“Humphrey Crewe isn’t much of an authority, either,” he said briefly.

“Then you won’t tell me?” said Victoria.  “Oh, Mr. Vane,” she cried, with sudden vehemence, “if such things are going on here, I’m sure my father doesn’t know about them.  This is only one State, and the railroad runs through so many.  He can’t know everything, and I have heard him say that he wasn’t responsible for what the politicians did in his name.  If they are bad, why don’t you go to him and tell him so?  I’m sure he’d listen to you.”

“I’m sure he’d think me a presumptuous idiot,” said Austen.  “Politicians are not idealists anywhere—­the very word has become a term of reproach.  Undoubtedly your father desires to set things right as much as any one else—­probably more than any one.”

“Oh, I know he does,” exclaimed Victoria.

“If politics are not all that they should be,” he went on, somewhat grimly, with an unpleasant feeling of hypocrisy, “we must remember that they are nobody’s fault in particular, and can’t be set right in an instant by any one man, no matter how powerful.”

She turned her face to him gratefully, but he did not meet her look.  They were on the driveway of Fairview.

“I suppose you think me very silly for asking such questions,” she said.

“No,” he answered gravely, “but politics are so intricate a subject that they are often not understood by those who are in the midst of them.  I admire—­I think it is very fine in you to want to know.”

“You are not one of the men who would not wish a woman to know, are you?”

“No,” he said, “no, I’m not.”

The note of pain in his voice surprised and troubled her.  They were almost in sight of the house.

“I asked you to come to Fairview,” she said, assuming a lightness of tone, “and you never appeared.  I thought it was horrid of you to forget, after we’d been such friends.”

“I didn’t forget,” replied Austen.

“Then you didn’t want to come.”

He looked into her eyes, and she dropped them.

“You will have to be the best judge of that,” he said.

“But what am I to think?” she persisted.

“Think the best of me you can,” he answered, as they drew up on the gravel before the open door of Fairview house.  A man was standing in the moonlight on the porch.

“Is that you, Victoria?”

“Yes, father.”

“I was getting worried,” said Mr. Flint, coming down on the driveway.

“I’m all right,” she said, leaping out of the buggy, “Mr. Vane brought me home.”

“How are you, Hilary?” said Mr. Flint.

“I’m Austen Vane, Mr. Flint,” said Austen.

“How are you?” said Mr. Flint, as curtly as the barest politeness allowed.  “What was the matter with your own horse, Victoria?”

“Nothing,” she replied, after an instant’s pause.  Austen wondered many times whether her lips had trembled.  “Mr. Vane asked me to drive with him, and I came.  Won’t—­won’t you come in, Mr. Vane?”