his eyes, she gave him her hand.

But Carrington did not quit the mouth of the lane until she had
crossed between the great fields of waving corn, and he had seen
her pass up the hillside beyond to the oak grove, where the four
massive chimneys of Belle Plain house showed their gray stone
copings among the foliage. With this last glimpse of her he
turned away.



CHAPTER XXI

THICKET POINT


It WAS a point with Mr. Ware to see just as little as possible of
Betty. He had no taste for what he called female chatter. A
sane interest in the price of cotton or pork he considered the
only rational test of human intelligence, and Betty evinced
entire indifference where those great staples were concerned,
hence it was agreeable to him to have most of his meals served in
his office.

At first Betty had sought to adapt herself to his somewhat
peculiar scheme of life, but Tom had begged her not to regard
him, his movements from hour to hour were cloaked in uncertainty.
The man who had to overlook the labor of eighty or ninety field
hands was the worst sort of a slave himself; the niggers knew
when they could sit down to a meal; he never did.