"Certainly, sir," said Davy.
"I could see you hurrying down to that there University Club to sit there and tell it all to those smarties that are always blowing about what they're going to do. You'll be right smart of a man some day, Davy, if you'll learn to keep your mouth shut."
Davy looked abashed. He did not know which of his many indiscretions of self-glorifying talkativeness Mr. Hastings had immediately in mind. But he could recall several, any one of which was justification for the rather savage rebuke—the more humiliating that Jane was listening. He glanced covertly at her.
Perhaps she had not heard; she was gazing into the distance with a strange expression upon her beautiful face, an expression that fastened his attention, absorbed though he was in his project for his own ambitions. As her father disappeared, he said:
"What are you thinking about, Jane?"
Jane startled guiltily. "I? Oh—I don't know—a lot of things."
"Your look suggested that you were having a—a severe attack of conscience," said he, laughingly. He was in soaring good humor now, for he saw his way clear to election.
"I was," said Jane, suddenly stern. A pause, then she laughed—rather hollowly. "Davy, I guess I'm almost as big a fraud as you are. What fakirs we human beings are?—always posing as doing for others and always doing for our selfish selves."
Davy's face took on its finest expression. "Do you think it's altogether selfishness for me to fight for Victor Dorn and give him a chance to get out his paper again—when he has warned me that he is going to print things that may defeat me?"
"You know he'll not print them now," retorted Jane.