“I shall certainly not owe my second to you,” responded the governor; then he looked vacantly before him.  “I have the pleasure to wish you good morning,” he said.

When Rann had gone, and the door had slammed after him, Galt turned, with a laugh.

“Shake!” he exclaimed, and as Nicholas grasped his hand, added lightly, “My dear friend, you may as well have a quiet conscience, since you’ll never have the senatorship.”

Nicholas drew his hand away impatiently.  “I’m not beaten yet,” he said.  “I’ll fight and I’ll win, or my name’s not Burr!  Do you think I’m afraid of a sneak like that?  Why, he offered me the senatorship as coolly as if he had it in his pocket!”

Galt laughed.  “I’m not sure he hasn’t; at any rate he’s the power of the ring, and the ring’s the power of the party.”

“Then I’ll fight the ring,” said Nicholas, “and, if need be, I’ll fight the party.  So long as right and the people are with me the party may go hang.”

“My dear old Nick, history teaches us that the party hangs the people.  By the way, you’ve done Webb a good turn; Rann is going to fight you fair and foul—­mostly foul.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid of Rann, or of Webb.”

“Or yet of the devil!” added Galt.  “When I come to think of it, I never called you timid.  But wait a few days and Rann will have this little passage reported to his credit.  I’ll get ahead of him with the story, or I’ll find some cocked-up account of it circulating in the lobby.  It’s easier to blacken the best man than to whiten the worst.  Well, I’m going.  Good day!”

When the door closed, the governor crossed to the window and stood looking down upon the gray drive beneath the leafless trees.  The sun was obscured by a sinister cloud that had blotted out all the fugitive brightness of the morning.  A fine moisture was in the air, and the atmosphere hung heavily down the naked slopes, where the grass was colourless and dead.  Beyond the gates, the city was lost in a blurred and melancholy distance, from which several indistinct church spires rose and sank in a sea of fog.

But blue and gray were as one to Nicholas.  He was not exhilarated by sunshine nor was he depressed by gloom; only the inner forces of his nature had power to quicken or control his moods.  His inspiration, like his destiny, lay within, and so long as he maintained his wonted equilibrium of judgment and desire it was, perhaps, impossible that an outside assault should severely shake the foundations of his life.

Now, while the glow of his anger still lingered in his brain, it was characteristic of the man that he was feeling a pity for Rann’s disappointment—­for the discomfiture of one whose methods he despised.  In Rann’s place, he felt that he should probably have risen to the charge as Rann rose—­implacable, unswerving; but he was not in Rann’s place, nor could he be so long as personal reward was less to him than personal honour.  Yes, he could pity