"Yes," she sighed.
He drew her girlish head down against his breast.
"He's a bully boy for you, Leslie. Mrs. Governor Beekman, eh? Not bad! It's a good thing to have money, but it's a great thing to be a Mrs. Governor, too, and especially when the Governor happens to be a man and not one of those cheap politicians. I congratulate you, little one."
"You never used to think much of him," she faltered.
"True. But I didn't know him. I didn't know the stuff he was made of. Colonel Morehead sized him up right from the start. But he's the man for me, now, Beekman is, and no mistake."
Leslie closed her eyes and whispered softly, her hand creeping about his neck:
"Good-night, father."
The next moment she rose and slowly started to the door and then as slowly came back, thinking to herself:
"I might as well get it over once for all, so that to-morrow there'll be nothing to tell, nothing to do but to take up the routine of life again." And when she reached her father's side, she said bravely but with a little sigh:
"Father, I'm not going to marry Eliot Beekman."