"Yes," replied Lennox, dryly; "I heard that when Tammany Hall first came into power, but I have never seen any trace of reform from the inside. What I have seen is the spectacle of most of these inside reformers developing into leaders of the machine. If you will take an older man's advice, you will withdraw while there is yet time." Wesley's reply sprang ready to his lips, but, before he could utter it, Marian Lennox came into the room. Something of herself the girl received, no doubt, from her climbing mother; something, probably, from her satisfied father, and more than she guessed from a narrow environment. Nevertheless, four years at college had cultivated in her what seemed to be a spirit of independence, and a brief life in the city had confirmed in her what she was certain were opinions of her own. She was tall and moved with assurance. Her full throat rose above the ermine of her cloak, supporting a delicately carved head, the head of a Greek cameo, held rigidly erect. The hair was a rich chestnut, the eyes large and brown, and the mouth at once firm and kindly. Her skin was very fair and her gloved hands long and slender. She caught her father's concluding words. "While there is yet time," she paraphrased, "Mr. Dyker will withdraw from this room and get me to the opera-house before the overture has ended. I am so unfashionable as to want my music entire." She was used to commanding her parents in their own house, and she thought that she was used to commanding Wesley everywhere, so that she dismissed Lennox and secured Dyker's entrance into her waiting limousine with almost no delay whatever. "There," she remarked as she settled herself comfortably for their drive; "I rather fancy that I rescued you from a sermon." Dyker laughed shortly. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "I esteem your father so much that I should like him to like me." "But you think that he doesn't like you?" "I think that he is slow to see that two persons may differ on a question of political tactics and yet remain, both of them, honest men." "And may they?" bantered Marian. "Well," he lightly accepted the challenge, "I shall take the specific case. There is no doubting your father's sincerity; there is no doubting the sincerity of nearly all the men that will, with him, to-night try to launch another of these municipal-reform parties which, if they ever get started at all, are sure to run on the rocks at last." "And on the other hand," said the girl, "I suppose I must generously refuse to doubt the sincerity of Tammany Hall?"