At supper, which they were pleased to stay for when Deborah added her urging to that of Leon, they renewed their acquaintance with Selma. She was still a child, dressed and looked like a child, but something about her appeared to challenge Bonard, for he paid her more than polite attention. When he saw that it was beginning to make her shy and abrupt in her replies, he began to speak to the whole table about a company of actors that had come to Savannah last winter and performed several plays of Shakespeare. Everyone except Rooster listened with interest. Rooster was bored, knew his brother was putting on airs, and absent-mindedly smacked his lips as he consumed his food. Selma followed Bonard’s account closely, looking at the food on her plate the while, but eating little of it, ever attentive to the handsome visitor. She had decided that he was indeed handsome, and that his dark, lean face was sensitive. Something of her reaction was noticed by Deborah, who reflected, not for the first time but for the first time with more than idle hope, that the alliance of the two plantations by marriage would be as natural an occurrence as it could be advantageous.

When there was a pause, she addressed herself to Bonard. “What does your father say to the building of the cotton gin in Highboro?”

Bonard laughed. “He’s all in favor, ma’am—as long as someone else puts up the money!”

Only Leon and his father smiled at that. Rooster stared at his brother uncomprehendingly. Frowning, Deborah said, “Indeed? Mr. Kendrick has all but decided to make a considerable investment in the building of it.”

Rooster grinned, relieved. “So has Pa. It’s Mama that’s holding us back. She’s against anything that takes money off the land.”

“But surely,” Deborah said, “she can see the logic of having a cotton gin in Highboro? Think of the cost and time of wagon-freighting the raw cotton to Savannah to be ginned. If we did it here, one freight wagon might carry several bales of ginned cotton. To say nothing of—” She was suddenly aware as she looked down the table that no one cared about what she was saying, except Rooster who nodded his head eagerly in agreement. Arnold was looking at her with near anger, the humiliated man look he got sometimes when she expressed herself forcefully on business matters, instead of pretending to take her lead from him, like a flower facing and following the path of the sun. She reached for the silver hand bell above her plate and rang it loudly, as much from irritation as to summon the serving maid. “Won’t anyone have more chicken? Or ham? Mr. Davis?” Bonard declined with a shake of his head and a smile. “Rooster, surely you—?”

“No, thank you, ma’am,” he said.