n't what I meant to say. You
are tired of so much country; I can read the call of the city in your
eyes--and they are very pretty eyes, my dear. Shall I telephone the
senator that we are coming in this afternoon to stay a while?"

"I shall be delighted," said Patricia, and the eyes, which were not only
pretty but exceedingly apt to tell tales, confirmed the eager assent.
Then she added: "Now that daddy has his box of books from the university
library, I doubt if he will know that we are gone."

On their first day in the capital Evan was away, but he returned the
following morning and Mrs. Blount promptly captured him for a theatre
box-party which she was inviting for the same evening. In Mrs. Honoria's
orderly scheme Blount was predestined to go, though he was allowed to
believe that his acceptance was of free will. Notwithstanding the lapse
of time and Mrs. Honoria's uniform kindness, he was still unreasonably
prejudiced, and with the prejudice he was now admitting a feeling akin
to jealousy. It was evident that Patricia's admiration for his father
extended over to his father's wife; and meaning consistently to dislike
Mrs. Honoria, he was irrational enough to want Patricia to dislike her,
too.

The box-party proved to be a more formal affair than he had anticipated,
since it was large enough to fill two of the open dress-circle boxes.
Gantry was included, and so were the Weatherfords--father, mother,
daughters, and son. These, with the Gordons and a Denver man whose name
of Critchett Blount was not quite sure that he caught in the
introduction, filled Mrs. Honoria's list. In the seating Blount meant to
make sure of having a measurably undisturbed evening with Patricia. But
fate, or a designing hostess, intervened, and he found himself cornered
between Mrs. Weatherford and her younger daughter, with the
square-shouldered "Paramounter" candidate for governor strengthening the
barrier which separated him from Miss Anners.

Blount had met Gordon socially a number of times, and in the intervals
allowed him by Mrs. Weatherford he was silently studying the face of the
big man who, singularly enough, as the student thought, was thus
identifying himself publicly as a friend of the boss. True, Blount did
not forget his father's warm commendation of Gordon in that earliest
political talk on the Quaretaro Canyon road, but that was before the
lines had been drawn and the gage of battle thrown down by the allied
forces of the m