# The Traitor (Dixon, 1907)/Book 1/Chapter 10

STEVE HOYLE had cut down his men and hustled them out of town before eight o'clock, but the news rapidly spread and had thrown the people into a tremor of wonder as to the meaning of the events of the night. Evidently there had been a clash of forces within the ranks of the Invisible Empire. What did it mean? Steve had lost no time in explaining to the desperadoes from the hills what they wished to know, and they had left with deep muttered curses against their former Commander-in-chief.
The outrage on Nickaroshinski had aroused the fiercest passions between the friends of John Graham and Steve Hoyle. Excited groups stood on every corner and it was with the utmost difficulty that John succeeded finally in dispersing them without a clash.
At one o'clock Larkin called at the old Graham mansion and announced to Aunt Julie Ann his desire to see the Judge.
"Ye can't see 'im," was her contemptuous answer.
​Larkin had captured Isaac, but his influence had not reached his wife. For any white man who stayed at a Negro's house her contempt was beyond words. That the house happened to be her husband's only aggravated the offence.
"I must see him," urged Larkin.
"He's in bed sick, I tell ye!"
"But you had'nt told me," protested the Carpetbagger.
"Well I tells ye now. De Judge ain't lif' his head offen de piller ter-day. De ghosts wuz here agin las' night—an' you'd better be a movin' 'fore Miss Stella find you here. She sick de dog on you."
Larkin took a threatening step toward her and said in low tones:
"Shut your mouth, and tell the Judge I'm here to see him on important business. I'm not going out of this house until I do seehim. Tell him so."
Aunt Julie Ann turned muttering and slowly climbed the stairs to Butler's room.
In a moment the Judge came down, hastily dressed in a faded slouchy dressing-gown and a pair of bedroom slippers.
"Is it possible!" exclaimed Larkin," that you know nothing of what's happened here within the past twenty-four hours?"
​"I've been sick in bed. Haven't left the house," was the nervous reply.
"Well, it's time you knew at least what is going on in the house."
The Judge shivered and glanced up into the galleries.
"What do you mean?" he feebly asked.
Larkin rapidly sketched to him the events which had thrown the town into a ferment.
"But what I called for," observed the Carpetbagger, "was to enquire, as your political adviser, whether you really intend to permit your daughter to receive here to-night this gang of masked cutthroats as your guests?"
The Judge rose trembling.
"My daughter receive the Ku Klux Klan here to-night?" he gasped.
"She has invited them, and in spite of the excitement it is rumoured that they will promptly appear in full costume at ten o'clock."
"Impossible, Larkin, impossible! They won't dare such a thing. Besides, of course, my daughter will stop it."
"How can she stop it? Her invitation was by their sign of the scarlet bow. They have devised no signal to stop such a festival."
"She must find a way at once," cried the Judge excitedly, "otherwise we must wire for troops."
​"It's too late."
"We'll order a special if necessary. I'll call my daughter at once."
Larkin rose as if to go.
"Wait," continued the Judge, "I wish you to be present."
He summoned Maggie, sent for Stella, and picked up his mail lying on the centre table, and opened it with fumbling nervous fingers while awaiting his daughter's appearance.
The Carpetbagger smiled contemptuously at his lack of good breeding, and studied the room while the Judge read his letters.
"I see here some friend has written me a warning against the dangers of such a meeting," cried Butler, his beady eyes dancing with excitement. "We must stop it, Larkin, we must stop it!"
Maggie slowly descended the stairs.
"Well, well, where's your mistress?" spluttered the Judge.
"Miss Stella say she busy tryin' on a dress an' she can't come now."
Butler turned on Maggie with sudden fury.
"Go back, you little black imp of the devil, and tell her to come down immediately! Immediately, I say!"
"Yassah! Yassah!" Maggie panted. She turned back up the stairs jumping three steps at ​a time, and fell sprawling across the top landing. She reached Stella's room gasping for breath.
Stella turned leisurely from her mirror.
"What on earth's the matter, Maggie?"
"De Jedge say ef you doan come dar dis minute he gwine ter come up here and slap yo head off!"
"As bad as that, Maggie?"
"Yassam. He flung a big book at me an' hit me right in the head jes case I tell im what you say. Didn't ye hear it?"
Stella continued deliberately curling the ringlets about the edges of her raven hair.
"Go back and tell him I'll be down in a minute."
"Yassum. I spec he kill me dis time."
Stella finished her hair, sat down by the window and read a novel for ten minutes and then slowly descended the stairs.
The Judge sat slouching low in his chair, and Larkin rose with the instinctive impulse of a gentleman on Stella's appearance.
The girl stared coldly at her father, noted his dressing-gown, turned hastily toward the stairs and began to ascend.
"Excuse me," she said to him with pointed insolence, "I thought you were waiting to receive me."
"Look here, my child, I've no time for silly ​nonsense!" the Judge exclaimed, adjusting the folds of his slouchy robe.
"When you have completed your toilet," she said with a sneering little smile, "I'll come at once. Please let me know."
"Stella!" sternly called her father.
The girl continued without turning her head and disappeared on the floor above.
"A stickler for social forms, Larkin," said the Judge petulantly, rising.
"I see," said the Carpetbagger with amusement.
"I'll have to humour her. Wait for me. We must stop it."
When at length the Judge returned and confronted Stella he was unnerved, while she stood staring at him with a hard glitter in her great brown eyes, complete mistress of every faculty she possessed.
"My child," began Butler, "Larkin tells me that you have invited the Ku Klux raiders to dance here to-night."
