He was not yet
inured to the ways of high finance, and the programme of the cotton
barons, as unfolded that day, lay heavy on his mind, despite all his
philosophy.
"I have had a--full day," he explained to Mrs. Grey.
_Fourteen_
LOVE
The rain was sweeping down in great thick winding sheets. The wind
screamed in the ancient Cresswell oaks and swirled across the swamp in
loud, wild gusts. The waters roared and gurgled in the streams, and
along the roadside. Then, when the wind fell murmuring away, the clouds
grew blacker and blacker and rain in long slim columns fell straight
from Heaven to earth digging itself into the land and throwing back the
red mud in angry flashes.
So it rained for one long week, and so for seven endless days Bles
watched it with leaden heart. He knew the Silver Fleece--his and
Zora's--must be ruined. It was the first great sorrow of his life; it
was not so much the loss of the cotton itself--but the fantasy, the
hopes, the dreams built around it. If it failed, would not they fail?
Was not this angry beating rain, this dull spiritless drizzle, this wild
war of air and earth, but foretaste and prophecy of ruin and
discouragement, of the utter futility of striving? But if his own
despair was great his pain at the plight of Zora made it almost
unbearable. He did not see her in these seven days.
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