“I have said it awkwardly,” he began. “If it had been less to me I might have found more eloquence. I love you. I think I have always loved you. You know that. A woman always knows. I love you. I loved you in the old days, when I was too poor to have the right to speak. What little I am—what little I may have achieved—is for _you_. I have not made much of myself. But that I’ve made anything at all is due to you. In everything I have done, your eyes and your smile have been before me. At heart, I’ve laid every success at your feet. At heart I’ve asked your faith and your pardon for each of my failures. And, whether you care or not, it will always be the same. That one dear ambition will spur me on to make the very best of myself. My victories shall be your victories whether you wish it or not. Perhaps that seems to you presumptuous or foolish?” “No.” There was no perceptible emotion in the half-whispered word. From it Clive could glean nothing. Presently he went on: “I think whenever you see a man trying to make the most of all that is in him, and wearing out his very soul in this breakneck American race for livelihood, you’ll find there is some woman behind it all. It is for her, not for his own selfish ambition, that he is fighting. Sometimes she crowns his victory. Sometimes he wins only the thorn-crown. But the glory of the work and the winning are hers. Not his. Now you know why I entered this Governorship fight, and why I am willing to keep it up. Oh, sweetheart, I _love_ you so. You _must_ understand, now, why I longed to come to you in my hour of triumph and——” “You would have come too late,” she said in that same enigmatic undertone. “_Anice._” There was a world of pain in his appeal, yet she disregarded it; and, with face averted, hurried on: “Would you care for—for the love of a girl who made you wait until you could buy her with fame and an income? Do I care for the love of a man who holds that love so cheaply he must accompany its gift with a Governorship title——?” “And now,” she observed, some minutes later, as she strove to rearrange her tumbled crown of rust-colored hair before the tiny patch of office mirror, “and now, if you can be sensible for just a little while, we’ll go back to the convention. And I’ll explain to you about those letters. The anonymous ones.” “It’s all right. I don’t have to be told. I——” “But I have to tell you. That’s the worst of being a girl.” The crowd had trooped back into the Convention Hall. Gerald Conover had not been at the earlier session, but now, his sallow face flushed with liquor, he sat silent and dull-eyed among a party of noisy young satellites, in one of the dingy, chicken-coop boxes at the side of the stage. He had evidently been drinking hard. In fact, since his wife’s visit to Granite, the previous week, the youngster had seldom if ever been wholly sober. Nor was his habitual apathy all due to drink.