Stories like this Case delighted in, but beyond this penchant for the weird and occult, for even childish tales of distant lands, his conversation in general showed no sign of peculiarity or eccentricity. Only once or twice did he startle us. Some visitors to town were among the gathering on his veranda and fell into a discussion of the contrasting qualities of Northerners and Southerners. Inevitably the discussion degenerated into a rather acrimonious and petty citation of all the weak points of each section and a rehash of all the stale sneers at either. The wordy Alabamian who led one side of the altercation descanted on the necessary and inherited vileness of the descendants of the men who burnt the Salem witches. Case had been listening silently. Then he cut in with an emphatic, trenchant directness unusual to him.
“Witches,” he announced, “ought to be burnt always and everywhere.”
We sat a moment startled and mute.
The Alabamian spoke first.
“Do you believe in witches, Sir?” he asked. “I do,” Case affirmed.
“Ever been bewitched?” the Alabamian queried. He was rather young and dogmatically assertive.
“Do you believe in Asiatic cholera?” Case queried in his turn.”
“Certainly, Sir,” the Alabamian asserted.
“Ever had it?” Case inquired meaningly.
“No,” the Alabamian admitted. “No, Sir, never.”
“Ever had yellow fever?” Case questioned him.
“Never, Sir, thank God,” the Alabamian replied fervently.
“Yet I'll bet,” Case hammered at him, “that you would be among the first to join a shot-gun quarantine if an epidemic broke out within a hundred miles of you. You have never had it, but you believe in it with every fiber of your being.
“That's just the way with me. I've never been bewitched, but I believe in witchcraft. Belief in witchcraft is like faith in any one of a dozen fashionable religions, not a subject for argument or proof, but a habit of mind. That's my habit of mind. I won't discuss it, but I've no hesitation about asserting it.
“Witchcraft is like leprosy, both spread among nations indifferent to them, both disappear before unflinching severity. The horror of both among our ancestors abolished both in Europe and kept them from gaining a foothold in this country. Both exist and flourish in other corners of the world, along with other things undreamed of in some complacent philosophies. Leprosy can be repressed only by isolation, the only thing that will abolish witchcraft is fire, fire Sir.”
That finished that discussion. No one said another word on the subject. But it started a round of debates on Case's mental condition, which ran on for days, everywhere except at Case's house, and which brought up all that could be said about personal aloofness, pensioned dogs, exposed revolvers and pig-skin belts.
The mellow fall merged into Indian Summer. The days were short and the afternoons chill. The weather did not permit the evening gatherings on Case's veranda. No more did it allow Mary Kenton to sit in her rocker between the two left-hand columns of the big white portico. Yet it was both noticeable and noticed that she never failed to step out upon that portico, no matter what the weather, each afternoon; that in the twilight or in the late dusk the wave of her hand and the sweep of the horseman's big, broad-brimmed felt hat answered each other unfailingly.
The coterie of Case's chums, friends and hangers-on gathered then mostly around the generous log-fire in his ample drawing-room, when they were not in the card-room, the billiard-room or at table. I made one of that coterie frequently and enjoyed my hours there with undiminished zest. When I dined there I habitually occupied the foot of the long table, facing Case at the head. The hall door of the dining-room was just at my right hand.
One evening in early December I was so seated at the foot of the table. The weather had been barely coolish for some days, the skies had been clear and everything was dry. That night was particularly mild. We had sat down rather early and it was not yet seven o'clock when Pompey began to pass the cigars. No one had yet lit up. Some one had asked Case a question and the table was still listening for his answer. I, like the rest, was looking at him. Then it all happened in a tenth, in a hundredth of the time necessary to tell it; so quickly that, except Case, no one had time to move a muscle.
Case's eyes were on his questioner. I did not see the door open, but I saw his gaze shift to the door, saw his habitual glance of startled uncertainty. But instead of the lightning query of his eyes softening into relief and indifference, it hardened instantaneously into decision. I saw his hand go to his holster, saw the revolver leap out, saw the aim, saw his face change, heard his explosive exclamation:
“Good God, it is!” saw the muzzle kick up as the report crushed our ear drums and through the smoke saw him push back his chair and spring up.
The rest of us were all too dazed to try to stand. Like me they all looked toward the door. There stood Mary Kenton, all in pink, a pink silk opera cloak half off her white shoulders, a single strand of pale coral round her slender throat, a pink pompom in her glossy hair. She was standing as calmly as if nothing had happened, her arms hidden in the cloak, her right hand holding it together in front. Her rings sparkled on her fingers as her breast-pin sparkled on her low corsage.
“Cousin Cassius,” she said, “you have a theatrical way of receiving unexpected visitors.”
“Good God, Mary,” he said. “It is really you. I saw it was really you just in time.
“Of course it is really I,” she retorted. “Whom or what did you think it really was?”
“Not you,” he answered thickly. “Not you.”
His voice died away.
“Now you know it is really I,” she said crisply, “you might at least offer me a chair.” At that the spell of our amazement left us and we all sprang to our feet.
She seated herself placidly to the right of the fireplace.
“I hear your port is excellent,” she said laughingly. Before Case could hand her the glass she wavered a little in the chair, but a mere swallow revived her.
“I had not anticipated,” she said, “so startling a reception.” We stood about in awkward silence.
“Pray ask your guests to be seated, Cousin Cassius,” she begged. “I did not mean to disturb your gaiety.”
We took our chairs, but those on her side of the table were turned outward toward the fireplace, where Case stood facing her.
“I owe you an explanation,” she said easily. “Milly Wilberforce is staying with me and she bet me a box of Maillard's that I would not pay you a call. As I never take a dare, as the weather is fine, and as we have all your guests for chaperons, I thought a brief call between cousins could do no harm.”
“It has not,” said Case fervently; “but it very nearly did. And now will you let me escort you home? The Judge will be anxious about you.”
“Papa doesn't know I am here, of course,” she said. “When he finds out, I'll quiet him. If you won't come to see me, at least I have once come to see you.”