With a glance at the window, where twilight was falling, Stephen rose, and held out his hand.  “I shall remember your frankness,” he said, “the next time I hear you speak.  That, I hope, will be soon.”

“And you will wait until then to be converted?”

“I shall wait until then to be wholly convinced.”

“Well, Darrow may have better results.  You go with Darrow?”

“If he will take me?” The deference with which the old man had inspired the Governor showed in Stephen’s manner.  “I shall be grateful for a lift on the way home.”

Darrow had risen also; and after shaking hands with Vetch, he looked back at the younger man from the doorway.  “I’ll have my Ford round here in five minutes.  Meet me at the nearest gate.”

He went out hurriedly; and as Stephen followed him, after the delay of a few minutes, he found himself face to face with Patty, who was coming from “the blue room” on the opposite side of the hall.

“I hope you got what you came for,” she said gaily.

“I came for nothing,” he retorted lightly, “and I’m sure I got it.”

“Well, that won’t matter so much since it wasn’t for yourself,” she mocked.  “Nobody ever wants anything for himself in politics.  Father could tell you that.”

“He told me a good many things—­but not that.”

“Did he tell you,” she inquired daringly, “why he is falling out with Julius Gershom?”

“Is he falling out with him?”

“Didn’t you see it—­and hear it—­when you came in?”

“I suspected as much; but after all it was none of my business.”

“And you confine your curiosity to your own business?”

“Not entirely,” he answered, and wondered if she were experimenting with the letter “C”.  “For instance I am curious about you.”

Her eyes challenged him with their old defiance.  “And I am certainly not your business.”

“I admit that you are not—­but that does not decrease my curiosity.”

For a moment her smile grew wistful.  “And what, I wonder,” she asked, with the faintest quiver of her cherry-coloured lips, “would you like to know?”

“Oh, everything!” he replied unhesitatingly.  There was no longer in his mind the slightest wish to avoid the approaching flirtation.  On the contrary, he felt he should welcome it, if she would only continue to look like this.  She was not beautiful—­yet he realized that she did not need beauty when she could play so easily with a look or a smile on the heartstrings.  A rush of tenderness overwhelmed his reserve at the very instant when her lashes trembled and drooped, and she murmured in a whisper that enchanted him:  “Oh, but everything is too little.”  Though it was only the old lure of youth and sex, he felt that it was as divinely fresh and wonderful as first love.

“Is it too little?” he asked, and his voice sounded so far off that it was faint in his ears.