“No, sir, and I don't want to. But I knew her father--the slickest old beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here, but she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down and lobby for that bill I don't know _yet_--but I will! Truslow's helping her to help himself; he's got stock in the company that runs the baseball team, but what she's up to--well, I'll bet there's a nigger in the woodpile _some_where!” “I expect there's a lot of talk like that!” said Alonzo, red with anger, and taking up his papers abruptly. “Yes, _sir_!” said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding the other's tone and manner. “Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill that venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead that it won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some others'll tend to _that_! Let her work that pretty face and those eyes of hers all she wants to! I'm keepin' a little lookout, too--and I'll--” He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone to his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the wrong way and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo, loathing Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases concerning that vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he affected to be setting his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the aisle, conscious of a roaring in his ears (though not aware how red they were) as he approached the semicircle about her. He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over the shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition that she exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which appeared between her handsome eyebrows. It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for anything but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for she did not even pause in what she was saying. Alonzo walked slowly away with the wormwood in his heart. He had not grown up among the young people of Stackpole without similar experiences, but it had been his youthful boast that no girl had ever “stopped speaking” to him without reason, or “cut a dance” with him and afterward found opportunity to repeat the indignity. “What have I _done_ to _her?_” was perhaps the hottest cry of his soul, for the mystery was as great as the sting of it. It was no balm upon that sting to see her pass him at the top of the outer steps, half an hour later, on the arm of that one of his colleagues who had been called the “best-dressed man in the Legislature.” She swept by him without a sign, laughing that same laugh at some sally of her escort, and they got into the black automobile together and were whirled away and out of sight by the impassive bundle of furs that manipulated the wheel.