Those last days of the campaign were, indeed, luxuries to Kittrell and to Edith, days of work and fun and excitement. All day Kittrell worked on his cartoons, and in the evening they went to Clayton’s meetings. The experience was a revelation to them both--the crowds, the waiting for the singing of the automobile’s siren, the wild cheers that greeted Clayton, and then his speech, his appeals to the best there was in men. He had never made such speeches, and long afterward Edith could hear those cheers and see the faces of those working-men aglow with the hope, the passion, the fervent religion of democracy. And those days came to their glad climax that night when they met at the office of the _Post_ to receive the returns, in an atmosphere quivering with excitement, with messenger boys and reporters coming and going, and in the street outside an immense crowd, swaying and rocking between the walls on either side, with screams and shouts and mad huzzas, and the wild blowing of horns--all the hideous, happy noise an American election-night crowd can make. Late in the evening Clayton had made his way, somehow unnoticed, through the crowd, and entered the office. He was happy in the great triumph he would not accept as personal, claiming it always for the cause; but as he dropped into the chair Hardy pushed toward him, they all saw how weary he was. Just at that moment the roar in the street below swelled to a mighty crescendo, and Hardy cried: “Look!” They ran to the window. The boys up-stairs who were manipulating the stereopticon, had thrown on the screen an enormous picture of Clayton, the portrait Kittrell had drawn for his cartoon. “Will you say now there isn’t the personal note in it?” Edith asked. Clayton glanced out the window, across the dark, surging street, at the picture. “Oh, it’s not me they’re cheering for,” he said; “it’s for Kit, here.” “Well, perhaps some of it’s for him,” Edith admitted loyally. They were silent, seized irresistibly by the emotion that mastered the mighty crowd in the dark streets below. Edith was strangely moved. Presently she could speak: “Is there anything sweeter in life than to know that you have done a good thing--and done it well?” “Yes,” said Clayton, “just one: to have a few friends who understand.” “You are right,” said Edith. “It is so with art, and it must be so with life; it makes an art of life.” It was dark enough there by the window for her to slip her hand into that of Neil, who had been musing silently on the crowd. “I can never say again,” she said softly, “that those people are not worth sacrifice. They are worth all; they are everything; they are the hope of the world; and their longings and their needs, and the possibility of bringing them to pass, are all that give significance to life.” “That’s what America is for,” said Clayton, “and it’s worth while to be allowed to help even in a little way to make, as old Walt says, ‘a nation of friends, of equals.’” THE HAS-BEEN