"She doesn't deny it. That's not the trouble. Something about Vetch stands in the way. I can't make out what she means."
"Let me talk to her," responded Corinna reassuringly. "Is the Governor here?"
"No, he has gone to the strikers' meeting. They must reach some decision to-night it appears. I have talked with him, and I believe he will stand firm whatever happens. It means, I think, that his career is over."
"It is too late for him to win over the conservative forces?"
"It was always too late. In a battle of extremes the most dangerous position is in the centre."
"He told me something like that once. The trouble with him is that he hasn't a point of view, but a vision. He sees the whole, and politics is only a little part of it."
"Yes, he sees a human fight, while they are trying to make a political squabble. He may win them over to-night, but this is only the beginning. The real fight is against individual self-interest." He laughed in an undertone. "I remember he told me once that the only trouble with Christianity was the Christians. 'You can't have Christianity', he said, 'until Christians are different'. That's just as true, of course, of politics. The only trouble with politics is the politicians."
"Well, it's a muddle," she responded impatiently. "However you look at it. Come back in an hour or two, and I may be able to help you." Her cheerful smile shone on him for an instant; then she entered the house and closed the door after her.
In one of the worn leather chairs in the library, Patty was sitting perfectly still, with her eyes fixed on the orderly row of papers on the Governor's desk. She wore a white dress with a black ribbon at her waist, and in the dim light, with her pale face and her cloudy hair, she had a ghostly look as if she would turn to mist at a touch. When Corinna entered, she rose and held out her hands. "You are so good," she said. "I never dreamed that any body could be so good and so beautiful too!"
"My dear," began Corinna brightly, and while she spoke she drew the girl to the leather-covered couch by the window, and sat down still holding the cold hands in her warm ones. "So you are going to marry Stephen."