“Question is,” said Peter, “whether he knows you feel that way.”
“No,” Amos told him. “He don’t know.”
Peter looked sidewise at Amos. “He might be bought,” he suggested. “Or he might be scared. I don’t know. He may be yellow. If he is, you could scare him.”
Amos’s pipe went out, and he rapped it into his palm and treasured the charred crumbs to prime his next smoke. “Peter,” he said thoughtfully, “I’d like to see Jack. To-night.”
Gergue was a good servant. He got up at once. “All right, Amos,” he said.
Caretall went with him to the door. “I’m taking the noon train, to-morrow,” he told Gergue.
“I’ll be there,” said Peter.
Amos shut the door behind him and went back to the fire. He sat there for a while, considering. Then he went out into the hall and called Agnes. She was in her room; and she came running down, very gay and pretty in a blue-flowered kimono, her hair down her back in a golden braid. Amos looked at her thoughtfully. There was always a wistful question in his eyes when he looked at Agnes. He met her at the foot of the stairs, and he asked:
“Agnes, how’d you like to go to Washington?”
Now the girl had gone to Washington one winter with Amos. And she had not liked it. Amos was just a small-town Congressman, one of scores. And his daughter was just a pretty girl, and nothing more. Amos was a small toad in that big puddle; Agnes had found herself not even a tadpole. And—that did not please Agnes. Here in Hardiston, she was the daughter of the biggest man in town; and she was the prettiest girl in town, some said. At least, they told her so. Jack Routt, and some of the other boys.