r Charlton
how much intelligence and character she had. She was serving an
apprenticeship as trained nurse in the Children's Hospital, where he
was chief of the staff, and was taking several extra courses with his
young assistants. It was nearly two weeks after David's first attempt
to see her when her engagements and his at last permitted this meeting.
Said he:

"What's this new freak?"

"I can't tell you yet," replied she. "I'm not sure, myself."

"I don't see how you can endure that fellow Charlton. They say he's as
big a crank in medicine as he is in politics."

"It's all of a piece," said Jane, tranquilly. "He says he gets his
political views from his medicine and his medical ideas from his
politics."

"Don't you think he's a frightful bounder?"

"Frightful," said Jane.

"Fresh, impudent--conceited. And he looks like a prize fighter."

"At some angles--yes," conceded Jane. "At others, he's almost
handsome."

"The other day, when I called at the hospital and they wouldn't take my
name in to you--" David broke off to vent his indignation--"Did you
ever hear of such impertinence!"

"And you the governor-elect," laughed Jane. "Shall I tell you what
Doctor Charlton said? He said that a governor was simply a public
servant, and anything but a public representative--usually a public
disgrace. He said that a servant's business was attending to his own
job and not hanging round preventing his fellow servants from attending
to their jobs."

"I knew he had low and vulgar views of public affairs," said David.
"What I started to say was that I saw him talking to you that day,
across the court, and you seemed to be enjoying his conversation."

"ENJOYING it? I love it," cried Jane. "He makes me laugh, he makes me
cold with rage, he gives me a different sensation every time I see him."

"You LIKE--him?"

"Immensely. And I've never been so interested or so happy in my life."
She looked steadily at him. "Nothing could induce me to give it up.
I've put everything else out of my mind."

Since the dismal end of his adventure with Selma Gordon, David had
become extremely wary in his dealings with the female sex. He never
again would invite a refusal; he never again would put himself in a
position where a woman might feel free to tell him her private opinion
of him. He reflected upon Jane's words. They could have but the one
meaning. Not so calmly as he would have liked, but without any
embarrassin