“I shall practise.  A man’s life is larger than a few acres, a house, and slaves.  But first I must put Greenwood in order, and I must—­” He did not finish the sentence, but sat looking about the blue room.  “The old moon clock!  I used to listen to it in the night and dream of twenty thousand things, and never once of what I dream of now!  What a strange young savage is a boy!” He gathered the written sheets together.  “You will want to look these over?  I shall be very glad to see that they reach Mr. Mocket safely, or to serve you in any way.  Just now I am very idle, and I will be your secretary every day with pleasure.”  He rose.  “And now you must rest, or we will have a rating from Dr. Gilmer.  Is there any message I may take for you?”

“My devotion and my thanks to the ladies of the house,” replied Rand—­“to Mrs. Churchill and Miss Dandridge and to Miss Churchill.  For these”—­he put his hand upon the papers—­“I shall look them over, and Joab will take them to Charlottesville to Mocket.  I cannot sufficiently thank you for your aid and for your kindness.”

Cary went, and Rand lay back upon his pillows, weary enough, though with a smile upon his lips.  He valued Cary’s visit, valued the opinion of his fellow lawyer and fellow thinker.  He valued praise from almost any source, though this was a hidden thirst.  Where he loved, there he valued good opinion most; but also he strongly desired that his enemies should think highly of him.  To be justly feared was one thing, to be contemned quite another.  Apparently Ludwell Cary neither feared nor contemned.  As, a few days before on the Justice’s Bench, Rand had wondered if he were going to hate Cary, so now, lying in the quiet blue room, weakened by pain and loss of blood, softened by exquisite kindness, and touched by approbation, he wondered if he were going to like Cary.  Something of the old charm, the old appeal, the old recognition, with no mean envy, of a golden nature moving in harmonious circumstance, stirred in Lewis Rand’s breast.  He sighed and lay still, his eyes upon the pansies on the table beside his bed.  The moon clock ticked; the sunshine entered softly through the veil of poplar leaves; upon the bough that brushed the window, a cicada shrilled of the approaching summer.  Rand put out his uninjured arm and took a pansy from the bowl.  The little face, brave and friendly, looked at him from the white counterpane where he laid it.  He studied it for a while, touching it gently, with the thought in his mind that Jacqueline might have gathered the pansies, and then he left it there, took up his papers, and turned to the argument which must hang Fitch.

CHAPTER VIII

CARY AND JACQUELINE

At supper table that evening at Fontenoy, Ludwell Cary said something complimentary to the prisoner in the blue room.  Fairfax Cary fired up.  “You are too easy, Ludwell!  Lewis Rand, I warn you, is a dangerous man!  Serve him once, and you serve him once too often!—­begging your pardon, Colonel Churchill!”