ing, he wondered which were really the more
dangerous to the state, Emmet, full of personal grievances and
undigested theories, or his opponent, Judge Swigart, the cynical and
aristocratic politician. If Emmet desired at present to turn the
existing order of things topsy-turvy, it was because such a revolution
would place him at the top. The judge, already nearer the top, was
naturally a champion of things as they were, which included his
position as it was. Though Leigh mused in this sophisticated vein, he
nevertheless felt considerable confidence that the younger man, when he
became a finished product, would be a better citizen than his political
rival.

CHAPTER VI

LENA HARPSTER

The bell in the cupola of the First Church had just rung out the hour
of midnight, and the slow, deep notes, which seemed to derive a certain
solemnity from the graveyard below, were carried in broken echoes to
the very suburbs of the city on the wings of a moist, intermittent
wind. The storm of the previous night, which had lifted during the
day, now seemed about to begin anew, and the air was full of a sense of
unshed rain. Down in the street, where bits of waste paper and other
small refuse spun around under the swaying electric lights, the huge
cleaner, called "the devil waggon," was just beginning its nocturnal
task. In front of the City Hall, lately such a scene of busy life, a
solitary car stood ready to start upon its homeward trip, its two
violet lamps winking in the wind like a pair of sleepy eyes. Only the
all-night drug-store on the opposite corner kept up an appearance of
wakefulness by means of a corona of milk-white lights that made a
brilliant spot in the comparative obscurity of the long thoroughfare.

Whatever poetical or imaginative suggestions might lie in this scene
for others, it made no such appeal to Tom Emmet as he strode along,
passing belated pedestrians in his course. He had just come from a
protracted consultation with his political lieutenants, and deep in the
maze of his own plans the twelve beats of the bell now reminded him
that Lena Harpster must have been waiting for his coming a full hour by
the gate where they had planned to meet. Even this thought could
scarcely soften his mood as yet. Sure of the experience that awaited
him, he was content to postpone it till the actual moment. Politics
was a fact, and his love was a fact, and each was assigned its
appropriate time. This eye for t