in blind rage they voted for every appropriation he opposed.  He did much more harm than he did good.  He didn’t get his own appropriations for the district he represented.  And it killed him in politics and in his law business.  The happy people did not acclaim him as their faithful watchdog of the treasury.  They merely pronounced him a bore with a swelled head.  You see, I can talk political talk with all the phrases, Mr. Thornton.”

“But he was right, wasn’t he—­fundamentally right?”

“He meant to be right—­that’s the term to use.  But he forgot that he must use human instruments in order to accomplish anything.  And he just failed miserably.”

“What would you expect him to do—­join in, and be just like the others?  Where would any good come out of anything?”

“Now, you are insisting again that there is good only on one side of the question.  That’s bigotry.  It’s what I’m trying to warn you against.  Some one has said that life is compromise.  It’s true of politics, if you’re going to get the most out of it.  I know what you are undertaking.  General Waymouth hasn’t left much to the imagination in his letter.  And I’ve talked with others.  And so I know how visionary you are.”

“You’ve talked with Linton—­that’s the one you’ve talked with!” declared Harlan, indignantly.  “And if he’s told you what I have told him in confidence he’s more of a sneak than I’ve already found him out to be.”

“Mr. Linton did not consider that you were making any secret of your principles.  And you’ll excuse me, but I think his principles are exactly as good as yours.  You are talking now like the ramrodders.  Their first retort to any one who differs with them is to call names.”

“But he deserted General Waymouth under fire.  He promised, and went back on that promise.”

“According to all political good sense and in any other times but these, when men seem to be running wild, General Waymouth was politically out of the game.  It’s all fine and grand in story-books, Mr. Thornton, for the hero to sacrifice everything for his ideals, but in these very practical days he’s only classed as a fool and kicked to one side.”

“You defend Linton, then?  Is that the kind of a man you hold up as a success, Miss Presson?” His grudge showed in his tone.

“You will please understand, sir, that we are not discussing theories just now.  This isn’t a question of what the world ought to be.  It’s the plain fact about what a man must be if he’s to get results.  You and I both have heard your grandfather say many times that he’d like to play politics with angels—­if only he could find the angels.  It’s hard to own up, when you’re young, that human nature is just as it is.  I understand how you feel.  I know you feel it’s a very strange thing for me to do—­talk to you like this.  But I want you to understand that my father has had nothing to do with it.”

He turned to her accusingly.