argaret--"

She read in his eyes what was coming.

"Not now, Aladdin," she said.

"Not now--dear Aladdin."

"Then you know?"

"I've always known, Aladdin, and been grateful and that proud."

"Will there never be any chance for me, Margaret?"

"Aladdin, I think I like you better than anybody else in the world--"

"Darling--" he had never supposed that it could be said so easily; he
leaned toward her.

"No," she said suddenly; "I've got to go and see after all those foolish
people."

"Just for the sake of old times, and now, and new times--"

She hesitated, reddened a little, and then, as sweetly and innocently as
a child, put up her lips for him to kiss.

XIII

Hannibal St. John's campaign for reelection to the senatorship was,
owing to a grievous error in tact, of doubtful issue. A hue and cry
arose against him among his constituents, and things in general fell
out so unhappily that it looked toward the close of the contest as if he
would be obliged to sit idle and dangle his heels, while the two halves
of the country, pushing against each other, were rising in the middle
like the hinge of a toggle-joint into the most momentous crisis in
the nation's history. It looked as if the strong man, with his almost
blasphemous intolerance of disunion, his columnlike power of supporting,
and his incomparable intellect, was to stand in the background and watch
the nightmare play from afar. He fought for his place in the forefront
of the battle with a great fervor of bitterness, and the possibility of
defeat weighed upon his glowering soul like a premature day of judgment.
He knew himself to be the one man for the opportunity, and could his
true feelings have found utterance, they would have said, "Damn us
everlastingly in hell, but don't shelve us now!"

Opposed to St. John was a Mr. Bispham, of about quarter his height
intellectually and integrally--a politician, simple, who went to war for
loot. But he was blessed with a tremendous voice and an inexhaustible
store of elemental, fundamental humor, upon the waves of which the ship
bearing his banner floated high. It seemed that because of one glaring
exhibition of tactlessness, and a lack of humor, a really important,
valuable, and honest man was to lose the chance of serving his country
to a designing whipper-snapper, who was without even the saving grace of
violent and virulent prejudices. And so the world goes. It seemed at one
time that St. John's cha