Travis had scarcely more than introduced us, yet already I scented a romance behind the ordinarily prosaic conduct of a campaign press bureau.  It is far from my intention to minimise the work or the ability of the head of the press bureau, but it struck me, both then and later, that the candidate had an extraordinary interest in the newspaper campaign, much more than in the speakers’ bureau, and I am sure that it was not solely accounted for by the fact that publicity is playing a more and more important part in political campaigning.

Nevertheless such innovations as her card index system by election districts all over the state, showing the attitude of the various newspaper editors, of local political leaders, and changes of sentiment, were very full and valuable.  Kennedy, who had a regular pigeon-hole mind for facts, was visibly impressed by this huge mechanical memory built up by Miss Ashton.  Though he said nothing to me I knew he had also observed the state of affairs between the reform candidate and the suffrage leader.

It was at a moment when Travis had been called back to his office that Kennedy, who had been eyeing Miss Ashton with marked approval, leaned over and said in a low voice.  “Miss Ashton, I think I can trust you.  Do you want to do a great favour for Mr. Travis?”

She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her face what the true state of her feelings was, although I fancied that the readiness of her assent had perhaps more meaning than she would have placed in a simple “Yes” otherwise.

“I suppose you know that an attempt is being made to blackmail Mr. Travis?” added Kennedy quickly.

“I know something about it,” she replied in a tone which left it for granted that Travis had told her before even we were called in.  I felt that not unlikely Travis’s set determination to fight might be traceable to her advice or at least to her opinion of him.

“I suppose in a large force like this it is not impossible that your political enemies may have a spy or two,” observed Kennedy, glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged in getting out “literature.”

“I have sometimes thought that myself,” she agreed.  “But of course I don’t know.  Still, I have to be pretty careful.  Some one is always over here by my desk or looking over here.  There isn’t much secrecy in a big room like this.  I never leave important stuff lying about where any of them could see it.”

“Yes,” mused Kennedy.  “What time does the office close?”

“We shall finish to-night about nine, I think.  To-morrow it may be later.”

“Well, then, if I should call here to-night at, say, half-past nine, Could you be here?  I need hardly say that your doing so may be of inestimable value to—­to the campaign.”

“I shall be here,” she promised, giving her hand with a peculiar straight arm shake and looking him frankly in the face with those eyes which even the old guard in the legislature admitted were vote-winners.