So, for good or ill to himself, Harry made his momentous decision, and as if it had been a signal, at the same instant there came the quick, insistent ringing of the telephone on his desk. The next few days were days of ungrudging labour on Harry's part of conferences with the state leaders--for Brent's prophecy had been fulfilled and Good-Government Clubs throughout the state had placed their local machinery in the new party's control. These earlier meetings were, for the most part, in Harry's own apartment, or in the library of Midfields, since Judge Allen was chairman of the Committee on Organisation. On none of these latter occasions had he seen Echo, nor, to his relief, had he met her elsewhere. He gave himself no relaxation, bending all the energies of his reawakened being to the task of detail, and the mapping out of the campaign which he was entering. Whatever his apprehension and trepidation, he had learned his real weight in the hour of his great speech and the sense of power, linked with extraordinary and tangible opportunity, thrilled and dominated him. There came an evening, however, after a day of more than usual concentration, when he felt that he must relax. He had dined at the hotel with some of the party's out-of-town lieutenants, but excused himself early and chose to dismiss his motor and to walk home afoot, craving the lightness and gaiety of the jostling streets and gleaming windows. Presently he found himself passing a theatre-front and remembered that Brent had pressed him to make one of a box-party there that same evening. At the time he had left the matter open, pleading the dinner engagement, but now it occurred to him suddenly that an hour of lights and music would be welcome. It was the intermission after the first act and men were flocking into the doors, chatting and laughing. The spirit of frivolity attracted him and he entered with the rest. The orchestra was playing--a Bohemian medley of uneven harmonies and wildly plaintive alternations, strung, as on a thread, on the airily-fantastic _motif_ of Dvorak's _Humoresque_, and the pirouetting music seemed to belong to the flippant and shallow yet alluring interior, with its plenteous gold-leaf and dark blue draperies embroidered in peacock-feathers--the breath of a life of laughter, of careless amusement, of joy in the present. Harry felt his spirits lift and lighten at the grateful slackening of tension which the _mise en scene_ created, and he bowed and smiled easily when the audience testified its recognition, as he followed the attendant along the side wall, by a hushed hand-clapping which ran across the rows of seats.