She closed the door. "I'm glad to see you. I know what happened last night; we heard at the office." She held out her hand again. The grip was warm and full of sympathy.
The hand sent a thrill through Tom. In his fresh disappointment it was just this intelligent sympathy that he was hungry for. For a moment he was unable to speak or move.
She gently withdrew her hand. "But we heard only the bare fact. I want you to tell me the whole story."
Tom laid his hat and overcoat upon the couch, which had a dull green cover, glancing, as he did so, about the room. There were a few prints of good pictures on the walls; a small case of books; a writing desk; and in one corner a large screen whose dominant color was a dull green. The thing that struck him most was the absence of the knick-knackery with which his home was decorated. Tom was not accustomed to give attention to his surroundings, but the room pleased him; and yet it was only an ordinary boarding-house room, plus the good taste of a tasteful woman.
Tom took one of the two easy chairs in the room, and once again went over the happenings of the previous night. She interrupted again and again with indignant exclamations.
"Why, you didn't lose at all!" she cried, when he had finished the episode of the eight drunken men.
"You won, and it was stolen from you! Your Mr. Foley is a—a——" Whichever way she turned for an adequate word she ran against a restriction barring its use by femininity. "A robber!" she ended.
"But aren't you going to protest the election?"
"I shall—certainly. But there's mighty little chance of the result being changed. Foley'll see to that."
He tried to look brave, but Ruth guessed the bitterness within. She yearned to have him talk over things with her; her sympathy for him now that she beheld him dispirited after a daring fight was even warmer than when she had seen him pulsing with defiant vigor. "Won't you tell me what you are going to do? If you don't mind."