"Hm-m-m," Garwood mused. He stirred the sugar into his coffee, and then, as if seeking livelier topics, he said: "So Dade's coming home, is she?" "Yes; isn't it too bad about her engagement?" "No, I think not--those foreigners are mostly a bad lot." "She says she'll have to marry an American." "Does she have to get married?" Emily smiled faintly. "She seems to think so." "Mother well?" Garwood asked. "Yes--you must go right over and see her." "I'm pretty tired to-night." "Yes, I know, Jerome, but it wouldn't do. You must go right away when you have done your supper." Having thus disposed of all the necessary topics, Garwood rather hesitatingly approached the subject that lay on the hearts of both. "How does the post-office appointment seem to strike them?" He kept his eyes downward on the cigarette he was pinching. "I don't hear much about it," Emily answered. And she colored. "You read the papers, of course." "Of course," he answered, "but you can't tell anything from them. What did you think of it?" "I was surprised." "Surprised?" "Yes." "What at?" "At you." "Me?" "Yes." A heavy silence fell, and Emily sat there, her eyes on the silver sugar bowl she slowly fitted to a design in the tablecloth. Her lips, though, were set, and Garwood, stealing a glance at them, moved uneasily. Here was the first of his constituents he must reckon with. "Well, Pusey'll make a good postmaster," he ventured at last, seeing that she was not likely to speak. "Doubtless," she replied. "I hardly thought, though, that political appointments were a question of fitness nowadays." "I thought you were a civil service reformer," Garwood answered, trying to laugh. But her lips remained obdurately tight, and he saw what her conscience would hold him to. "I had supposed Mr. Rankin was to be appointed postmaster." Garwood did not reply at once. "Rankin seems to have become quite a protégé of yours," he ventured at last. "I used to feel," she promptly replied, "that we were in some sort protégés of _his_." Garwood could not contain himself longer. "Well, I'm getting tired of having people talk as if Jim Rankin owned me! I'll show 'em!" he ended stubbornly. "But, Jerome," she said, raising her eyes at last, and fixing them on his, "you promised him--didn't you?" He wadded his napkin and flung it petulantly on the table. "There it goes!" he said, as he scraped back his chair. "I supposed some such story would get out." "But, didn't you?" she persisted. Under her insistence he arose from the table irascibly. He stood looking at her while a hard smile rose to his lips. "You're deeply concerned for Rankin, aren't you?" "Jerome," she said quietly, looking at him with wide, unwinking eyes, "it is not Mr. Rankin I am concerned for--not for him half so much as for you." He was led into sarcasm for a moment. "You are quite solicitous--" he began, and then evidently thinking better of it, he tried to laugh her out of her seriousness.