ogized him. Davy no longer had qualms of
conscience. He read the eulogies, he listened to the flatteries of the
conservative leading citizens he met at the Lincoln and at the
University, and he felt that he was all that he in young enthusiasm had
set out to be.

When he went to other cities and towns and to county fairs to make
addresses he was introduced as the man who had redeemed Remsen City, as
a shining example of the honest SANE man in politics, as a man the
bosses were afraid of, yet dared not try to down. "You can't fool the
people." And were not the people, notably those who didn't live in
Remsen City and had only read in their newspapers about the reform
Republican mayor--weren't they clamorous for Mayor Hull for governor!
Thus, Davy was high in his own esteem, was in that mood of profound
responsibility to righteousness and to the people wherein a man can get
the enthusiastic endorsement of his conscience for any act he deems it
expedient to commit in safeguarding and advancing his career. His
person had become valuable to his country. His opponents were
therefore anathema maranatha.

As he and Jane walked side by side in the tender moonlight, Jane said:

"What's become of Selma Gordon?"

A painful pause; then Davy, in a tone that secretly amused Jane:
"Selma? I see her occasionally--at a distance. She still writes for
Victor Dorn's sheet, I believe. I never see it."

Jane felt she could easily guess why. "Yes--it is irritating to read
criticisms of oneself," said she sweetly. Davy's self-complacence had
been most trying to her nerves.

Another long silence, then he said: "About--Miss Gordon. I suppose
you were thinking of the things I confided to you last year?"

"Yes, I was," confessed Jane.

"That's all over," said Mayor and prospective Governor Hull. "I found I
was mistaken in her."

"Didn't you tell me that she refused you?" pressed Jane, most unkindly.

"We met again after that," said Davy--by way of proving that even the
most devoted apostle of civic righteousness is yet not without his
share of the common humanity, "and from that time I felt differently
toward her.... I've never been able to understand my folly.... I
wonder if you could forgive me for it?"

Davy was a good deal of a bore, she felt. At least, he seemed so in
this first renewing of old acquaintance. But he was a man of purpose,
a man who was doing much and would do more. And she liked him, and had
for him