't a
doubt, as I told you, that he believes, sufficiently at least for
election purposes, in the fallacies that he advocates, even in the old
age pension, the minimum, or more accurately, the maximum wage, and of
course in what doesn't sound so Utopian since we have experimented with
it, that favourite dogma of the near-Socialists, the Government
ownership of railroads. His main theory, however, appears to be some
far-fetched abstraction which he calls the humanizing of
industry--you've heard that before! Mere bombast, you see, but the kind
of thing that is dangerous in a crowd. It is the catchpenny politics
that has been the curse of our country."

"And of course he is not a gentleman." Corinna's voice was regretful. "I
may be old-fashioned, but I can't help feeling that the Governor ought
to be a gentleman. That sounds like General Plummer, I know," she
concluded apologetically.

"The archaic cult of the gentleman? Well, I like to think that in
Virginia it still has a few obscure followers. It is a prejudice that I
dare to admit only when I am not on the platform, for the belief in the
gentleman has become a kind of underground religion, like the worship in
the Catacombs."

Her eyes had grown wistful when she answered: "It is the price we pay
for democracy."

"The price we pay is the reign of social justice in theory, and in
practice the rule of the Gideon Vetches of history. Oh, I admit that it
may all work out in the end! That is my political creed, you know--that
everything and anything may work out in the end. If I stood simply for
tradition without progress, I should long ago have been driven to the
wall."

"I feel as you do," she said after a moment, "and yet I am curious to
see what will become of our experimental Governor."

"And I also. The man may have executive ability, and it is possible that
he may give us an efficient administration. But, of course, it is merely
a stepping-stone for his inordinate greed for power. His vanity has been
inflamed by success, and he sees the Senate, it may be even the
Presidency, ahead of him."

Though she smiled there was a note of earnestness in her voice. "Well,
why not? There was once a rail splitter--"

"Oh, I know. But the rail splitter was born a president; and it is a far
cry to a circus rider who was not born even a gentleman."

"Perhaps. Yet, right or wrong, hasn't the war stretched a little the
safety net of our democracy? Isn't it just possible to-day