her with her
coffee and toast. She sent for all the papers and read them more
diligently than she had ever searched for notices of her own triumphs.
The bed looked like a sea of print, out of which she rose, a pink
mermaid. When the last word was read, she took up the 'phone beside her
bed and called Paul. The secretary told her he was in a conference. She
asked if there was a message.

"This is-- I am--Mrs. Trent," said Barbara, blushing furiously at her
end of the line.

"Oh, just a minute," amended the girl. After a bit she heard his crisp,
short greeting.

"Good-morning! This is Bob."

"How are you?"

"I've read every line in every paper. I'm so excited I had to call up.
Could I do something--make a speech, or something like that?"

"Wish you might-- I'd be nominated sure."

She resented his flippancy, she was so in earnest.

"I won't keep you; I know you're busy, Governor."

"I'll take that as a prophecy. By the way, I may not be able to dine
with you to-night."

"Sorry! Good-bye."

He frowned at her abrupt dismissal as he went back to work, then he
forgot all about her. Bob set down the steel bar smartly. For some
reason she was irritated at the interview. She had expressed herself
with such emotion, and he had received it with such cool matter of
factness. She treated herself to a mental shaking, which Englished might
have read thus:

"Look here, Barbara Garratry, this man is nothing to you but an
interesting interlude between Now and the Hereafter. He asked you to
marry him as an experiment. He laid stress on a lack of sentiment. Now
don't you let your Irish feelings clutter things up. You fight for the
fight's sake and leave the man out of it."

She arose with much determination. She dressed and outlined a play to be
called "The Governor." She read the noon editions. She put in a busy
afternoon, disciplining her mind to keep away from the danger-zone, and
as punishment she went to dine with some friends, so that she might miss
the chance of seeing him, if he did come back to dine.

Paul, in the meantime, worked like five men all day, with the unformed
idea in the back of his brain that there was something he must do at
seven o'clock. He was to speak at the Waldorf at eight, after a
political dinner. The last conference was over a few minutes before
seven. The unformed thought crystalized--he wanted to talk to Bob. It
would rest him more than anything. He called a taxi and hurried to the
hot