"He is here?"
"He is seated on the lawn just outside, Madame," Ruffin hastened to rea.s.sure her. "I thought at the last moment I"d better have him wait until I received Colonel Lee"s consent to the interview."
"I"m glad you did."
"Oh, it will be all right, I a.s.sure you!"
"He might not wish to see a reporter--"
"So I told the young man."
"I"m afraid--"
"I"ll pave the way, Madame. I"ll pave the way. Colonel Lee and I are life-long friends. Will you kindly announce me?"
"The Colonel has just ridden up to the stables to give some orders about his horses. He"ll be here in a moment."
Lee stepped briskly into the room and extended his hand.
"It"s you, Ruffin. My apologies. I was called out to see a neighbor. I should have been here to receive you."
"No apologies, Colonel, Mrs. Lee has been most gracious."
The mistress of the house smiled.
"Make yourself at home, Mr. Ruffin. I shall hope to see you at dinner."
Ruffin stood respectfully until Mrs. Lee had disappeared.
"Pray be seated," Lee invited.
Ruffin seated himself on the couch and watched his host keenly.
Lee took a cigar from the mantel and offered it.
"A cigar, Ruffin?"
"Thanks."
"Now make yourself entirely at home, my good friend."
The planter lighted the cigar, blew a long cloud of smoke and settled in his seat.
"I"m glad to learn from Mrs. Lee that you have read the book I sent you--the Abolitionist firebrand."
"Yes."
Lee quietly walked to the mantel and got the volume.
"I have it here."
He turned the leaves thoughtfully.
Ruffin laughed.
"And, what do you think of it?"
The Colonel was silent a moment.
"Well, for those who like that kind of book--it"s the kind of book they will like."
"Exactly!" Ruffin cried, slapping his knee with a blow that bruised it.
"And you"re the man in all the South to tell the fool who likes that sort of book just how big a fool he is!"
Lee opened the volume again and turned the pages slowly.
"Ruffin, I don"t read many novels--"
He paused as if in deep study.
"But this one I have read twice."
"I"m glad you did, sir," the planter snapped.
"And I must confess it stunned me."
"Stunned you?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"When I finished reading it, I felt like the overgrown boy who stubbed his toe. It hurt too bad to laugh. And I"m too big to cry."
"You amaze me, sir."
"That"s the way I feel, my friend."
He paused, walked to the window, and gazed out at the first lights that began to flicker in the windows of the Capitol across the river.
"That book," he went on evenly, "is an appeal to the heart of the world against Slavery. It is purely an appeal to sentiment, to the emotions, to pa.s.sion, if you will--the pa.s.sions of the mob and the men who lead mobs. And it"s terrible. As terrible as an army with banners. I heard the throb of drums through its pages. It will work the South into a frenzy. It will make millions of Abolitionists in the North who could not be reached by the coa.r.s.er methods of abuse. It will prepare the soil for a revolution. If the right man appears at the right moment with a lighted torch--"
"That"s just why, sir, as the foremost citizen of Virginia, you must answer this slander. I have brought a reporter from the _Globe_ with me for that purpose. Shall I call him,"
"A reporter from a daily paper with a circulation of fifteen thousand?"
"Your word, Colonel Lee, will be heard at this moment to the ends of the earth, sir!"