"I have," was the cool answer.
"But my dear, you should have consulted me."
"You made me the mistress of this house; why should I consult you about a harmless social gathering of my friends?"
"The Klan is a secret order of assassins and desperadoes."
​"Please father, don't!" she interrupted. "Your politics disgust me. These boys are of the best families in town."
"How can you know this?" pleaded the Judge. "They come disguised. Not one of them has ever made himself known."
"Which makes the romance of such a visit all the deeper."
"And its dangers all the greater, my child. Mr. Larkin has come to warn me."
"I agree with your father, Miss Stella," said Larkin with a grave bow.
The girl tossed her head with contempt.
"And I have in my hand a letter of warning from an unknown friend," continued Butler.
"But you are not really afraid?" cried the girl with scorn. "I refuse to believe my own father the contemptible coward your enemies have called you."
"Have you heard of the criminal outrages committed last night by those masked raiders?"
"They do not interest me."
"You must remember, my dear, that I have sworn to send these men to the gallows."
"I can't help your political bluster. I refuse to sacrifice my social career and insult my friends for your dirty politics."
"And you can not see that the presence of ​these masked men in this house would be a mortal insult to me?"
"Certainly not. A crowd of gay masqueraders who come to do me honour."
"You must stop it, my child."
"It is impossible now. My friends are getting ready. I've hired a band."
"You refuse to respect my wishes?"
"I refuse to make a fool of myself!"
"Come, my dear, you must be reasonable know I've spoiled you. I've loved you too well. I've indulged every whim of your heart and allowed you to rule me, but you can't do this absurd and dangerous thing. You forget that you are not only making a fool of me but that you are putting my life in jeopardy."
"I'll assume the responsibility!" she broke in, drawing herself up with pride. "If you receive the slightest insult or a hair of your head is harmed I'll give my life to avenge it."
"You persist?" asked her father with a scowl.
"I do," flashed the answer.
The Judge rose, hesitated a moment and then said with stern determination:
"Then for the first time in my life, I forbid you a thing on which you have set your heart. These masked men shall not enter my house!"
Stella's eyes flashed fire.
​"They shall come!" she cried.
"Larkin," said the Judge, turning to the Carpetbagger, "I shall have to ask you to go to the telegraph office and order the troops here on a special. Ask them to protect me to-night from these assassins."
Stella's figure suddenly stiffened with incontrollable rage. She clenched her fists and sprang in front of her father screaming.
"Don't you dare insult me—by applying such epithets to my friends! If you are my father, you are a poltroon and a coward!"
"Stella, my darling!" gasped the Judge.
"Don't you call me darling! Don't you dare to speak to me again! I'll leave this house and blot your very name from my memory!"
Butler staggered back in dumb amazement and Larkin watched with a curious smile playing about the corners of his piercing eyes.
Stella stamped her foot, turned, and bounded up the stairs and into her room, slammed the door and began to scream.
The Judge stood for a moment in speechless horror. He had never crossed her imperious will before and he was utterly unprepared for her mad outburst. He loved her with all the tenderness of which his low nature was capable, and had never seen a woman in hysterics. He had therefore ​no standard by which to measure how much of pure devil and how much of real suffering were mingled in her cries. Each piercing scream tore his heart. He turned helplessly to Larkin and asked:
"What shall I do?"
"Excuse me Judge, I can't advise you in such a matter," the Carpetbagger replied. "But I think you'll have to summon a doctor."
"My God, is she in danger?" he asked, in a stupor of pain. "I'll go up and see."
He shuffled up the stairs as quickly as possible, and hurried into her room without knocking.
Stella sprang from the bed where she lay moaning, laughing and crying, and flew at him, stamping and screaming:
"Don't you come near me. Don't you touch me! Don't you speak to me! Get out of this room!"
"But my dear," stammered the Judge.
"Get out of this room—get out of this room! or I'll jump out of that window and kill myself!"
She seized him by the arm, hustled and pushed him out of the door; slammed and locked it. Again she threw herself on the bed and burst into strangling groans.
The Judge retreated to the hall below, his eyes filled with tears, his heart sick with terror. He dropped into a seat, covered his face with his hands and sat for a moment in stupid pain.
​Maggie suddenly plunged down the stairs yelling:
"Goddermighty, ye better run fur de doctor quick—Miss Stella dying! She done choke ter death!"
"I'll bring the doctor," said Larkin, rising quickly.
"Run and bring Aunt Julie Ann!" whispered the Judge to Maggie.
The maid met Aunt Julie Ann who had heard the commotion and the two hurried back to Stella's room.
When the doctor came she refused to see him, and he left in a rage. The Judge begged Larkin to stay until he could see his daughter.
An hour later, propped up in bed with Maggie rubbing one hand and Aunt Julie Ann the other, she permitted her father to enter and receive her pardon. The Judge knelt by the bedside, kissed her hand and wet it with tears. His surrender was abject. He sent Larkin away and promised to be present at the ball and treat the whole thing as a schoolboys' frolic.
And then she smiled and kissed him.
"If I'm only strong enough to dress by ten o'clock!" she cried, laughing.
"Try to eat something, dear," urged her father.
She promised and asked Aunt Julie Ann to ​send her a little soup. She got the soup and with it a substantial meal.
Still and catlike, Maggie watched her eat it down to the last crumb with quiet enjoyment. When the black maid picked up the tray she walled her eyes first at the empty dishes and then at her wonderful little mistress and softly giggled.