Mayor Packard looked unappeased.  This was not the way to soothe a woman whom he believed to be greatly maligned.  With an exclamation indicative of his feelings, he was about to address some hasty words to the composed, almost smiling, man who confronted him, when Mrs. Packard herself spoke with unexpected self-control, if not disdain.

“You are a very honest man, Mr. Steele.  I commend the nicety of your scruples and am quite ready to trust myself to them.  I own to no blot, in my past or present life, calling for public arraignment.  If my statement of the fact is not enough, I here swear on the head of my child—­”

“No, no,” he quickly interpolated, “don’t frighten the baby.  Swearing is not necessary; I am bound to believe your word, Mrs. Packard.”  And lifting a sheet of paper from a pile lying on the table before him, he took a pencil from his pocket and began making lines to amuse the child dancing on his knee.

Mrs. Packard’s eyes opened in wonder mingled with some emotion deeper than distaste, but she said nothing, only watched in a fascinated way his moving fingers.  The mayor, mollified possibly by his secretary’s last words, sank back again in his chair with the remark: 

“You have heard Mrs. Packard’s distinct denial.  You are consequently armed for battle.  See that you fight well.  It is all a part of the scheme to break me up.  One more paragraph of that kind and I shall be a wreck, even if my campaign is not.”

“There will not be any more.”

“Ah! you can assure me of that?”

“Positively.”

“What are you playing there?” It was Mrs. Packard who spoke.  She was pointing at the scribble he was making on the paper.

“Tit-tat-to,” he smiled, “to amuse the baby.”

Did she hate to see him so occupied, or was her own restlessness of a nature demanding a like outlet?  Tearing her eyes away from him and the child, she looked about her in a wild way, till she came upon a box of matches standing on the large center-table around which they were all grouped.  Taking some in her hand, she commenced to lay them out on the table before her, possibly in an attempt to attract the baby’s attention to herself.  Puerile business, but it struck me forcibly, possibly from the effect it appeared to have upon the mayor.  Looking from one to the other in an astonishment which was not without its hint of some new and overmastering feeling on his own part, he remarked: 

“Isn’t it time for the baby to go to bed?  Surely, our talk is too serious to be interrupted by games to please a child.”

Without a word Mr. Steele rose and put the protesting child in the mother’s arms.  She, rising, carried it to the door, and, coming slowly back, reseated herself before the table and began to push the matches about again with fingers that trembled beyond her control.  The mayor proceeded as if no time had elapsed since his last words.