“But you’ll have to get this door open for me,” she said. “I forgot about that.” “Oh, yes, that’s right.” He approached it, looking first for the large key which always hung on one side at this hour of the night, but not seeing it, looked at the lock. The key was in it. “I was trying before. I put it there,” she explained. He laid hold of it, and to his surprise it came open without any effort whatsoever, a thing which caused him to turn and look at her. “I thought you said it wouldn’t open,” he said. “Well, it wouldn’t before. I don’t know what makes it work now, but it wouldn’t then. Perhaps some one has come out this way since. Anyhow, I’ll run up and be down right away.” She hurried up the broad flight of stairs which ascended leisurely from this entrance. Gregory returned to his chair, amused but not conscious of anything odd or out of the way about the matter. It might well have been as she said. Doors were contrary at times, or some one might have come down and pushed it open. Why always keep doubting? Perhaps she really was in love with him, as she seemed to indicate, or mightily infatuated, and would not permit any one to injure him through her. It would seem so, really. After all, he kept saying to himself, she was different now to what he had originally thought, and what she had originally been, caught in a tangle of her own emotions and compelled by him to do differently from what she had previously planned. If he were not married as happily as he was, might not something come of this? He wondered. The black-green wall of the trees just beyond where he was sitting, the yellow light filtering from the one bowl lamp which ornamented the ceiling, the fireflies and the sawing katydids, all soothed and entertained him. He was beginning to think that politics was not such a bad business after all, his end of it at least, or being pursued even. His work thus far had yielded him a fair salary, furnishing as it had excellent copy for some of the newspapers and political organizations--the best was being reserved for the last--and was leading him into more interesting ways than the old newspaper days had, and the future, outside of what had happened in the last few weeks, looked promising enough. Soon he would be able to deal the current administration a body blow. This might raise him to a high position locally. He had not been so easily frustrated as they had hoped, and this very attractive girl had fallen in love with him.