The candidate, in his tiny frock coat, with pale gray spats and scarf to match, looked overdressed in the brilliant sunshine. Yet probably Peter, whose purple tie blossomed too gorgeously above a blue silk "fancy vest" of a cut a good deal affected in the early nineties, looked the more striking of the two. "He's a fool," declared Peter presently. "The chances are that Ryan has a barrel of votes salted down where we'll have the devil's own time tapping them. You can't smoke out a skunk in a minute, I tell you." Mrs. Marne, in a cushioned chair, was being markedly agreeable to her host. "It's my _debut_ on a yacht," she was rattling away. "Is there any special etiquette? Coach me from time to time when you see me fumbling, won't you? And if there _is_ a code, there is one thing that I move shall go into it, here and now. Politics is--or are--_barred_ for the day! Will you make it a rule that whoever mentions it--or them--forfeits butter, Mr. Varney?" Varney laughed. "A rank outsider myself," said he, "I'm absolutely willing. But I fear that in a division the nays would have it." "You and I," she said, "against Mr. Maginnis and Pinky. A tie. Mary would have the deciding vote." "Then you'd lose out," said her brother, whose social manner, it was developing, differed somewhat from that of his official moments. "I know women," said Mrs. Marne. "I could lobby Mary over in exactly two minutes, Mr. Varney. Besides, she is absent at roll-call, you know." "The point is well taken," said Varney, to whom the thought was anything but a novelty. "There she is now," said Peter over their shoulders. Varney turned and looked ashore at the point where the gig was patiently waiting. There was no sign of anybody there. "Upstream," added Peter, and the sudden honk of a motor-horn punctuated the observation like a full stop. Two hundred yards above them, a narrow driveway circled down to the river to an ancient boat-house, and here the gaze of the little party turned. Where the road curved at the water's edge, there stood a great white touring-car, shining in the sun like a new pin. Upon the driver's seat sat a bare-headed young man with a brown face and light sunburned hair, brushed back. On the farther side of him, gloved hand holding to the seat back, stood a young girl in a blue linen dress and a rather conspicuously large hat, also of blue. Both of them were looking off toward the _Cypriani_. Now the horn tooted again in salutation; and the girl, catching their eyes, waved her hand and smiled, making a little gesture indicative of her lack of equipment to navigate the intervening stretch of water. Mrs. Marne answered the salute in kind. Reassuring gesticulations were duly wafted ashore. "Who's the new swain, Pinky?" demanded Mrs. Marne thoughtfully. Pinky did not know. The sailing-master, at a word from Varney, hurled an order to the gig ashore. Then he swept his megaphone upstream, pointing it straight at the motor: