It was a curious type of character,--a curious code of honour,--but not phenomenal. It simply showed the effect of climate on a man’s definition of honesty. Doubtless Colonel Yancey considered the syndicate of New Yorkers "damned Yankees," and therefore his legitimate prey. Did not the carpet-baggers rob the South? And, as to getting possession of Guildford, even if only in order to force Carolina to accept him with it--all’s fair in love and war. Doubtless Colonel Yancey was an honourable man in his own eyes, and ready to defend his honour to the death if necessary. Mr. Howard had spent several years in the South, and did not underestimate his personal danger in the coming interview should he impinge on what the colonel was pleased to call his "honour." Mr. Howard felt that he must fortify himself with serpent-wisdom and dove-harmlessness.
For Colonel Yancey was coming home, and Mr. Howard had arranged for a meeting with him without stating his errand.
He was prepared for a confident, even a dignified, bearing in the colonel, but let it be said that he had not looked for the jaunty air with which Colonel Yancey met him when Mr. Howard called at his office at the time appointed. Considering that Colonel Yancey must be aware that Mr. Howard knew of the crookedness of the whole transaction in oil, his audacity was, to say the least, extraordinary when he rose, held out his hand to the older man, and said, genially:
The impertinence of the remark, to say nothing of its bad taste under the circumstances, for a moment staggered even the Northerner’s good breeding, and, for one brief breathing spell, Mr. Howard felt impelled to imperil the whole situation by the trenchant reply:
But his self-control came to his rescue, and with it a determination to master the natural and inevitable irritation which many Northern men feel at being called upon to transact business with a Southern man, and which all Southern men feel when doing business with Northern men. The whole code is different and all the conditions misunderstood. Nor will there be harmony until each endeavours to obtain and comprehend the other’s point of view.
It was only by detaining the conversation upon strictly neutral grounds for a few moments that Mr. Howard was able to see that the fault lay largely with himself. Perhaps Colonel Yancey was unaware that his visitor knew anything of his private history or was at all interested in the Lees. It was only Mr. Howard’s smarting under the real injuries Colonel Yancey had inflicted on Winchester Lee’s children which caused him to resent Colonel Yancey’s assumption of the role which he essayed on all occasions and inevitably with strangers. At first, he was the bland, suave, genial, open-hearted Southerner. But at the first hint of Mr. Howard’s errand, the openness snapped shut. The thin lips were compressed, the crafty eyes narrowed, and Colonel Wayne Yancey, like a pirate craft, "prepared to repel boarders."