"You wouldn't have thought it of a practical politician—one of the 'aesthetically dead,'" he smiled. "Yet it is the politician you should seek to interest in these things. He'll see their value if he's taught. You opened my eyes—did it in a social way, which is the best way. It's through his social side, be it in barroom or drawing-room, that the politician is most easily reached, for he's a human being. Reformers don't see that; they aim at the intellect direct. You didn't dream, in talking about art to me now and then, that you were doing a possible public service. That's the key-note of woman's best influence in politics, I've come to believe—unconscious argument, not speechmaking. You have influenced me more than I can tell. I've grown. You have broadened my horizon. Will you make it broader? I ask you to marry me."
It was a little moment before she took his meaning, so much did his blunt proposal seem a part of the staccato chat of politics from which it issued.
"I cannot," she said at last.
"Why?"
It seemed ridiculous to speak of the affections to this businesslike creature who apparently counted them not worth mentioning; so she answered that they were unsuited to one another.
Shelby shook his head emphatically.
"I can't agree with you. Are you engaged to marry any one else?"
Ruth colored under his cross-examination, but replied that she was not.
"We'll let the question lie fallow for a time," Shelby arranged.
"Think it over impartially."
She tried to bid him put the thing wholly out of mind, but he adjourned discussion as summarily as he might a committee meeting, and spoke of other topics.