"Oh!"
"Not in you—the rest of the world."
"New York nearly lost a governor!" she warned him. "I save my egotist with a sense of humour, which is only a sense of proportion. Humour plus purpose."
"What kind of purpose?"
"To be selfish for unselfish ends."
"Delightfully Irish," he admitted.
The talk never drifted from the impersonal. They both unconsciously fought to keep up all the barriers of their formal relationship, but they both were constantly peering over the wall into the other's personality, hoping not to be caught at it.
The day came when Trent's candidacy for governor was announced by his party. As he never saw Bob in the morning, the news came to her with her coffee and toast. She sent for all the papers and read them more diligently than she had ever searched for notices of her own triumphs. The bed looked like a sea of print, out of which she rose, a pink mermaid. When the last word was read, she took up the 'phone beside her bed and called Paul. The secretary told her he was in a conference. She asked if there was a message.
"This is— I am—Mrs. Trent," said Barbara, blushing furiously at her end of the line.
"Oh, just a minute," amended the girl. After a bit she heard his crisp, short greeting.