He saw approaching him over the road a light open carriage with a fringed canopy and a pair of horses driven by a negro in a long white dust coat. In the body of the carriage a diminutive bonneted head was barely visible above an enormous circumference of hoops. Elim saw bobbing gray curls, peering anxious eyes, and a fluttering hand in a black silk-thread mit.
"Gossard," a feminine voice cried shrilly to the driver, at the sight of Elim on the roadside, "here's a Yankee army; lick up those horses!"
The negro swung a vicious whip, the horses started sharply forward, but the carriage wheels, sinking in a deep slough, remained fixed; the harness creaked but held; the equipage remained stationary. The negro dismounted sulkily, and Elim crossed the road and put his shoulder to a wheel. Together with the driver, he lifted the carriage on to a firmer surface. The old lady was seated with tightly shut eyes.
"This here man ain't going to hurt you," the driver exclaimed impatiently. "This exdus is all nonsense anyways," he grumbled. "I got a mind to stop--I'm free."
She directed upon him a beady black gaze.
"You get right into this carriage," she commanded; "you'd be free to starve. You are a fool!" The man reluctantly obeyed her. "I thank you for your clemency," she said to Elim. She fumbled among her flounces and hoops and produced an object carefully wrapped and tied. "Here," she proclaimed; "I can still pay for a service. Gossard--" the carriage moved forward, was lost in the dip in the road. Elim opened the package in his hand and regarded, with something like consternation, a bottle of champagne.
Beyond the wharf the great yellow flood of the river gleamed in the sun; choirs of robins whistled in trees faintly green. Rosemary Roselle was seated with her feet hanging over the water.
"Champagne for breakfast," she observed, shaking her head; "only the most habitual sports manage that." He recounted the episode of the "Yankee army," delighted by her less formal tone, then the old man returned as enigmatically as he had disappeared. The ropes were cast off, the sloop swung out into the current, and their smooth progress was resumed.
A few more hours and they would be at Bramant's Wharf. There, Elim knew, he would be expected to leave Rosemary. There would be a perfunctory gratitude from her relatives, perhaps a warmer appreciation from herself--a moment--a momentary pressure of her hand--and then--where? He would never again come in contact with so exquisite a girl; they were, he realized, customarily held in a circle where men like himself, outsiders, rarely penetrated; once more with her family and he would be forgotten. Anyhow, he had nothing.