"Let John Allingham have the place, if he can get it," she was saying to herself for the fiftieth time, as the mantel clock chimed out the half-past ten. "I am swept under by a queer psychological wave of repulsion. I hope I shall lose."
But she was aroused just then by the sound of women's voices on the stairs,—laughing and chattering,—and she felt the note of triumph ringing through her brain as they came up to her door.
"Hurrah for Roma's Woman Mayor!" cried the first one to enter. "Here's to Her Honor the Mayor."
At the same moment John Allingham and Barnaby Burke were saying to themselves with a choice of words befitting their habitual language:
"Defeated! and by a Woman!"
And Burke added:
"I wonder now, just what happened in that cab last night. That was a mistake."