Shelby's color mounted under repeated rebuff, and his self-respect was nil; but a sincere desire to shield the woman whose folly he had abetted, rose beside the spectre of defeat to drive him on. "See here, Sprague," he said abruptly; "that was an awkward thing last night--" "To see me?" "The general look of it," came laboriously. "You understand I--she--" "Excuse _me_," put in the editor, dropping his magazine and backing off. Shelby anchored him by a lapel. "We've got to have this out. I want you to understand that she was unwell--despondent--malaria, you know--and resorted to--" "Laughing gas is your plausible defence." Shelby went brick-red. "Be a gentleman," he said. "Gad!" Sprague quenched a wry smile. "And from you! What are you after?" "Are you going to use this?" Volney Sprague started, glared, and fell to violent polishing of his eye-glasses. "After all," Shelby blundered on, "she has been your friend--entertained you--the club and all that--and you couldn't--" "Did she send you to me?" broke in Sprague, fiercely. "She? No. I'm responsible. I thought perhaps you--it's been a bitter political fight--you might be tempted--I admit it is a temptation--to make capital--" "Gad!" The editor spat out his favorite ejaculation as if it were a toad. "We ought to spare her--to spare a woman." "Don't, don't, don't," protested Sprague. "Can't you see--can't you see that no decent man--no; you couldn't see that. Use a thing of this sort? Faugh!" He swung on his heel and plunged through a nearby doorway to the open air. The result was tangible, but he had paid for it with the most abasing quarter-hour of his life, and Shelby, too, craved another atmosphere. And he obtained it. The governor, his private secretary, one or two members of his staff, a state senator popularly known as "Handsome" Ludlow, and the newspaper correspondents who were to accompany the party, were clustered sociably in the observation compartment of the private car, and on Shelby's entrance every man jack of them got upon his legs to welcome him, as if the Boss had twitched them by unseen strings. His Excellency clapped him graciously on the shoulder, the staff officials and the secretary reflected and passed on the gubernatorial warmth, the senator pressed cigars, and the newspaper people, whose habit was to lump all personages as frail humanity, went through their introductions like the good fellows that they were. It was unlooked for, delightful, insidiously flattering--a plain intimation that he had become a star of greater magnitude. "We're due to pull out in three minutes," the governor told him. "I was really worried about you." In their several echoes the secretary and staff conveyed that they too had known alarm. "Fact is, we bank on you to mesmerize the rural vote," put in Handsome Ludlow, jocosely. "You'll work your passage all right, all right."