ng partly from the egotism of a self-made man, partly from an
instinctive unwillingness to embark upon the confession to which he was
committed. However, he was far from being bored. "I'm about thirty
myself," he remarked, "and I'm worth about thirty cents. But that's a
digression."

"Well, as I was saying," Emmet resumed, "I wasn't an easy mark for
women. I had too much at stake to get tangled up that way, but I was
thinking that it was pretty near time for me to find a wife. There's a
lady in this town--you 'll hardly believe it--I did n't myself, at
first--that took a fancy to me. She was rich and fashionable, and all
that, the sort of woman I would n't have thought of in any such way;
but gradually I began to notice that she took my car nearly every day.
Even when she told me straight out that she preferred to ride with me,
I did n't suspect anything, for she always had a pleasant word for all
the boys. But after a while I woke up to the fact that she knew just
when I would be at the City Hall, and managed her shopping so as to
ride home with me. After that I began to take particular notice. When
I took her fare, I was embarrassed by the look in her eyes. She had
fine eyes, and a way of sizing me up that seemed to mean something.
Sometimes our hands would touch for a moment, and then it was n't by
accident; and by Christmas time I knew as well as if she had told me
that if she was n't in love with me, she thought she was."

"You were a lucky dog," Leigh said, filling an impressive pause with
the first chance comment that came to him. Afterward he wondered at
the obstinate torpidity of his mind, for not even the reference to her
deliberate look and fine eyes gave him the clew. All this talk of
early hardship and of street-cars had put the narrator for the time on
another level from that he now occupied in the world, and made his past
seem his present. The very confession, and the manner of it, belittled
the confessor, and Leigh took his characterisation of his admirer as
rich and fashionable with a grain of salt, making some allowance for
the point of view, some for natural vanity and a desire to impress him.

"I did n't think I was so lucky," the mayor answered simply. "Of
course I was pretty well set up, but I never thought it would amount to
anything, and it was a dangerous game to play. I was n't sure how far
I could go, or how far she wanted me to go, and besides, I had mighty
little chance to s