"Mr. Hugh's looking for you, out forward. The commodore and the captain are both sick."
As the announcement drew his quick glance she almost waved him to go. Yet what was done was done; with Phyllis recognized, it might be far better for him to remain, and she turned her dismissing gesture into one of detention.
"I'm Miss Hayle," she whispered, while both looked again toward Julian and "Harriet." "That's my old mammy back yonder. I want my twin brothers. Mom-a wants them, up in the texas, as quick as--never mind, here they come."
Ramsey was mistaken--her brothers were staying. The play's first act was done, there was great clapping and thumping and the curtain was falling--or closing, in two parts from opposite sides, eased over sticking-points by nimble efforts behind it; but though Julian--who evidently had been getting through the general's courtesy the indulgence denied him at the bar--had moved a step or so from his chair, Lucian remained seated. Next them sat the general and the senator, and the four were debating together. Oddly enough, the twins were in disaccord, and while Lucian had the senator's approval the general's went to his brother. The applause died out prematurely and the whole company gave its attention to the debate, Ramsey sinking into the clerk's seat and laughing merrily--since it was laugh or perish.
"No, gentlemen," she heard Julian say, "this is the last-st st-straw. A nigger wench made up to counterfeit a member of our family, and the part given her which that member of our family was to have played! ... Overlook--oh, good God, sir, we've done nothing but overlook, every hour of day and night since we started."
From the other three came responses too quiet to be understood. Ramsey half rose toward the clerk and sank again, begging him to carry her errand on to the brothers, and he had softly moved forward as far as to the exhorter when that person, still on his feet, called to Julian:
"Yass! an' thah ah cause to believe said niggeh----"
Two small interruptions came at once, provoking a general laugh: Julian, staring at him in heavy abstraction, said dreamily, "Ho--ho--hold your tongue," while the clerk, at "John the Baptist's" side, gently grasped between the shoulders a fold of his coat, mildly suggested, "Have a seat," and put him so suddenly off his balance that he plumped heavily into his chair--quite enough to rouse the mirth of a company already a trifle nervous. And now Julian was heard again: