"I tell you something terrible is the matter," Lana declared, giving up her efforts to get news over the wire. "Coventry, your looks tell me that you have heard bad news of some sort!" "I don't want to be an alarmist," admitted young Daunt, "but all sorts of whip-whap stuff seem to be in the air all of a sudden. I just took a run down to the foot of the hill. The bees are buzzing a little livelier there than they are in the neighborhood of the house. Up here some soldier boys are waving their bayonets and fat cops are swinging clubs. We're all right, ladies, but there are all sorts of stories about what's likely to happen up at the State House. I've come to tell you that if you can do without me I think I'll take a swing over to Capitol Hill. I don't want to miss anything good, and I'll bring back straight news." "I can't endure to wait here for news, Coventry," Lana said. "Order the car; I'll go along with you." "It's absolute folly!" declared Mrs. Stanton, aghast, "Haven't you had enough experience with mobs for one evening?" "I am going to my father, mobs or no mobs! I know his voice and I know he's in trouble, no matter what that idiot of a sheriff tells me." She hurried to the door. "Order the car, I say! I'll get my wraps." Mrs. Stanton divided rueful gaze between her own evening gown and Lana's. "Are you going with that dress on?" "I certainly am!" Lana called from the corridor, running toward her apartments. "Well," Mrs. Stanton informed her brother, "this gown has served me all evening during the political rally that somebody tried to pass off as a reception. Probably it will do very well for the mob-affair. I'll go for my furs." "That's a brick!" was her brother's indorsement. "She needs us both. But don't be frightened, sis! It's only a political flurry, and such fusses are usually more fizz than fight. I'll have the car around to the door in a jab of a jiffy!" By the time the limousine swung under the _porte-cochère_ Lana was down and waiting; Mrs. Stanton came hurrying after, ready to defy a January midnight in a cocoon of kolinsky. Coventry had ridden from the garage with the chauffeur. "I have been talking with Wallace. He thinks he'd better drive to the State House by detour through the parkway." "Go straight down through the city," commanded the mistress. "I'm not afraid of my hometown folks. Besides, I have an errand. Stop at the Marion _Monitor_ office, Wallace!" The city certainly offered no cause for alarm when they traversed the streets of the business district. Nobody was in sight; they did not see even a patrolman. "The bees seem to have hived all of a sudden," remarked young Daunt. "All fizz, as I told you, and now the fizz has fizzled."