He had progressed from an alertness that was not free from suspicion to a fervid statement of the political situation, into which the element of his personal feelings had risen more and more to the surface. So naturally did he appear to take the mention of Miss Wycliffe that Leigh had not realised how deeply flattered he must have been by her interest. Now, at last, his very posture showed a sense of being at home, and into the brightness of his steady eyes an expression entered which could best be described as confidential.
"I meant to ask you," he said, "who it was that began to talk about me at the bishop's."
Leigh considered a moment. "We were all discussing politics—I really don't remember."
"And did Miss Wycliffe take my part against the old man?"
The question arrested Leigh's attention, and traversed his consciousness with a positive shock. It was he who was now on guard. He would have repudiated the insinuation that he was jealous, and yet, when a man is in love, jealousy in some sort may extend even to those who cannot possibly be his rivals. As he divined that Emmet was inclined to put too personal an interpretation upon Miss Wycliffe's generosity of feeling, he was concerned to think that she might have misplaced it, that this man might have the presumption to misunderstand her. He became singularly forgetful of what had occurred at the bishop's house, and seemed not to hear a further intimation from Emmet, to the effect that he believed Miss Wycliffe was more than a match for her father. It was now that Emmet discovered a greater possibility of likeness between the bishop and his host than he had suspected so short a time before. His evident curiosity in regard to Miss Wycliffe's real purpose in sending the professor to him remained ungratified, and the necessity which now faced him of retreating from a position in which he had not been met caused him to take his actual departure presently with something of his earlier restraint of manner. They separated, like Glaucus and Diomedes, representatives of different camps, who entertained for each other personally the greatest good-will and respect. It may be, however, that each gave this assurance with mental reservations more or less subconscious.
When Leigh was once more alone, he walked up and down his room restlessly for some time. His first sensation was one of exasperation with Miss Wycliffe for her ill-advised championship of a man who actually seemed to have the assurance to think of her otherwise than as his patroness and good friend from afar. If she suffered embarrassment from it in the future, he reflected, that was only what she might have anticipated. It would be a delicate matter to let her know her mistake. More than that—it would be impossible. Her own instinct and good sense would come to her rescue in time. Meanwhile, there was Emmet. It was delightful to think how she had failed to see his point of view, while sure that she saw it so well. He could not wonder that the man's head was slightly turned, and now that he was gone, Leigh felt no personal resentment on that score. As he reviewed the conversation of the evening, he wondered which were really the more dangerous to the state, Emmet, full of personal grievances and undigested theories, or his opponent, Judge Swigart, the cynical and aristocratic politician. If Emmet desired at present to turn the existing order of things topsy-turvy, it was because such a revolution would place him at the top. The judge, already nearer the top, was naturally a champion of things as they were, which included his position as it was. Though Leigh mused in this sophisticated vein, he nevertheless felt considerable confidence that the younger man, when he became a finished product, would be a better citizen than his political rival.
CHAPTER VI
LENA HARPSTER
The bell in the cupola of the First Church had just rung out the hour of midnight, and the slow, deep notes, which seemed to derive a certain solemnity from the graveyard below, were carried in broken echoes to the very suburbs of the city on the wings of a moist, intermittent wind. The storm of the previous night, which had lifted during the day, now seemed about to begin anew, and the air was full of a sense of unshed rain. Down in the street, where bits of waste paper and other small refuse spun around under the swaying electric lights, the huge cleaner, called "the devil waggon," was just beginning its nocturnal task. In front of the City Hall, lately such a scene of busy life, a solitary car stood ready to start upon its homeward trip, its two violet lamps winking in the wind like a pair of sleepy eyes. Only the all-night drug-store on the opposite corner kept up an appearance of wakefulness by means of a corona of milk-white lights that made a brilliant spot in the comparative obscurity of the long thoroughfare.