And so it was not surprising,—­not to Jack,—­that when a new village councilman was to be elected, Garry should have secured votes enough to be included among their number.  Nor was it at all wonderful that after taking his seat he should have been placed in charge of the village funds so far as the expenditures for contract work went.  The prestige of Morris’s office settled all doubts as to his fitness in construction; and the splendor of the wedding—­there could still be seen posted in the houses of the workmen the newspaper cuts showing the bride and groom leaving the church—­silenced all opposition to “our fellow townsman’s” financial responsibility, even when that opposition was led by so prominent a ward heeler as Mr. Patrick McGowan, who had planned to get the position himself—­and who became Garry’s arch enemy thereafter.

In these financial and political advancements Corinne helped but little.  None of the village people interested her, nor did she put herself out in the least to be polite to them.  Ruth had called and had brought her hands full of roses—­and so had her father.  Garry had continued to thank them both for their good word to the church wardens—­and he himself now and then spent an evening at MacFarlane’s house without Corinne, who generally pleaded illness; but the little flame of friendship which had flashed after their arrival in Corklesville had died down again.

This had gone on until the acquaintance had practically ended, except when they met on the trains or in crossing the ferry.  Then again, Ruth and her father lived at one end of the village known as Corklesville, and Garry and Corinne lived at the other end, known as Elm Crest, the connecting link being the railroad, a fact which Jack told Garry with a suggestive laugh, made them always turn their backs on each other when they parted to go to their respective homes, to which Garry would reply that it was an outrage and that he was coming up that very night—­all of which he failed to do when the proposed visit was talked over with Corinne.

None of this affected Jack.  He would greet Corinne as affectionately and cordially as he had ever done.  He had taken her measure years before, but that made no difference to him, he never forgetting that she was his uncle’s nominal daughter; that they had been sheltered by the same roof and that she therefore in a way belonged to his people.  Moreover, he realized, that like himself, she had been compelled to give up many of the luxuries and surroundings to which she had been accustomed and which she loved,—­worthless now to Jack in his freedom, but still precious to her.  This in itself was enough to bespeak his sympathy.  Not that she valued it;—­she rather sniffed at it.

“I wish Jack wouldn’t stand with his hat off until I get aboard the train,” she had told Garry one day shortly after their arrival—­“he makes me so conspicuous.  And he wears such queer clothes.  He was in his slouch hat and rough flannel shirt and high boots the other day and looked like a tramp.”