He kept his eyes averted during
the delivery of the long, rambling sentence. At the end, he looked at
Hereford frankly and said in his most gracious manner:
"Thank him for me, will you? And express my appreciation of so high a
compliment from such a man."
Hereford looked relieved, delighted. "I'm glad to have met you, Mr. Howard,
and to have had so satisfactory an interview."
Again outside the door, he muttered gleefully: "Yes, we've him. Otherwise
he would have had his servants kick me down stairs. Gad, no wonder ---- is
on his way to the Presidency, I had a sneaking fear that this fellow might
be sincere. But _he_ saw through him without ever having seen him. I
suppose two men of that stripe instinctively understand each other."
* * * * *
That was on a Sunday afternoon. On the following Wednesday, as Marian came
into Howard's sitting-room with the newspapers, she laughed: "I've been
reading such a speech from your candidate, you radical! I must say I liked
to read it. It was so like you, your very phrases in many places, the
things you used to talk to me before you gave me up as hopeless. Just
listen."
And she read him the oration--a reproduction of the Howard she first saw,
the Howard she admired and loved and had never lost.
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