"One does want to make sacrifices," she answered. "That is the penalty of joy. One can scarcely believe in it before it goes."
"Well, I believe in this. You are very lovely. Where have you been?"
"To the Governor's. I wanted to speak to Patty. I feel sorry for Patty to-day. I feel sorry for almost every one," she added, with an enchanting smile, "except myself."
"And me. Surely you don't waste your pity on me? But what of Miss Vetch? Hasn't she her own particular happiness?"
"I wonder—" Then, without finishing her sentence, she left the subject of Patty because she surmised from Benham's tone that he would not be sympathetic. "I had a long talk with the Governor. John, what do you think will come of the strike?"
He answered her question with another. "What did he tell you?"
"Nothing except that the men have a right to strike if they wish to."
He laughed. "Well, that's safe enough. But don't talk of Vetch. I dislike him so heartily that I have a sneaking feeling I may be unjust to him."
It was so like him, that fine impersonal sense of fairness, that her eyes warmed with admiration. "That is splendid," she responded. "It is just the kind of thing that Vetch could never feel." Suddenly she knew that she was ashamed of having believed in Vetch when she contrasted him with John Benham. How could she have imagined for an instant that the Governor could stand a comparison like this?
He pressed her hand as the car stopped before the apartment house where he lived. "In a few hours I shall see you again," he said; and his voice, in its eagerness, reminded her of the voice of Kent Page when he had made love to her in her girlhood. Ah, she had learned wisdom since then! Just so much and no more, that was the secret of happiness. Give with the mind and the heart; but keep always one inviolable sanctity of the spirit—of the buried self beneath the self.