he advantage should remain wholly with
her, especially when she was from the very Far West. So he affected
complete indifference, and, when they asked him about his adventures in
the recent war on the other side of the world, he talked freely about
them, which he had never done before, because, like most Americans, he
was a modest man, enduring in silence lectures on the sin of boasting
from others who boasted as they breathed. Most of the time he spoke
apparently to Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, but he kept a side-look upon the
girl from Idaho who had played with him and humiliated him.

She became silent, as if satisfied with the flight of the arrows that
had gone already from her quiver, and seemed to listen with an air of
becoming respect; but Harley surprised once or twice the lurking twinkle
in her eye, and he was not sure that she was wholly subdued. Opposition
and difficulties always increased his resolve, and he doubled his
efforts. He spoke lightly of the kingdoms and republics whose fortunes
he had followed in a casual way and of the men whom the heave of affairs
had brought to the surface for a space, and always he kept that
side-look upon her. These relations, surely, would impress, because
what could she, a child of the Idaho wilds, know of the great world? And
its very mystery would heighten to her its coloring and effect.

Harley could talk well, all the better because he talked so rarely of
himself, and even now it was of himself only by indirection, because he
spoke chiefly of men whom he had known and deeds that he had witnessed.
Watching the girl closely with that side-look, he did not see the
twinkle reappear in her eye; instead she sat demure and silent, and he
judged that he had taken her beyond her depth. At last he stopped, and
she said, in a subdued tone:

"Did I not tell you, Uncle James, that imagination was the great quality
the correspondents need?"

Harley flushed, but he could not keep from joining Mr. Grayson in his
laugh. The candidate, besides laughing, glanced affectionately at the
girl. It was evident that his niece was a favorite with Jimmy Grayson.

"I shall ask Miss Morgan to tell me about Idaho," said Harley.

"It's quite wild, you know," she said, gravely; "and all the people need
taming. But it would be a great task."

When they went back to the drawing-room Harley and the girl were behind
the others, and he lingered a moment beside her.

"Miss Morgan," he said, "I want to ask