It was the old story--making chains out of his necessities. And they were very great. Crane spoke of paying his debts. He had scarcely made any reduction in the principal, and had only succeeded in paying the interest--which, with his living expenses, of which his own were twice as much as Annette’s and the children’s, and his small life-insurance, had galloped away with his five thousand a year. And if he should lose the nomination--there was not much danger of that now, but everything was possible with a machine and a man like Governor Sanders. Crane’s better nature, however, rebelled against the deceit to be practised on Senator Bicknell. That he declared he could never bring himself to--and believed it at the moment. “Then,” said Governor Sanders, rising, “we may conclude our conference. The entire success of the campaign I have mapped out depends upon Senator Bicknell not being taken into our confidence. We are not proposing anything against the party; we are simply proposing to do for ourselves what Senator Bicknell has done for himself; and if things go on as they have been going under his direction, I think we stand an excellent chance of losing the State at the Presidential election.” Before Crane’s ardent mind loomed a vision. Six years in Washington as a Senator--and he was not yet forty-three years old; living in good style, and then, the chance, not a bad one by any means, of the Vice-presidential nomination in a little over four years. It was a glorious vista. Like the Arabian glass-seller, his imagination far outstripped itself. He saw himself, at forty-eight, Vice-president, at fifty-two, another term, at fifty-six, still in the Senate, with a great reputation--even the Presidency did not seem beyond him. He had the enormous advantage of youth over most of his rivals. A Vice-president stands one chance in three and a half of succeeding to the Presidency--altogether, it was a dazzling dream--so dazzling that Crane began to feel the old regret and longing that Fate had not given him a wife like Constance Maitland; he was afraid even, in thought, to wish that it might be Constance Maitland. How that woman would shine in an official position! And then, the other side--but there was no other side. Without Sanders’s help, he would have a desperate fight before the Legislature; and that outlook which had seemed so rosy when he described it to Constance Maitland in her drawing-room a few months before, grew dismal and gruesome when examined in parlour number 20 of the Grand Hotel. If defeated for the senatorship, and under the ban of Governor Sanders, his seat, a year hence, would be certainly doubtful, and if the machine ran over him it meant annihilation. So, tempted of the devil, Crane yielded, and promised everything the Governor required.