She drew her horse to a stop.  The country road was quiet.  The hush of the starry August night was over all.

“Mr. Thornton,” she said, looking him squarely in the eyes, “with all due respect to the mighty masculine, I believe you are in need of a few suggestions from a woman’s standpoint.  You haven’t acquired the art of flattery.  If so, you’d be gallant and say I have just as much acumen as you have honesty.”

“I’ll say it!  It’s so!” he protested.

“No, you’re too late.  I very unmodestly gave myself the compliment.  Now I’m going to tell you where you are wrong in this whole matter, Mr. Thornton.  You are reckoning without the human instruments that you must employ.  I’ll wait just a moment and let that remark sink into your mind.  You are a bit slow about grasping the full purport of remarks, Mr. Harlan Thornton.”  There was a touch of her satiric humor in her tone.  “Now, you don’t fully understand, even yet.  I think I’ll have to illustrate.  I’ve already told you that I’ve watched matters pretty closely at the capital.  I like to see young men come here with ideals and succeed, but, alas, they do not.”

“They let themselves be bought or bribed or bossed, probably,” blurted Harlan.

“I’m not talking about that kind.  They are too obvious and too common.  I complimented my own self.  Now you are insulting yourself by jumping at conclusions.  You should have a better opinion of yourself, sir.  I have.  I do not believe you could be bought or bossed or even coaxed from what you considered your honest duty.  You do not need to assure me.  But you might be convinced, Mr. Thornton—­convinced by good reasons—­that it is not a young man’s duty to ruin his own prospects and his own influence by undertaking something as impracticable as though he tried to be a meteor by holding a candle in his hand and jumping off a roof.  I could praise his imagination, but not his judgment.”

She waited a moment.  She gazed at him with sudden sympathy.

“You are a straightforward young man, used to winning your way by direct means—­axe to the tree, cant-dog to the rolling log, but that isn’t the way in politics.  I know this preachment from me sounds strange.  It may offend you, but you mustn’t allow yourself to be offended.  You have simply quarrelled with the men who have tried to tell you—­it’s no use for your grandfather or my father to talk with you.  Men do quarrel too easily.  I am taking a woman’s advantage of you, sir.  I said I would illustrate.  I will.  One of the finest young men I ever knew came down to the legislature and started in to expose and hold up every appropriation measure that had the least appearance of being padded.  Just straight-out and blunt honesty, you understand.  A little affectation, too.  A bit of self-advertising as well.  But we all excuse a little self-consciousness in youth.  Well, he simply became a red rag to the House.  They sneered and hissed when he stood up.  Just