She checked herself, perceiving that she had hit on an unfortunate subject, but her father replied with a return of his old dry humor: "Yes, the bank was the principal obstacle, and that's been removed now." He set his lips bitterly, and picked up his book again. There was silence in the library, and Emily rested. Now and then her father glanced at her, but she did not move. She lay back in her chair, relaxed in every fiber. He stood her inaction as long as any man could, and then demanded: "Why don't you do something? Ain't you going to read?" She did rouse herself, obedient to his whims, but she made an excuse: "I must go up and see how the baby's getting along." "Coming down again?" "No; leave the door open for Jerome when you come up, will you?" And then he was left to the expectant silence that oppresses a household when it awaits the coming of one of its members before it can settle down for the night. It was after midnight when Garwood came. He threw the reeking end of his cigar into the yard and toiled up the stairs breathing heavily. "Where have you been?" Emily asked when he entered their rooms. "Down town; where'd you suppose?" he answered. "Is there any news?" "News? What of?" "Why, of politics." "Well, I've got a fight on my hands, that's the news." He spoke as if she were responsible for the fact, and she felt it. "You know how interested the baby and I are, Jerome. We've been waiting here to hear." He softened at the mention of his child, and bent over his cradle. "Don't waken him," the mother said, as he put forth his big hand. And then she resumed her questioning. "Did you see Mr. Rankin?" "Yes." "Well," she said hopefully, with the faith they had always held in Rankin, "he can bring it around all right, can't he?" "He!" said Garwood. "He's a back number!" She drew the story out of him, and when she had done so, she said: "Well, you don't forget, Jerome, that you once said to me that we must be good to Jim Rankin." He made no reply for a long time, and she followed him with eyes that looked large in her thin face. After awhile, he paused in trying to unbutton his collar, and turned his head around, his chin thrust pointedly out over his hands. "If I were out of debt," he said, "I'd quit the whole business and open a law office in Chicago, and let politics alone." It was a common threat with him when he was discouraged. And she had long since learned that the threat to leave politics was common to all politicians, just as the threat to leave the sea is common to all sailors, or the threat to leave newspaper work to all newspaper men. She felt herself the fascination of the life, and so knew the insincerity of the threat. "Oh, you always say that when you're blue. Don't worry any more to-night." V