“If you are free for half an hour I’d like to have the talk we spoke of the other day,” answered Stephen.

“Oh, I’m free except for Darrow.  You won’t mind Darrow.”

He turned toward the library on the left of the hall; and as Stephen entered the room, after a gay and friendly smile in Patty’s direction, he told himself that the man promised to be more interesting than any girl he had ever known.

CHAPTER XI

THE OLD WALLS AND THE RISING TIDE

A tall old man was standing by the window in the library, and as he turned his face away from the light of the sunset, Stephen had a vague impression that he had seen him before—­not in actual life but in some half-forgotten picture or statue.  The Governor’s visitor was evidently a carpenter, with a tall erect figure and a face which had in it a dignity that belonged less to an individual than to an era.  Beneath his abundant white hair, his large brown eyes still shone with the ardour of a convert or a disciple, and his blanched, strongly marked features had the aristocratic distinction and serenity that are found in the faces of the old who have lived in communion either with profound ideas or with the simple elemental forces of sky and sea.  In spite of his gnarled hands and the sawdust that had lodged in the frayed creases of his clothes, he was in his way, Stephen realized, as great a gentleman and as typical a Virginian as Judge Horatio Lancaster Page.  Both men were the descendants of a privileged order; both were inheritors of a formal and authentic tradition.

“This is Mr. Darrow,” said Vetch in a voice which contained a note of affectionate deference.  “I think he knew your father, Culpeper.  Didn’t you tell me, Darrow, that you had known this young man’s father?”

“No, sir, I only said I’d worked for him,” replied Darrow, with an air of genial irony which brought the Judge to Stephen’s mind again.  “That’s a big difference, I reckon.  I did some repairs a few years ago on a row of houses that belonged to Mr. Culpeper; but the business was all arranged by the agent.”

“That was part of the estate, I suppose,” explained Stephen.  “My father leaves all that to his agent.”

“Yes, I thought as much,” replied Darrow simply; and after shaking hands with his rough, strong clasp, he sat down in a chair by the window.  “They’ve made a lot of changes inside this house,” he remarked.  “Before they added on that part at the back the dining-room used to be in the basement.  I remember doing some work down there when I was a young man and there was going to be a wedding.”

“Well, that long room is very little use to me,” returned Vetch.  “As far as I am concerned they might have left the house as it was built.”  Then turning abruptly to Stephen, he said sharply:  “You heard Gershom’s parting shot at me, didn’t you?” There was a gleam of quizzical humour in his eyes, and Stephen found himself asking, as so many others had asked before him, “Is the man serious, or is he making a joke?  Does he wish me to receive this as a confidence or with pretended hilarity?”