of
prenatal barbarism broke out fiercely. He was seeing things far away--
and forgetting things near by. His eyes blazed and his fingers twitched.
"Hell, no!" he exclaimed. "The war's on, and my hands are freed!"
For an instant, as no one spoke, he stood breathing heavily, then,
wheeling, rushed toward the house as though just across its threshold
lay the fight into which lie was aching to hurl himself.
The next afternoon, Adrienne and Samson were sitting with a gaily
chattering group at the side lines of the tennis courts.
"When you go back to the mountains, Samson," Wilfred was suggesting,
"we might form a partnership. 'South, Horton and Co., development of
coal and timber.' There are millions in it."
"Five years ago, I should have met you with a Winchester rifle,"
laughed the Kentuckian. "Now I shall not."