u
can."

"Well, I'll not," the lawyer broke out. "Easy enough for you to say what
I ought to do. Look at who my friends are--the Fromes and the Merrills
and the Gilmans. Best set in town. I strained a point when I broke loose
from them to take up this progressive fight. They'd cut me dead if a
story like this came out."

"I daresay. Communities are loaded to the guards with respectable
cowards. But if you stand on your own feet like a man they'll think more
of you for it. Most of them will be glad to know you again inside of
five years. For you're going to be successful, and people like the
Merrills and the Gilmans bow down to success."

The lawyer shook his head doggedly. "I'm not going to tell a thing I
don't have to tell. That's settled." He hesitated a moment before he
went on. "I've got a reason why I want to stand well with the Fromes,
Jeff. I'm not in a position to risk anything."

Jeff waited. He thought he knew that reason.

"I'm going to marry Alice Frome if I can."

"You've asked her." Jeff's voice sounded to himself as if it belonged to
another man.

"No. Not yet. Ned Merrill's in the running. Strong, too. He's being
backed by his father and old P. C. Frome. The idea is to consolidate
interests by this marriage. But I've got a fighting chance. She likes
me. Since I went into this political fight against her father she's
taken pains to show me how friendly she feels. But if this story gets
out--I'm smashed. That's all."

"Go to her. Tell her the truth. She'll stand by you," his cousin urged.

"You don't understand these people, Jeff. I do. Even if she wanted to
stand by me she couldn't. They wouldn't let her. Right now I'm carrying
all the handicap I can."

Jeff walked to the window and stood looking out with his hands in his
pockets. The hum of the busy street rose to his ears, but he did
not hear it. Nor did he see the motor cars whizzing past, the drays
lumbering along, the thronged sidewalks of Powers Avenue. A door that
had for years been ajar in his heart had swung to with a crash. The
incredible folly of his dream was laid bare to him. Despised, distrusted
and disgraced, there was no chance that he might be even a friend to
her. She moved in another world, one he could not reach if he would and
would not if he could. All that he believed in she had been brought up
to disregard. Much that was dear to her he must hammer down so long as
there was life in him.

But James--he had fought his w