“No one.  Mocket has ridden over to North Garden, and I’ve just dismissed a deputation from Milton.”  As he spoke, he opened the coach door and assisted his old friend to alight.

Together they went into the office, which was a cool little place, with a climbing rose at the windows, a bare floor, and a dim fragrance of law-books.  The shade was grateful after the August heat and glare.  Mrs. Selden, seated in a capacious wooden chair, wielded her turkey fan and looked about her at the crowded book-shelves, the mass of papers held down on desk and deal table by pieces of iron ore, the land maps on the wall, the corner ledger and high stool, the cupboard whose opened door disclosed bottles and glasses, and the blush roses just without the two small windows.  “I like the law,” she remarked.  “There’s a deal of villainy in it, no doubt, but that’s a complaint to which all ways of making a living are liable.  Even a shoemaker may be a villain.  How does it feel to be a great lawyer, Lewis?”

He smiled.  “Am I a great one?”

“You should know best, but it’s what men call you.  What was your deputation from Milton?  About the governorship?”

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“I thanked them for the honour they did me, and told them that I had declined the nomination.”

“You have declined it!  Why?”

He smiled again.  “You used to preach contentment when I was a boy and you heard me rage out against my father.  Well—­shall I not rest content with being a great lawyer?”

His old neighbour regarded him keenly above her turkey-feather fan. 
“Lewis Rand, Lewis Rand,” she said at last, “I wish I knew your end.”

He laughed.  “Do you mean my aim in life, or my last hour?”

“The one,” said his visitor sharply, “will be according to the other.  We all wander through a wood into some curious place at last.  You’re the kind of person one thinks of as coming into a stranger place than common.  Have you heard the news about Unity Dandridge and Fairfax Cary?”

“Yes.  She was at Roselands yesterday.”

“It’s good news.  Unity Dandridge needs a master, and there’s been no woman at Greenwood this weary while.  Ludwell Cary will never marry.”

“I see nothing to prevent his marrying.”

Mrs. Selden suspended the waving of her fan.  “He won’t.  Don’t dislike him so, Lewis.  It shows in your forehead.”

“Is it so plain as that?” asked Rand.  “Well, I do dislike him.”

“Enmities are born with us, I suppose,” said his visitor thoughtfully.  “I remember a man whom, without reason, I hated.  Had I been a man, I would have made it my study to quarrel with him—­to force him into a duel—­to make way with him secretly if need be!  I wouldn’t have stopped at murder.  And it was all a mistake, as I found when he was dead and I didn’t have to walk the same earth with him any more.  It’s a curious world, is the heart of man.  And so you won’t be Governor of Virginia?”