"Get hold of the bridle," he said to the chauffeur. "You've got no business to have an animal like that," was his remark to Victoria. "Don't touch him!" she said to the man, who was approaching with a true machinist's fear of a high-spirited horse. "You've got no business to have a motor like that, if you can't handle it any better than you do." "You managed him all right. I'll say that for you," said Mr. Crewe. "No thanks to you," she replied. Now that the horse was comparatively quiet, she sat and regarded Mr. Crewe with an amusement which was gradually getting the better of her anger. A few moments since, and she wished with great intensity that she had been using the whip on his shoulders instead. Now that she had time to gather up the threads of the situation, the irresistibly comic aspect of it grew upon her, and little creases came into the corners of her eyes--which Mr. Crewe admired. She recalled--with indignation, to be sure--the conversation she had overheard in the dining room of the Duncan house, but her indignation was particularly directed, on that occasion, towards Mr. Tooting. Here was Humphrey Crewe, sitting talking to her in the road--Humphrey Crewe, whose candidacy for the governorship impugned her father's management of the Northeastern Railroads--and she was unable to take the matter seriously! There must be something wrong with her, she thought. "So you're home again," Mr. Crewe observed, his eyes still bearing witness to the indubitable fact. "I shouldn't have known it--I've been so busy." "Is the Legislature still in session?" Victoria soberly inquired. "You are a little behind the times--ain't you?" said Mr. Crewe, in surprise. "How long have you been home? Hasn't anybody told you what's going on?" "I only came up ten days ago," she answered, "and I'm afraid I've been something of a recluse. What is going on?" "Well," he declared, "I should have thought you'd heard it, anyway. I'll send you up a few newspapers when I get back. I'm a candidate for the governorship." Victoria bit her lip, and leaned over to brush a fly from the neck of her horse. "You are getting on rapidly, Humphrey," she said. "Do you think you've got--any chance?" "Any chance!" he repeated, with some pardonable force. "I'm sure to be nominated. There's an overwhelming sentiment among the voters of this State for decent politics. It didn't take me long to find that out. The only wonder is that somebody hasn't seen it before." "Perhaps," she answered, giving him a steady look, "perhaps somebody has." One of Mr. Crewe's greatest elements of strength was his imperviousness to this kind of a remark.