no idea I had to have a passport to hear my own husband speak."

He led her in.

"Let me sit back where no one will see me, please. Mr. Trent has no idea
I am in town. I'd rather he didn't see me until after his speech."

The chairman nodded, but he was much too astute a stage manager to let
this opportunity pass. They stood at the back of the stage until the
speaker finished, and then with an air he led Barbara down the very
middle of the stage to a seat in the front row.

"So sorry," he said, "the back seats are all full."

Then he took the stage and introduced the next speaker, smiling at
Barbara in such a way that every eye in the great mob was fixed upon
her. The speaker began the regulation political speech, and Bob gave
herself up to an excited study of the house, black with people to the
very dome. She was too well versed in audiences not to feel its quality.

In the meantime Paul was making slow progress from one meeting to the
next. In the cab between stops he tried the mechanical transposition of
himself into the mountains, according to Bob's suggestion. He must find
some way to rest his tired brain. He pretended that he was sitting in
the theatre in Boston watching Bob's play; he repeated the midnight walk
they once took up the avenue. He wished he might ask her advice about
the speech at Cooper Union. It would count a good deal, and her
experienced knowledge of the psychology of audiences had helped him out
many times before. She would know just the most effective thought to
leave in the minds of the men who were to answer him at the polls
to-morrow.

For the first time he felt the need of her, not as brain or partner,
but just as woman and wife. He wanted to put his tired head down on her
shoulder and feel her cheek on his hair, her tenderness about him. He
roused himself with a start.

"What meeting is this, John?"

"Eighth. Twenty-fifth ward."

"Cooper Union after this!"

"Yes. It's eleven now; we ought to make it by eleven-thirty."

"Bother. We won't get through before one," said Paul, thinking of the
long distance call to Boston.

Back at Cooper Union the speaker sawed the air, and yelled himself
hoarse, in the approved political speaking style of the old school. The
crowd was bored with him. They kept up their enthusiasm by yelling,
just to keep awake. When the orator sat down, some man in the audience
leapt to his feet.

"Mr. Chairman," he shouted, "let Bob speak. She can tell the tr