events.

He arose, folding his paper, and walked toward the stairs leading down to the grill. The governors' meeting was not until eleven o'clock. After breakfast, he would talk with some of the Memphis political leaders and telephone Governor Gentry. He was in a delicate position here, representing a state that did not think exactly as he did.

As he reached the steps, a dark-haired woman, dressed in misty blue for the morning, approached from the elevators. He stepped aside to let her precede him. Then they recognized each other.

"Piquette!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know you were in Memphis."

The quadroon flashed a smile and a sparkle of black eyes at him.

"I knew you were here," she said, gesturing at his newspaper.

He hesitated, uncertain whether she was just countering his own remark or telling him that he was her reason for being here.

"Will you have breakfast with me?" he invited.

"Yes," she answered, and gave him a sidelong glance, "if it's in my room."

He laughed, rich and full-throated. She took his arm and they went back to the elevators together. His heart was lighter now that Piquette was in Memphis with him....

There were eleven Southern governors at the meeting. Governor LeBlanc of Louisiana, like Governor Gentry of Tennessee, had sent a representative in his stead. As representative of the host state, Beauregard opened the meeting, welcomed the visitors and turned over the chairmanship to Governor Dortch of Georgia.

"Gentlemen, there is no point in delaying our principal discussion," said Dortch. "Within the past week, federal troops have moved into a Mississippi city to enforce the Supreme Court's infamous integration decree. For the first time since Reconstruction Days, hostile soldiers are on the soil of a sovereign Southern state. The question before us is, shall we bow to this invasion of states' rights and continue our hopeless fight in the courts, or shall we join hands in resisting force with force?"

Chubby Governor Marsh of Alabama rose to his feet.

"There wouldn't have been any federal troops if it 

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