“But I know perfectly well,” he said, bitterly, “that it isn’t any personal interest you take in me that makes you say it.  You don’t think enough of me for that.”  It was resentment so naively boyish that her astonishment checked her remonstrance.  He rushed on.  “You hold up Linton for me to follow.  That’s the kind of a man you admire.  He’s an orator, and he’s smart, and he wins.  I’m only an accident.  You meant that when you said that General Waymouth won out only because matters were mixed up in politics.  You don’t care anything about me, personally.  But you’re talking to me because my grandfather asked you to.  That’s it.”  He guessed shrewdly.

That outburst betrayed him.  This young man from the north country was very human after all, she decided.

“I have said before, this is a campaign of honesty.  Your grandfather did ask me to talk to you.  I didn’t have the heart to refuse him, for I’m very fond of him.”

It was an acknowledgment that stung his pride.  But more than all, it stirred that vague rancor he had felt the first time he had seen Linton appropriate her.

He did not choose gallant words for reply.

“He has set you on me, has he, to pull me away from what I think is right?  He wants me to be like the rest of ’em, eh?  I can be an understudy for Herbert Linton and an errand boy for the State machine!  I didn’t think, Miss Presson, that you—­”

“You’d better not go any further, Mr. Harlan Thornton.  My affection for an old man who has set his heart on your success has brought me into this affair, and I assure you I don’t enjoy the situation.  You are not asked to betray any one, or desert any high moral pinnacle, or do anything else that the moralists say all these fine things about without knowing what they mean half the time.  You are reminded of this:  that there’s only one General Waymouth.  There’s a sudden big call for him because factions have got into a row with each other.  Folks will rally around him for a little while—­it’s a sort of revival sentiment.  But you are not a General Waymouth.  He’ll be excused by sentiment, you’ll simply be branded as one of the common run of ramrodders who try to achieve the impossible with human nature—­a disturbing element in State politics—­and your career will be spoiled.  Now I’ve delivered my message, and done what I promised your grandfather I’d do.”

She turned her horse, and started him back toward town.

There was silence between them for a time.

“So, if I weren’t Thelismer Thornton’s grandson you wouldn’t take any interest in me at all?” he inquired, sourly.

“A very impudent and unnecessary question, Mr. Harlan Thornton.  I’m afraid your grandfather is right—­you have stayed in the woods too long.”

Longer silence.