you'd be gallant and say I have just as much acumen as
you have honesty."

"I'll say it! It's so!" he protested.

"No, you're too late. I very unmodestly gave myself the compliment. Now
I'm going to tell you where you are wrong in this whole matter, Mr.
Thornton. You are reckoning without the human instruments that you must
employ. I'll wait just a moment and let that remark sink into your mind.
You are a bit slow about grasping the full purport of remarks, Mr.
Harlan Thornton." There was a touch of her satiric humor in her tone.
"Now, you don't fully understand, even yet. I think I'll have to
illustrate. I've already told you that I've watched matters pretty
closely at the capital. I like to see young men come here with ideals
and succeed, but, alas, they do not."

"They let themselves be bought or bribed or bossed, probably," blurted
Harlan.

"I'm not talking about that kind. They are too obvious and too common.
I complimented my own self. Now you are insulting yourself by jumping at
conclusions. You should have a better opinion of yourself, sir. I have.
I do not believe you could be bought or bossed or even coaxed from what
you considered your honest duty. You do not need to assure me. But you
might be _convinced_, Mr. Thornton--convinced by good reasons--that it
is not a young man's duty to ruin his own prospects and his own
influence by undertaking something as impracticable as though he tried
to be a meteor by holding a candle in his hand and jumping off a roof. I
could praise his imagination, but not his judgment."

She waited a moment. She gazed at him with sudden sympathy.

"You are a straightforward young man, used to winning your way by direct
means--axe to the tree, cant-dog to the rolling log, but that isn't the
way in politics. I know this preachment from me sounds strange. It may
offend you, but you mustn't allow yourself to be offended. You have
simply quarrelled with the men who have tried to tell you--it's no use
for your grandfather or my father to talk with you. Men do quarrel too
easily. I am taking a woman's advantage of you, sir. I said I would
illustrate. I will. One of the finest young men I ever knew came down to
the legislature and started in to expose and hold up every appropriation
measure that had the least appearance of being padded. Just straight-out
and blunt honesty, you understand. A little affectation, too. A bit of
self-advertising as well. But we all excuse a little self-cons