“Governor,” stammered the young man, still holding the document at arm’s-length, “wouldn’t it be—­don’t you think a—­a—­some representative who has had more experience than I should be the one to see this bill through?”

“I want that bill sponsored by a man that I can trust absolutely.  I’m sure of you, Harlan!  When once it is introduced I’ll see that you have plenty of help before the committee and on the floor.”

It had come like a thunderclap on a moonlit night.  It was sudden tempest prefaced by the lull of perfect calm.  It was the signal to combat sounded when peace seemed assured.  The young man perceived now how much of his early zeal had deserted him.  He shrank from the task the Governor had assigned to him.  It was a blow that was aimed at the tenderest point of his own party; it was obliging the party, as the dominant power, to thrust upon the mass of the people the radical execution of a law which public opinion secretly opposed—­that opinion even slyly welcoming the breach of it.  And Governor Waymouth had emphasized what that new measure meant by citing the name of Luke Presson.  It set the situation before Harlan in a flash.  He was summoned to carry out his pledge of loyalty to Governor Waymouth by attacking the pet policy of nullification that kept his own party off the shoals to which extreme radicalism would surely drive it.  The first man who would be hit—­both as chairman of the party State Committee and in his personal interests—­would be the man whose daughter he was seeking.  Harlan wondered how that marriage proposal would sound, either on the heels or on the eve of the introduction of “the Thornton bill.”

His uncertainty showed so plainly in his face that the Governor walked around his table and scrutinized him closely.

“My boy,” he asked, “has the enemy captured you while you’ve been resting on your arms?  Remember, there are slick and specious ways of making the wrong seem right in politics!  I hope you haven’t been tampered with!”

For a guilty moment Harlan remembered the admonitions of Madeleine Presson.  He was promptly ashamed that they had come to his mind when the Governor spoke his fears.

“I’m going to tell you just why I’m a bit slow in this matter,” he said, manfully.  “It may seem a trivial reason to you, Governor Waymouth.  I stopped to wonder how it would affect my friendship with the Presson family if I should introduce that bill.”

“Oh, I see how the land lies!  You can understand now how old I am—­old and cold with all the romance burned out of me!  I’d forgotten that there’s anything except politics left in the world.  So—­” He paused, beaming kindly on the young man, and pursing his lips ready for the jocose supposition that Harlan foresaw and anticipated.

“No,” he declared, flushing, “it isn’t that way.  It hasn’t gone that far, Governor.  I ask your pardon for mentioning my personal affairs, especially an affair of this sort.  But I should be very sorry to break off my friendship with the Pressons.”