“What does a man—­a real man—­care for that?” This from the depths of the hammock.

“I, at least, can afford to be careless,” said Kent.  “I am not running for office, and I have nothing to lose, politically or otherwise.”

“Can any man say that truthfully?” Elinor queried.

“I think I can.  I have given no hostages to fortune.”

Penelope lifted the challenge promptly.

“Lord Bacon said that, didn’t he?—­about men marrying.  If he were alive now he wouldn’t need to say it.  Men don’t have to be discouraged.”

“Don’t they?” said Kent.

“No, indeed; they are too utterly selfish for any matrimonial use, as it is.  No, don’t argue with me, please.  I’m fixed—­irrevocably fixed.”

Elinor overtook the runaway conversation and drove it back into the path of her own choosing.

“But I do think you owe it to yourself to be more careful in your public utterances,” she insisted.  “If these men on the other side are only half as unprincipled as your accusations make them out to be, they would not stop short of personal violence.”

“I am not hunting clemency or personal immunity just now,” laughed Kent.  “On the contrary, I am only anxious to make the score as heavy as possible.  And so far from keeping prudently in the background, I’ll confess that I went into this franchise fight chiefly to let the capitol gang know who I am and where I stand.”

A sudden light came into Elinor’s eyes and burned there steadily.  She was of those who lay votive offerings upon the shrine of manly courage.

“One part of me approves as much as another part disapproves,” she said after a time.  “I suppose it isn’t possible to avoid making political enemies; but is it needful to turn them into personal enemies?”

He looked at her curiously.

“I am afraid I don’t know any middle path, not being a politician,” he objected.  “And as for the enmity of these men, I shall count it an honor to win it.  If I do not win it, I shall know I am not succeeding.”

Silence for another little space, which Miss Brentwood broke by saying: 

“Don’t you want to smoke?  You may.”

Kent felt in his pocket.

“I have no cigar.”

She looked past him to the hammock.  “Penelope!” she called softly; and when there was no response she went to spread the hammock rug over her sister.

“You may smoke your pipe,” she said; and when she had passed behind him to her chair she made another concession:  “Let me fill it for you—­you used to.”

He gave her the pipe and tobacco, and by a curious contradiction of terms began to wonder if he ought not to go.  Notwithstanding his frank defiance of Brookes Ormsby, and his declaration of intention in the sentimental affair, he had his own notions about the sanctity of a betrothal.  Mrs. Brentwood had vanished, and Penelope was asleep in the hammock.  Could he trust himself to be decently loyal to Ormsby if he should stay?  Nice questions of conscience had not been troubling him much of late; but this was new ground—­or if not new, so old that it had the effect of being new.