He had flung his hat upon the rock, and she glanced at his serious, sunburned face. His eyes were still fixed, contemplatively, on the Yale of the Blue, but he turned to her with a smile.
“It has become yours by right of conquest,” he answered.
She did not reply to that. The immobility of her face, save for the one look she had flashed upon him, surprised and puzzled him more and more—the world—old, indefinable, eternal feminine quality of the Spring.
“So you refused to be governor? she said presently,—surprising him again.
“It scarcely came to that,” he replied.
“What did it come to?” she demanded.
He hesitated.
“I had to go down to the capital, on my father's account, but I did not go to the convention. I stayed,” he said slowly, “at the little cottage across from the Duncan house where—you were last winter.” He paused, but she gave no sign. “Tom Gaylord came up there late in the afternoon, and wanted me to be a candidate.”
“And you refused?”
“Yes.”