“Patricia, girl, I wonder if you know what you have done to me?  I drove out here this evening utterly discouraged and disheartened; bitter and angry, and ready to throw the whole thing up and go away.  You’ve changed all that—­you, you know; just you.  Oh, girl, girl! if I could only have you beside me to give me my battle-word!”

She had her slender fingers locked over one knee and her eyes were downcast.

“Now you are tempting me,” she said slowly; “and—­and it isn’t fair.  You know my weakness and passion to help.  You mustn’t tempt me, Evan.”

What he would have said, with what eager pleadings he would have pressed the advantage gained by his appeal for the larger help, is not to be here set down.  For at that moment the bamboo door curtains parted to admit the small house-mistress.

“You two!” she scolded with light-hearted austerity.  And then to Evan:  “Don’t you know that we are keeping country hours here at Wartrace now?  The professor will be up and calling for the car at six o’clock, and it’s past midnight.  Shame on you!  Run away and get your beauty sleep—­both of you!”

XIII

THE LIEGEMAN

Evan Blount drove himself back to the capital in the swift roadster the following morning, and there was no opportunity for further confidential speech with Patricia before he left.  But with the new day had arisen, full-grown, the determination born in the moment of midnight heart-warming and inspiration.  To the best of his ability he would live up to the high standard set for him by the woman he loved, not only preaching the gospel of fair dealing, but doing his utmost to make it effective.

With this high purpose singing its song of exaltation in his veins, he drove on past the garage and made an early call at the office of the traffic manager.  Gantry was in the midst of his morning mail-opening, but he pushed the desk-load of papers aside when the door swung inward to admit the early visitor.

“Hello, old man!  Come back to jar me some more about that telegram?” was his greeting.

Blount shook his head.  “No; if you’ve sent it, well and good.  If you haven’t, you may pitch it into the waste-basket.  I came to talk about something else.”

“Good, sound, sensible second thought!” Gantry commented, laughing.  Then he took out his pocket-book and passed the suppressed telegram across to Blount.  “Here it is; you can do the waste-basket act yourself.  I couldn’t let you commit hara-kiri without at least trying to get the cutting tool out of your hands.  What is the other thing you’ve got on your mind this early in the morning?  It must be a nightmare of some sort, by the look in your eyes.”

“It may figure as a nightmare to you, Dick, before we’re through with it.  I’ll make it short.  You know what I have been doing—­what I supposed I was hired to do—­assuring everybody right and left that we were going into this campaign with clean hands?”