“I thought the evening was beautiful till I saw you, madam,” he said, with a sweeping salute.  “I kiss your hand—­with emotion.”  There was a slight pause here as he regarded Mrs. Ravenel with open admiration.  “And thank you for the beautiful verses, asking that at some soon date you send more of the flowers of your imagination to bind around the gloomy brow of Dermott McDermott.”

It was the McDermott way, this.  A kiss on the hand and a compliment to Madam Ravenel; a compliment and a kiss on the lips to Peggy of the Poplars; but in his heart it was to the deil with all women—­save one—­for he regarded them as emotional liars to be sported with and forgotten.

As Mrs. Ravenel presented to each other these two men whose lives were to be interwoven for so many years, they shook hands cordially enough, but there was both criticism and appraisement in the first glance each took of the other.

The contrast between them, as they stood with clasped hands, did not pass unnoted by Mrs. Ravenel.  The black hair, olive skin, the bluer than blue eyes of Dermott, as he stood in the light of the doorway; his alert, theatric, dominating personality; his superb self-consciousness; the decision of manner which comes only to those who have achieved, seemed to her prejudiced gaze admirable in themselves, but more admirable as a foil to the warm brown of Frank’s hair, to the poetic gray of his eyes, his apparent self-depreciation, his easy acceptances, and his elegant reluctance to obtrude on others either his views or his personality.

Perhaps it was the prescience of coming trouble between them which caused a noticeable pause after the introduction—­a pause which Dermott courteously broke.

“So this is the son,” he said.  “Sure,” he went on, comparing them, “ye’ve a right to be proud of each other!  Ye make a fine couple, the two of you.  And now”—­putting his cap, gloves, and riding-whip on the window-ledge—­“I’ll have coffee if you’ll offer it.  Let me”—­taking some sugar—­“eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow,” he laughed—­“why, to-morrow I may have talked myself to death!”

Frank rose from his chair and stood by the chimney, regarding the Irishman as one might have viewed a performer in a play, realizing to the full what his mother had meant by the “charm of McDermott,” for it was a thing none could deny, for the subtle Celt complimented the ones to whom he spoke by an approving and admiring attention, and conveyed the impression that the roads of his life had but led him to their feet.

“To tell the truth,” McDermott continued, noting and by no means displeased by Frank’s scrutiny, “I had heard ye were home, Mr. Ravenel, and came early to see you with a purpose—­two purposes, I might say.  First, I wanted to talk to you concerning Patrick Dulany, the overseer whom I got for your mother last year.  Ye’ve not see him yet?”

“I arrived only last night, Mr. McDermott,” Francis answered.