“Doubtless,” she replied. “I hardly thought, though, that political appointments were a question of fitness nowadays.”
“I thought you were a civil service reformer,” Garwood answered, trying to laugh. But her lips remained obdurately tight, and he saw what her conscience would hold him to.
“I had supposed Mr. Rankin was to be appointed postmaster.”
Garwood did not reply at once.
“Rankin seems to have become quite a protégé of yours,” he ventured at last.
“I used to feel,” she promptly replied, “that we were in some sort protégés of his.”
Garwood could not contain himself longer.
“Well, I’m getting tired of having people talk as if Jim Rankin owned me! I’ll show ’em!” he ended stubbornly.
“But, Jerome,” she said, raising her eyes at last, and fixing them on his, “you promised him—didn’t you?”
He wadded his napkin and flung it petulantly on the table.