The minor social conventions, which, after all, are possibly the major ones, were consistently ignored by Shelby. "Not at home?" he repeated after Ruth's maid. "I guess you're mistaken. I saw Miss Temple at the window as I drove in the gate. Just look around a bit, and you'll find her." He walked calmly past the bewildered girl to the drawing-room. In the centre of the apartment stood Ruth, her cheeks waving crimson, like a poppy field astir. "Angry?" said the man. Ruth waited till the open-mouthed maid had retreated down the hall. "I'm furious," she answered, and looked the part. "Think I'm a boor?" She could not trust herself to reply. Had he dared smile then, she would have swept by him, but he was wholly grave. "I'll tell you what you're thinking," he said quietly. "You are thinking that I have fallen short of your notion of me. You listened the other night at the court-house and thought kindly things. Then you were told by my enemies that I had used in part what was not my own. You were vexed, for it impeached your judgment of character. Then I failed of my appointment, and did you a more grievous wrong--I piqued your woman's vanity." Ruth gasped. "Your effrontery is--is fascinating." Shelby's eyes hinted a smile. She had said what she thought. "I shall not defend myself to you against the charges of the _Whig_," he went on. "I doubt even if I shall answer them publicly. Greater men than I have had their names blackened in a campaign, and deemed silence the wisest answer. People don't ascribe many virtues to the politician, but even he occasionally turns the other cheek. As for my tardiness to-day--well, I could have avoided it." "You admit it?" blazed Ruth. "Yes. I had my choice." "And you chose--" The shabby figure she had seen descend from Shelby's office visualized itself sharply. "Yes--poor devil--I chose Kiska." Her mood veered, and she whirled impulsively toward him, all womanliness and contrition. "Forgive me. How could I know? I thought--I thought--" "That it was some heeler with a vote to sell?" Her face betrayed her. "Forgive me," she repeated. "You would have done wrong to turn him away because of me. I know of your noble deed--who does not? I am proud of you, and wished to tell you so. I wanted to see you for this--to praise your heroism. I've been your friend in that--that other thing. I could see how the crowd, the exhilaration, the sense of mastery, might lure one on. I looked at it dispassionately--with a friend's eyes. I was loyal till I thought you held my friendship lightly, and put politics before it. I own my mistake--my injustice." Shelby had not dreamed of vindication so sweeping, and, with a word of modest disclaimer, led the talk to pacific commonplace. It was too late for the promised drive, and indeed neither of them thought of it again till the door had shut between them. In leaving, the man's glance was arrested by an object on the piano.