"What of that? I was prejudiced against him, I own; or rather, I had a just distrust of a man with such a past. But how splendidly he's wiped it out! What a record he has written on the new leaf he promised to turn over if I gave him the chance! Do you know," the Governor interrupted himself with a pleasantly reminiscent laugh, "I was rather annoyed with Grace when she hinted that you had promised to back up Ashford—I told her you didn't aspire to distribute patronage. But she might have reminded me—if she'd known—that it was you who persuaded me to give Fleetwood that chance."
Mrs. Mornway turned with a slight heightening of color. "Grace—how could she possibly have known?"
"She couldn't, of course, unless she'd read my weakness in my face. But why do you look so startled at my little joke?"
"It's only that I so dislike Grace's ineradicable idea that I am a wire-puller. Why should she imagine I would help her about Ashford?"
"Oh, Grace has always been a mild and ineffectual conspirator, and she thinks every other woman is built on the same plan. But you did get Fleetwood's job for him, you know," he repeated with laughing insistence.
"I had more faith than you in human nature, that's all." She paused a moment, and then added: "Personally, you know, I have always rather disliked him."
"Oh, I never doubted your disinterestedness. But you are not going to turn against your candidate, are you?"
She hesitated. "I am not sure; circumstances alter cases. When you made Fleetwood Attorney-General two years ago he was the inevitable man for the place."
"Well—is there a better one now?"
"I don't say there is—it's not my business to look for him, at any rate. What I mean is that at that time Fleetwood was worth risking anything for—now I don't know that he is."