Dyker laughed shortly.
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "I esteem your father so much that I should like him to like me."
"But you think that he doesn't like you?"
"I think that he is slow to see that two persons may differ on a question of political tactics and yet remain, both of them, honest men."
"And may they?" bantered Marian.
"Well," he lightly accepted the challenge, "I shall take the specific case. There is no doubting your father's sincerity; there is no doubting the sincerity of nearly all the men that will, with him, to-night try to launch another of these municipal-reform parties which, if they ever get started at all, are sure to run on the rocks at last."
"And on the other hand," said the girl, "I suppose I must generously refuse to doubt the sincerity of Tammany Hall?"
"On the other hand you must justly refuse to doubt the sincerity of a few young men who have seen that reform-parties always end in violent reaction within the city and, if briefly successful, weaken the party in the next national campaign. You must refuse to doubt the sincerity of these young men when they go into the heart of the East Side to live and work among the people that make up the organization's fighting-strength. You must believe in them when they try to get nominated for even the smallest offices on the machine-ticket. And you must have faith that, if they can work themselves at last into places of power, they will reform the party in the only way that will keep it reformed."
"Dear me," sighed Marian, "it seems that it was father that I rescued from a sermon."
"Well," said Dyker, "you asked me why your father and I should not mistrust each other, and there you have the reason. You know what I am trying to do; I have told you my plans as I haven't told them to another human being—and you should know that I am not to be suspected."