"But that's not all," Mrs. Herrington continued rapidly. "We bought ten thousand copies of that extra for ourselves—your uncle paid for them—and we're going to distribute them in every home in town. When the best element in Whitewater read how the women were trampled down by Noonan's mob—well, they'll know how to vote! Mr. Noonan will never guess how much he has helped us."
"You seem to have left nothing for me to do," said George.
"You'll find out there'll be all you'll want," replied the brisk Mrs. Herrington. "We're organizing meetings—one in every hall in the city, one on almost every other street corner, and we're going to rush you from one to the next—most of the night—and there'll be no letup for you tomorrow, even if it is election day. Yes, you'll find there'll be plenty to do!"
The next twenty-four hours were the busiest that George Remington had ever known in his twenty-six years.
But at nine o'clock the next evening it was over—the tumult and the shouting and the congratulations—and all were gone save only Martin Jaffry; and District-Attorney-Elect Remington sat in his hotel suite alone in the bosom of his family.
He was still dazed by what had happened to him—at the part he had unexpectedly played—dazed by the intense but well-ordered activity of the women: their management of his whirlwind tour of the city; their organization of parades with amazing swiftness; their rapid and complete house-to-house canvass—the work of Mrs. Herrington, of Betty, of that Miss Eliot, of hundreds of women—and especially of Geneviève. He marveled especially at Geneviève because he had never thought of Geneviève as doing such things. But she had done them—he felt that somehow she was a different Geneviève: he didn't know what the difference was—he was in too much of a whirl for analysis—but he had an undefined sense of aliveness, of a spirited, joyous initiative in her.
She and all the rest seemed so strange as to be unbelievable. And yet, she—and all of it—true!...
From dramatic events and intangible qualities of the spirit, his consciousness shifted to material things—his immediate surroundings. Not till this blessed moment of relaxation did he become aware of the discomforts of this suite—nor did Geneviève fully appreciate the flamboyantly flowered maroon wall-paper and the jig-saw furniture.
"George,"' she sighed, "now that you're not needed down here, can't we go home?"
"Home!" The word came out half snort, half growl—hardly the tone becoming one whose triumph was so exultingly fresh. With a jar he had come back to a present which he fully understood. "Damn home! I haven't any home!"