"You would n't believe what fun Felicity always makes of us," she said. "She pretends that we are trying to excuse people from doing what they are paid to do."
He was able to see how the virtue of the league could appeal to Felicity's sense of humour, even though she might accept its suggestion.
"There 's that man!" she cried, suddenly stiffening. "It seems to me I can never go down-town without meeting the horrid creature somewhere, strutting along as if he owned the town, just because a lot of ruffians have made him mayor. But I believe Felicity has won you over to her strange point of view."
"Emmet is n't at all a bad mayor," he returned. "I happen to know that he has refused to have anything to do with Bat Quayle, the political boss of the worst element of his party. What do you say to that?"
"That you have been misinformed," she answered implacably, "or that he has gone back on his word, and now refuses to pay his political debts."
"In either case you don't leave him a leg to stand on. Still, I can only reiterate my conviction in regard to his political honesty, and wait for developments."
"I notice you don't make any claims for his private character," she retorted, giving him a severe glance. "But men have their own code of morals, and always stand by each other. Now I happen to know that he is running around with one of Felicity's servants. Out at the Old Continental, the other evening, we found them in possession of a room we had engaged for dinner. He practically ordered us out of the place until he and Miss Harpster, as he called her, chose to take their departure. Did you ever hear of such a thing in your life?"
"Never," he answered. "Emmet would be quite a catch for her, would n't he?"
She threw up her hands with a gesture of infinite scorn. "He never in this world intends to marry her. I 'm sure of that."
He wondered whether she guessed how truly she had spoken, but her face was sphinx-like in its hard acerbity. She seemed to shrink and grow pinched with the intensity of her emotion, and her next words, spoken almost as a soliloquy, showed the trend of her thoughts.