“I’ll be bound you prefer obedience anyway,” Dick said in an undertone, and he looked at her as though something in her hurt him. He turned abruptly to Mr. Preston.
“Preston,” he said, “I wish we could hold a special election and put you into the executive chair before your time. Every kind of evil thing is taking advantage of our present lax administration. I believe the crooks of other cities are flying to us on the wings of the wind. One of the plain-clothes men told me to-day that the government detectives have traced a gang of counterfeiters to our beloved city, though they have not succeeded in spotting the rascals’ whereabouts. It’s rather humiliating to find St. Etienne picked out as a good hiding-place for any villany there is going.”
“You needn’t be so sure that a special election or any other kind would carry us in,” laughed Mr. Preston. “I’m not so confident as you seem, Percival, that this community is overwhelmed with the consciousness of its rare opportunity.”
And so the talk drifted on, as usual, to politics.
After dinner, in the drawing-room, Lena saw her husband in conversation with Ram Juna. The two crossed the room, and Dick introduced the new prophet.
“I fear my too constant inspection disturbed you. Myriad pardons for me,” began the Swami in his mellifluous voice. “It is the tribute. When I feel deep interest I am prone to forget all but my study. See, I am the last of a family once powerful and wealthy; yet I hardly regret that heritage that I have lost. I look at you. You are the type of another fate. You are a bride, young, lovely, with the vigor and glory of this new race of America. I envy not, but I wonder. So I look too long.”
Lena glanced discomfited at the retreating back of her husband and said, “I’m sure I didn’t notice anything peculiar.”
A curious gleam came into Ram Juna’s sleepy eyes.
“Ah, then you, like me, love to examine the soul, your own or another’s. You have fellow feeling. So you forgive. May I sit here beside you?”
Lena drew aside her petticoats and the Swami shared her little sofa.