d it matter now?

"He's going to get a horrible jolt before many months," Woodruff went
on. "I can see you after him."

"You forget. He's President," I answered. "He's beyond our reach."

"Not when he wants a renomination," insisted Woodruff.

"He can get that without us--_if_," I said. "You must remember we've
made him a fetish with our rank and file. And he's something of a fetish
with the country, now that he's President. No, we can't destroy
him--can't even injure him. He'll have to do that himself, if it's done.
Besides--"

I did not finish. I did not care to confess that since Frances and I saw
Granby swinging from that tree in my grounds I had neither heart nor
stomach for the relentless side of the game. Indeed, whether from
calculation or from sentimentality or from both--or, from a certain
sympathy and fellow feeling for all kinds of weakness--I have never
pursued those who have played me false, except when exemplary punishment
was imperative.

"Well--" Woodruff looked bitterly disappointed. "I guess you're right."
He brightened. "I forgot Goodrich for a minute. Burbank'll do himself up
through that--I'd have to be in a saloon to feel free to use the
language that describes him."

"I fear he will," I said. And it was not a hypocrisy--for I did not, and
could not, feel anger toward him. Had I not cut this staff deliberately
because it was crooked? What more natural than that it should give way
under me as soon as I leaned upon it?

"Your sickness certainly couldn't have come at an unluckier time,"
Woodruff observed just before he left.

"I'm not sure of that," was my reply. "It would have been useless to
have found him out sooner. And if he had hidden himself until later, he
might have done us some serious mischief."

As he was the President-elect, to go to him uninvited would have been
infringement of his dignity as well as of my pride. A few days later I
wrote him, thanking him for his messages and inquiries during my illness
and saying that I was once more taking part in affairs. He did not reply
by calling me up on the telephone, as he would have done in the
cordial, intimate years preceding his grandeur. Instead he sent a
telegram of congratulation, following it with a note. He urged me to go
South, as I had planned, and to stay until I was fully restored. "I
shall deny myself the pleasure of seeing you until you return." That
sentence put off our meeting indefinitely--I could see him smiling a