“I haven’t thought much about her yet.  She’s the kind that won’t let you get near enough in a single sitting to think much about her, isn’t she?”

“She is a young woman with an exceedingly bright mind and a very high purpose,” was the little lady’s summing-up of Patricia.  “But she isn’t altogether a Boston iceberg.  She thinks she is irrevocably in love with her chosen career; but, really, I believe she is very much in love with Evan.  If we could manage to win her over to our side as an active ally—­”

This time the senator’s smile broadened into a laugh.

“You are away yonder out of my depth now,” he chuckled.  “Does your course of treatment for the boy include large doses of the young woman, administered frequently?”

“Oh, no,” was the instant reply.  “I was only wondering if it wouldn’t be well to enroll her—­enlist her sympathies, you know.”

“Why not?—­if you think best?  You’re the fine-haired little wire-puller, and it’s all in your hands.”

“Will you give me carte-blanche to do as I please?” asked the small plotter.

“Sure!” said the Honorable David heartily, adding:  “You can always outfigure me, two to one, when it comes to the real thing.  You’ve made a fine art of it, Honoria, and I’ll turn the steering-wheel over to you any day in the week.”

When she looked up she was smiling in the way which had made Evan Blount wonder, in that midnight meeting at Wartrace Hall, how she could look so young and yet be so wise.

“You deal with people in the mass, David, and no one living can do it better.  I am like most women, I think:  I deal with the individual.  That is all the difference.  When do the Annerses go out to the fossil-beds?”

“I don’t know; any time when you will invite them to make Wartrace their headquarters, I reckon.”

“Then I think it will be to-morrow,” decided the confident mistress of policies.  “It won’t do to let Evan see too much of Patricia until after his course of treatment is well under way.  Shall we make it to-morrow?  And will you telephone Dawkins to bring down the biggest car?  I have a notion wandering around in my head somewhere that Miss Patricia Anners will stand a little judicious impressing.  She is exceedingly democratic, you know—­in theory.”

IX

THE RANK AND FILE

Considerably to his surprise, and no less to his satisfaction, the newly appointed “division counsel,” as his title ran, was not required to take over the old legal department offices in the second story of the station building, where all the other offices of the company were located.  Instead, he was directed to fit up a suite of rooms in Temple Court, the capital’s most pretentious up-town sky-scraper, and there was something more than a hint that the item of first cost would not be too closely scrutinized.