"Oh, then you can go in," she said, and, calling to the porter, she told him to announce Mr. Harley, of the New York Gazette. "Of the New York Gazette," she said again, with what Harley considered unnecessary repetition and emphasis, and he had a new count against her.
Mr. and Mrs. Grayson received him with courtesy, even with warmth, and Harley saw that he had made new progress in their esteem. He remained with them only a few minutes, and he said nothing about the objectionable conduct of Miss Morgan, who had set herself as a guard upon their door. He deemed it wiser to make no reference to her at all, because she was only an insignificant and momentary incident of the campaign, not really relevant. Chicago was merely a beginning, and they would drop her there. When he returned from the drawing-room, she was still sitting near the door, and at his appearance she looked up pertly.
"Did you find him in a good-humor?" she asked.
"I think Mr. Grayson is always in a good-humor, or at least he is able to appear so."
"I doubt whether perpetual good-humor, or the appearance of it, is desirable. One ought to make a difference in favor of friends; I do not care to present an amiable face to my enemies."
She pursed up her lips and looked thoughtful.
"When Uncle James goes to Washington to take the Presidency," she continued, "he will need me to protect him from the people who have no business with him."
"I hope the last remark is not personal?"
"Oh no," she said; "I recognize the fact that the press must be tolerated."
Harley again felt piqued, and, not willing to retire with the sense of defeat fresh upon him, he sat down near her and began to talk to her of her Western life. He wished to know more about the genesis and progress of a girl who seemed to him so strange, but he was not able to confine her to certain channels of narrative. She was flippant and vague, full of allusions to wild things like Indians or buffaloes or grizzly bears, but with no detailed statement, and Harley gathered that her childhood had been in complete touch with these primitive facts. Only such early associations could account for the absence of so many conventions.