Again the clamor of applause rose like fine dust on the throng-heated air, and Kent looked at his watch.

“It is time we were going,” he said; adding:  “I guess you have had enough of it, haven’t you?”

Loring was silent for the better part of the way back to the railway station.  When he spoke it was in answer to a delayed question of Kent’s.

“What do I think of him?  I don’t know, David; and that’s the plain truth.  He is not the man he appears to be as he stands there haranguing that crowd.  That is a pose, and an exceedingly skilful one.  He is not altogether apparent to me; but he strikes me as being a man of immense possibilities—­whether for good or evil, I can’t say.”

“You needn’t draw another breath of uncertainty on that score,” was the curt rejoinder.  “He is a demagogue, pure and unadulterated.”

Loring did not attempt to refute the charge.

“Are he and his party likely to win?” he asked.

“God knows,” said Kent.  “We have had so many lightning transformations in politics in the State that nothing is impossible.”

“I’d like to know,” was Loring’s comment.  “It might make some difference to me, personally.”

“To you?” said Kent, inquiringly.  “That reminds me:  I haven’t given you a chance to say ten words about yourself.”

“The chance hasn’t been lacking.  But my business out here is—­well, it isn’t exactly a Star Chamber matter, but I’m under promise in a way not to talk about it until I have had a conference with our people at the capital.  I’ll write you about it in a few days.”

They were ascending the steps at the end of the passenger platform again, and Loring broke away from the political and personal entanglement to give Kent one more opportunity to hear his word of negative comfort.

“We dug up the field of recollection pretty thoroughly in our after-dinner seance in your rooms, David, but I noticed there was one corner of it you left undisturbed.  Was there any good reason?”

Kent made no show of misunderstanding.

“There was the excellent reason which must have been apparent to you before you had been an hour in Gaston.  I’ve made my shot, and missed.”

Loring entered the breach with his shield held well to the fore.  He was the last man in the world to assault a friend’s confidence recklessly.

“I thought a good while ago, and I still think, that you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill, David.  Elinor Brentwood is a true woman in every inch of her.  She is as much above caring for false notions of caste as you ought to be.”

“I know her nobility:  which is all the more reason why I shouldn’t take advantage of it.  We may scoff at the social inequalities as much as we please, but we can’t laugh them out of court.  As between a young woman who is an heiress in her own right, and a briefless lawyer, there are differences which a decent man is bound to efface.  And I haven’t been able.”