“Is it Governor Rudd?” asked Lindsay; and the Governor was, somehow, shaking hands like a kind and cordial host, and the bitterness was gone from his soul.  “I certainly don’t know how to thank you,” she said.  “You-all have been very good to me, and I’ve been awfully comfortable.  I was so lost and unhappy last night; I felt like a wandering Jewess.  I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for breakfast?”

“Not a moment,” said the Governor, heartily, placing her chair, and it was five minutes before he suddenly remembered that he was cross.  Then he made an effort to live up to his convictions.  “This is a mistake,” he said to himself.  “I had no intention of being particularly friendly with this young person.  Rudd, I can’t allow you to be impulsive in this way.  You’re irritated by the delay and by last night:  you’re bored to be obliged to entertain a girl when you wish to read the paper; you’re anxious to get down to the Capitol to see those men; all you feel is a perfunctory politeness for the McNaughtons’ friend.  Kindly remember these facts, Rudd, and don’t make a fool of yourself gambolling on the green, instead of sustaining the high dignity of your office.”  So reasoned the Governor secretly, and made futile attempts at high dignity, while his heart became as wax, and he questioned of his soul at intervals to see if it knew what was going on.

So the Governor sat before Lindsay Lee at his own table, momentarily more surprised and helpless.  And Lindsay, eating her grape-fruit with satisfaction, thought him delightful, and wondered what his wife was like, and how many children he had, and where they all were.  It was at least safe to speak of the wife, for the old house-keeper-nurse had given her an unqualified recommendation.  So she spoke.

“I’m sorry to hear that Mrs. Rudd is not at home,” she began.  “It must be rather lonely in this big house without her.”

The Governor looked at her and laughed.  “Not that I’ve noticed,” he said, and was suddenly seized with a sickness of pity that was the inevitable effect of Lindsay Lee.  She needed no pity, being healthy, happy, and well-to-do, but she had, for the punishment of men’s sins, sad gray eyes and a mouth whose full lips curved sorrowfully down.  Her complexion was the colorless, magnolia-leaf sort that is typically Southern; her dark hair lay in thick locks on her forehead as if always damp with emotion; her swaying, slender figure seemed to appeal to masculine strength; and the voice that drawled a syllable to twice its length here, to slide over mouthfuls of words there, had an upward inflection at the end of sentences that brought tears to one’s eyes.  There was no pose about her, but the whole effect of her was pathetic—­illogically, for she caught the glint of humor from every side light of life, which means pleasure that other people miss.  The old warning against vice says that we “first endure, then pity, then embrace”; but Lindsay differed from vice so far that people never had to