"I said I was willing to help Kent. If you bracket yourself with him, I am more than willing. But I am rather new to the game. You will have to tell me the moves."
"We are only in the opening," she said, continuing the figure. "You will learn as you go along. By and by you will have to spend money; but just now the need is for a cool head to keep our young firebrand out of the personalities. Where is he to-night?"
Ormsby's smile was a grin.
"I left him at 124 Tejon Avenue half an hour ago. Do you think he is likely to get into trouble there?"
On the porch of the Brentwood apartment house David Kent was answering that question measurably well for himself. With the striking of the City Hall clock at nine Mrs. Brentwood had complained of the glare of the electric crossing-lamp and had gone in, leaving the caller with Penelope in the hammock on one side of him and Elinor in a basket chair on the other.
Their talk had been of the late municipal struggle, and of Kent's part in it; and, like Miss Van Brock, Penelope was applausive. But Elinor's congratulations were tempered with deprecation.
"I am glad you won for the League, of course; everybody must be glad of that," she said. "But I hope the Argus didn't report your speeches correctly. If it did, you have made a host of bitter enemies."
"What does a man—a real man—care for that?" This from the depths of the hammock.
"I, at least, can afford to be careless," said Kent. "I am not running for office, and I have nothing to lose, politically or otherwise."
"Can any man say that truthfully?" Elinor queried.