e that Gideon
Vetch would be elected? His brief liking for the man had changed
suddenly to exasperation. It seemed incredible to him that any Governor
of Virginia should display so open a disregard of the ordinary rules of
courtesy and hospitality. To drag in their political differences at such
a time, when he had come beneath the other's roof merely to render him
an unavoidable service! To stoop to the pettifogging sophistry of the
agitator simply because his opponent had reluctantly yielded him an
opportunity!

"Well, I heard you speak, but that didn't change me!" he retorted with a
smile.

The Governor laughed, and the sincerity of his amusement was evident
even to Stephen. "Could anything short of a blasting operation change
you traditional Virginians?" he inquired.

His face was turned to the fire, and the young man felt while he
watched him that a piercing light was shed on his character. It was as
if Stephen saw his opponent from an entirely fresh point of view, as if
he beheld him for the first time with the sharp clearness which the
flash of his anger produced. The very absence of all sense of dignity
impressed him suddenly as the most tremendous dignity a human being
could attain--the unconscious dignity of natural forces--of storms and
fire and war and pestilence. Because the man never thought of how he
appeared, he appeared always impregnable.

"I shall not argue," said the young man, with a smile which he
endeavoured to make easy and natural. "The time for argument is over.
You played trumps."

Vetch laughed. "And it wasn't my last card," he answered bluntly.

"The game isn't finished." Though Stephen's voice was light it held a
quiver of irritation. "He laughs best who laughs last." The other had
started the row, and, by Jove, he would give him as much as he wanted!
He recalled suddenly the charges that there was more than the customary
political log-rolling--that there were mysterious "discreditable
dealings" in the Governor's election to office.

But it appeared in a minute that Gideon Vetch was adequate to any demand
which the occasion might develop. Already Stephen was beginning to
regard him less as a man than as an energetic idea, as activity
incarnate.

"If you mean to imply that the laugh may be on me at the last," he
returned, while the points of blue light seemed to pierce Stephen like
arrows--no, like gimlets, "well, you're wrong about one part of it--for
if that ever happens, I'll la