policemen saluted,
and in the glances that turned toward him as his chauffeur slowed down
at the corners. He knew that his fellow townsmen were saying, "That's
Morgan Wallifarro!" It was enough to say that, for the name bore its own
significance. It meant, "That is the man who has just carried a
Democratic town for a Republican mayor, and who had much to do with
carrying a Democratic State for a Republican governor. Even in national
councils his voice begins to bear weight."

These things were incense in the nostrils of the hurrying young lawyer,
but suddenly his attention was arrested from them, and he rapped on the
glass front of the closed car. He had seen Anne on the sidewalk, and at
his signal the machine swung in to the curb and halted.

"I'm on my way home," she told him, "and you're far too rushed to
cavalier me during business hours," but he waved aside her remonstrances
and helped her in.

"I'm so busy," he declared, "that I can't waste a moment--and every
possible moment lost from you is wasted."

The November sun was clear and sparkling, and the girl settled back with
an amused smile as she looked into the self-confident, audacious eyes
of the man at her side.

"It gives me a feeling of exaggerated importance to ride in your
machine, Morgan," she teased. "It's a triumphal progress through the
bowing multitude."

Her companion grinned. "When are you going to make my car your car and
my homage your homage, Anne?" he brazenly demanded.

The girl's laugh rippled out, and in her violet eyes the twinkle
sparkled. She liked him best when he was content to clothe his words in
the easy garb of jest, so she countered in paraphrase.

"When are you going to let my answer be your answer, and my decision
your decision?"

"It's no trouble to ask," he impudently assured her. "You remember the
man who

"Proposed forty thousand and ninety-six times,
--And each time, but the last, she said, 'No.'

You see the whole virtue of that man lay in his pertinacity."

After a moment's silence he added, in a voice out of which had gone all
facetiousness even while it lingered in the words themselves, "There are
a thousand reasons, Anne, why I can't give you up. I've forgotten nine
hundred and ninety-nine of them but I remember one. I love you utterly."

Her eyes met his with direct gravity.

"But why, Morgan?" she demanded with a candid directness. "I'm the
opposite in type of every one else you cultivate or