As a matter of fact she was anything but bored. She was lashing herself at every step with reproaches at her idiotic inconsistency in accompanying an East Side politician on a fool’s errand. No doubt the whole thing was a scheme to pose before enraptured constituents. Why had she consented to come? She asked herself the question a hundred times and finally accepted the weak lie that she was studying his eccentricities to make his defeat the more sure.
With each moment of her association she had become more and more clearly conscious of his charm. Its strength and its antagonism were equally appealing. It would be sweet to demonstrate her own power in his defeat at the polls and then make up to him by confessing her admiration.
She began to receive striking evidence of his popularity. At every street-corner and from almost every door came a friendly nod or wave of a hand.
Schultz, the fat German who kept a delicatessen store on the corner, waved to him from the doorway.
“Mein Frau und der kids—all dere, gov’ner. I vish I could be!”
On the next block Brodski gripped his hand and whispered a word of cheer.
“They all seem to know you down here, Mr. Congressman,” Virginia laughed.
“Yes, it’s my only hope—if we fight—”
“You’ll need help if we do,” she answered quietly.
He didn’t like the tone of menace in her words. There was no bluster about it. There was a ring of earnestness that meant business.