She raised her voice in amazed query. "For mercy's sake, haven't you been proving that you're not afraid of him?" Once more, jubilantly, teasingly, wrought upon by the revived spirit of the intimacy of the old days, she assumed a playful pose with him, but this time her sincerity of soul was behind the situation. "Don't you realize, sir, that the calendar of the Hon. Jodrey Wadsworth Corson, on this day and date, is crowded with strictly new business? He is due at the State House very soon. Do you think he can afford to be bothered with unfinished business?"
He worshiped her with silence and a smile.
"Yes, Mister Mayor of Marion, unfinished business—yours and mine! Our business of the old days. But the honorable Senator is perfectly well aware that the business aforesaid is on the calendar. He had been supposing that we had forgotten it. I see a big question in your eyes, Stewart dear! Well, now that you're a party to the action and interested in the matter to be presented, I'll say that after Senator Corson had done his talking to me last evening, or very early this morning, to be more exact, I called on my family grit of which he's so proud and I did a little talking to Senator Corson. And he knows that the business is unfinished—he knows it will be brought duly to his attention—and he'll be in a better frame of mind after his present petulance has worn off."
"Petulance!" Morrison was rather skeptical.
"Exactly! He's just as much of a big child as most men are when another big child tries to take away a plaything. Oh, he was furious, Stewart! But let me tell you something for your comfort. He dwelt most savagely on the fact that you had grabbed in single-handed and beaten a Governor and a United States Senator at their own game! Wonderful, isn't it—admission like that? He has always patronized you as a countryman who knew how to make good cloth and who didn't amount to anything else in the world. Why, in a few days he'll be admitting that he admires you and respects you!"
She paused. After a few moments she went on, her tones low and thrilling. "I've been trying to explain myself to you, Stewart. You know, now, that I have always loved you. I have told you so in a way that leaves no doubts in a man such as you are. You have forgiven me for being simply human and silly before I woke up to understand you. And you don't misunderstand me any more, do you?" she pleaded, wistfully. "Last night I saw—your big self!"
"Lana, it was a wonderful night—more wonderful than I realized till now!"
After a time they became aware of a stir below-stairs and they came out from behind the screen where the Japanese faces grinned knowingly.
"Please obey me, Stewart; you must! It's really my trial of you to see if you're obedient when I know it's for your own good. Go down and wait for me." She left him in the corridor and ran away.
He marched down the stairs with as much self-possession as he could command.