"You are very good to come with me," he said gravely, when they had reached the road; "perhaps I ought not to have asked you."

"Why?" she asked, with one of her direct looks.

"It was undoubtedly selfish," he said, and added, more lightly, "I don't wish to put you into Mrs. Pomfret's bad graces."

Victoria laughed.

"She thought it her duty to tell father the time you drove me to the Hammonds'. She said I asked you to do it."

"What did he say?" Austen inquired, looking straight ahead of him.

"He didn't say much," she answered. "Father never does. I think he knows that I am to be trusted."

"Even with me?" he asked quizzically, but with a deeper significance.

"I don't think he realizes how dangerous you are," she replied, avoiding the issue. "The last time I saw you, you were actually trying to throw a fat man out of your window. What a violent life you lead, Mr. Vane. I hope you haven't shot any more people--"

"I saw you," he said.

"Is that the way you spend your time in office hours,--throwing people out of the windows?"

"It was only Tom Gaylord."

"He's the man Mr. Jenney said wanted you to be a senator, isn't he?" she asked.

"You have a good memory," he answered her. "Yes. That's the reason I tried to throw him out of the window."

"Why didn't you be a senator?" she asked abruptly. "I always think of you in public life. Why waste your opportunities?"

"I'm not at all sure that was an opportunity. It was only some of Tom's nonsense. I should have had all the politicians in the district against me."

"But you aren't the kind of man who would care about the politicians, surely. If Humphrey Crewe can get elected by the people, I should think you might."

"I can't afford to give garden-parties and buy lemonade," said Austen, and they both laughed. He did not think it worth while mentioning Mr.

Braden.

"Sometimes I think you haven't a particle of ambition," she said. "I like men with ambition."

"I shall try to cultivate it," said Austen.

"You seem to be popular enough."

"Most worthless people are popular, because they don't tread on anybody's toes."

"Worthless people don't take up poor people's suits, and win them,"

she said. "I saw Zeb Meader the other day, and he said you could be President of the United States."

"Zeb meant that I was eligible--having been born in this country," said Austen. "But where did you see him?"

"I--I went to see him."

"All the way to Mercer?"

"It isn't so far in an automobile," she replied, as though in excuse, and added, still more lamely, "Zeb and I became great friends, you know, in the hospital."

He did not answer, but wondered the more at the simplicity and kindness in one brought up as she had been which prompted her to take the trouble to see the humblest of her friends: nay, to take the trouble to have humble friends.

The road wound along a ridge, and at intervals was spread before them the full glory of the September sunset,--the mountains of the west in blue-black silhouette against the saffron sky, the myriad dappled clouds, the crimson fading from the still reaches of the river, and the wine-colour from the eastern hills. Both were silent under the spell, but a yearning arose within him when he glanced at the sunset glow on her face: would sunsets hereafter bring sadness?

His thoughts ran riot as the light faded in the west. Hers were not revealed. And the silence between them seemed gradually to grow into a pact, to become a subtler and more intimate element than speech. A faint tang of autumn smoke was in the air, a white mist crept along the running waters, a silver moon like a new-stamped coin rode triumphant in the sky, impatient to proclaim her glory; and the shadows under the ghost-like sentinel trees in the pastures grew blacker. At last Victoria looked at him.

"You are the only man I know who doesn't insist on talking," she said.

"There are times when--"

"When there is nothing to say," he suggested.

She laughed softly. He tried to remember the sound of it afterwards, when he rehearsed this phase of the conversation, but couldn't.

"It's because you like the hills, isn't it?" she asked. "You seem such an out-of-door person, and Mr. Jenney said you were always wandering about the country-side."

"Mr. Jenney also made other reflections about my youth," said Austen.

She laughed again, acquiescing in his humour, secretly thankful not to find him sentimental.

"Mr. Jenney said something else that--that I wanted to ask you about,"

she went on, breathing more deeply. "It was about the railroad."

"I am afraid you have not come to an authority," he replied.

"You said the politicians would be against you if you tried to become a State senator. Do you believe that the politicians are owned by the railroad?"

"Has Jenney been putting such things into your head?"

"Not only Mr. Jenney, but--I have heard other people say that. And Humphrey Crewe said that you hadn't a chance politically, because you had opposed the railroad and had gone against your own interests."

Austen was amazed at this new exhibition of courage on her part, though he was sorely pressed.

"Humphrey Crewe isn't much of an authority, either," he said briefly.

"Then you won't tell me?" said Victoria. "Oh, Mr. Vane," she cried, with sudden vehemence, "if such things are going on here, I'm sure my father doesn't know about them. This is only one State, and the railroad runs through so many. He can't know everything, and I have heard him say that he wasn't responsible for what the politicians did in his name. If they are bad, why don't you go to him and tell him so? I'm sure he'd listen to you."

"I'm sure he'd think me a presumptuous idiot," said Austen. "Politicians are not idealists anywhere--the very word has become a term of reproach.

Undoubtedly your father desires to set things right as much as any one else--probably more than any one."

"Oh, I know he does," exclaimed Victoria.

"If politics are not all that they should be," he went on, somewhat grimly, with an unpleasant feeling of hypocrisy, "we must remember that they are nobody's fault in particular, and can't be set right in an instant by any one man, no matter how powerful."