She looked at him, doubting how to accept this bald compliment. But his face was boyish in its sincerity.
“You and I used to be such good friends,” he went on, “and now we never see any more of each other. Why don’t we?”
“I think you know as well as I. You no longer come here—you have not come, I think, since a year before I arrived. And I go almost nowhere since——”
“Since you gave up all your old world and the people who cared for you and became a drudge in the Conover household? If you were to be found anywhere else, you would see so much of me that I’d bore you to extinction. But it would be even unpleasanter for you than for me if I were to call on you here. I miss our old-time talks more than I can say.”
“I miss them, too. Do you remember how we used to argue over politics, and how you always ended by telling me that there were two things no woman could understand, and that politics was one and finance the other?”
“And you would always make the same retort: That woman’s combined ignorance of politics and finance were pure knowledge as compared with the men’s ignorance of women. It wasn’t especially logical repartee, but it always served to shut me up.”
“I wish we had time for another political spat. Some day we must. You see, I’ve learned such a lot about politics—and finance, too—practical politics and finance—since I came here.”
“Decidedly ‘practical,’ I fancy, if Mr. Conover was your teacher. He doesn’t go in much for idealism.”
“And you?” asked Anice, ignoring the slur. “Are you still as rabid as ever in your ideas of reform? But, of course, you are. For I read only last week that you had been elected President of the Civic League. I want to congratulate you. It’s a splendid movement, even though Mr. Conover declares it’s hopeless.”
“Good citizenship is never quite hopeless, even in a boss-ridden community like Granite, and a boss-governed commonwealth like the Mountain State. The people will wake up some day.”