a
man away.

Through the intellect, through his hunger for information and wider
views, she was making herself indispensable to his welfare and his
ambitions.

And yet Madeleine Presson was not trying to make this young man of the
north country fall in love with her. Her interest in him was first of
all based upon his winning earnestness and the elements of success that
she divined in him, were they properly cultivated. She had studied men
at the capital from childhood. The development of men in public life and
service had been the one theme that she had heard most discussed. Her
impulse of assistance had been directed toward this grandson of
Thelismer Thornton.

But as the days went by, and opportunity gave them their hours together,
they were drawn more closely, each insisting in secret meditation that
it was not love. He found himself gradually rebuilding his creed of
living on the foundation she had laid in that first long talk of
theirs. He had arrived at such a point of belief in her that he was glad
that she had opened his eyes. He was finding men--meeting them by the
hundred--even as she had pictured them to him: selfish, scheming,
crafty, and not understanding in the least his occasional attempts to
meet them on the upper level of perfect candor. For her part, she found
more in this young man than she had expected to find.

Harlan considered Herbert Linton the single jarring note in this new
symphony of mutual interests.

Linton came to the capital with more or less regularity, and called on
the Pressons with fully as much appearance of being entirely at home as
his newer rival. When they were together the girl treated both with
impartial interest and attention. She listened to each in turn, and if
they chose to sit and scowl at each other she did the talking for all
three. Deftly she arranged that they should leave together, and they
always promptly separated as soon as they reached the sidewalk, as
though they were afraid to trust themselves in each other's company.

So the new year came in, and the hordes of lawmakers, lobbyists,
lookers-on, and laymen descended on the State capital.

The first few days of a legislative session, though packed full of
politics and business, rush, and routine, are festival days, after all.
There are the old friends to greet and the new friends to meet. There
are ten spectators to every legislator, and the spectators are on hand
for a good time. Outside of the factiona