"Events happened very rapidly with Francis Morgan that late spring morning. If ever a man leaped across time into the raw red drama and tragedy of the primitive and the medieval melodrama of sentiment and passion of the New World Latin Francis Morgan was destined to be that man and Destiny was very immediate upon him. Yet he was lazily unaware that aught in the world was stirring and was scarcely astir himself. A late night at bridge had necessitated a late rising. A late breakfast of fruit and cereal had occurred along the route to the library the austerely elegant room from which his father toward the last had directed vast and ffmanifold affairs."