I shall follow my inclinations."
"Then I hope, sir, that you'll feel inclined to pay us a long visit
and that I shall see you many times."
As Ben Dudley, after this courteous wish, stepped down from the
piazza, Graciella rose and walked with him along the garden path. She
was tall as most women, but only reached his shoulder.
"Say, Graciella," he asked, "won't you give me an answer."
"I'm thinking about it, Ben. If you could take me away from this dead
old town, with its lazy white people and its trifling niggers, to a
place where there's music and art, and life and society--where there's
something going on all the time, I'd _like_ to marry you. But if I did
so now, you'd take me out to your rickety old house, with your daffy
old uncle and his dumb old housekeeper, and I should lose my own mind
in a week or ten days. When you can promise to take me to New York,
I'll promise to marry you, Ben. I want to travel, and to see things,
to visit the art galleries and libraries, to hear Patti, and to look
at the millionaires promenading on Fifth Avenue--and I'll marry the
man who'll take me there!"
"Uncle Malcolm can't live forever, Graciella--though I wouldn't wish
his span shortened by a single day--and I'll get the plantation. And
then, you know," he added, hesitating, "we may--we may find the
money."
Graciella shook her head compassionately. "No, Ben, you'll never find
the money. There isn't any; it's all imagination--moonshine.
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