Hugh MacRae steered Sam through the shadowy breezeway and toward the dining room. MacRae was a lean-faced man with a high forehead and penetrating eyes. They’d both been born during the last year of the Civil War, but Sam thought of Hugh as older, since his business affairs were so important. Sam had met him for the first and only time almost ten years earlier, in Philadelphia, where Hugh was trying to buy hotels. Hugh had started and managed half a dozen corporations, most of them concerned with land development. He wanted to fill in the swamps east of Wilmington and build houses, factories, whole colonies. He had a vision.

“I believe in two things, Sam,” he said, after they exchanged preliminaries. “Family and land. A man has to take care of his own people. And his people belong to the land.”

Hugh MacRae looked as if he’d just leaped down from a horse after a fast, hard ride. His receding hair was mussed, his cheeks had high color. He impressed Sam as an energetic man always on the move, restless and easily bored. He had all sorts of deals working, all sorts of plans. He was an M.I.T. graduate, a self-made tycoon, a real-estate speculator. He was director of the National Bank of Wilmington. He was owner and president of Wilmington Cotton Mills, the second-largest cotton compress in town, after Sprunts’ Champion Compress. He owned parcels of land all over the county and was busily buying up more.

“The only real standard of wealth is land,” he explained. “They’re not making any more land.” His pet project was to build immigrant communities on the outskirts of town—Italian, German, Hungarian, Dutch. Separate enclaves of working men and women. Utopian labor communities. “White immigration,” he said, “that will solve the race problem in the South once and for all.”

Sam said, “I’m not sure I follow.” They stood at the entrance to the dining room. The white maitre d’ hurried over from another table and bowed.

As they were led to their table, Hugh said, “A question of numbers. Right now, the numbers are way out of proportion. Part of it is our own fault—hell, we brought them here to work the rice plantations. But that’s not the whole story.”

Colonel Waddell passed by on his way out. “Good to see you again, sir.” Sam held out his hand.

“If you’ll excuse us,” MacRae said. “Busy afternoon ahead.”

They settled at their table. As the Negro waiter poured ice water into crystal stem glasses, MacRae observed, “That old boy Waddell was really something once. Politician. Orator. By God, he could really get your blood up. Now, well, events have sort of passed him by.”

Before Sam could say anything, MacRae said, “I was surprised to get your letter. But it gave me an opportunity. You’ll be an asset to this community.”