“I’ll try, of course; but I doubt if even a favorite daughter could influence the man you describe.”
“Let me help,” broke in the irrepressible Genevieve. “I can do lots with a girl. I can do more than Curt could. I’ll chum up with her and——”
“Now, Miss Lane, you keep out of this. I don’t believe in mixing women and politics.”
“But Miss Wheeler’s a woman.”
“And I don’t want her troubled with politics. Keefe here can persuade her to coax her father just through her affections—I don’t want her enlightened as to any of the political details. And I can’t think your influence would work half as well as that of a man. Moreover, Keefe has discernment, and if it isn’t a good plan, after all, he’ll know enough to discard it—while you’d blunder ahead blindly, and queer the whole game!”
“Oh, well,” and bridling with offended pride, Genevieve sought refuge in her little mirror.
“Now, don’t get huffy,” and Sam smiled at her; “you’ll probably find that Miss Wheeler’s complexion is finer than yours, anyway, and then you’ll hate her and won’t want to speak to her at all.”
Miss Lane flashed an indignant glance and then proceeded to go on with her work.
“Hasn’t Wheeler tried for a pardon all this time?” Keefe asked.
“Indeed he has,” Sam returned, “many times. But you see, though successive governors were willing to grant it, father always managed to prevent it. Dad can pull lots of wires, as you know, and since he doesn’t want Wheeler fully pardoned, why, he doesn’t get fully pardoned.”