Constance, meanwhile, had been doing some thinking and observing on her own account. Now she suddenly burst out: "Did you notice the headlines on the news-stand we just passed? The bill that the President has just vetoed? I don't know just what the bill is, but Father is so against it. He'll think the President is fine for vetoing it!" A moment later she burst out eagerly, "Oh, why don't you go in for politics and do something great like that? A politician has so many opportunities. I forgot all about politics." He laughed outright. "Try to forget it again," he urged. "Politicians have opportunities, as you say; but some of the men who have improved what seemed the best ones have gone to jail." "But others had to send them there. You could be one of the noble ones!" "Yes, of course, but you see I've just made up my mind to work my way through a school of technology and become a civil engineer, so you'll be proud of me--that is, after I've uncovered a few buried cities and found the North Pole. I couldn't do those things so well if I went into political reform." Then they laughed again, inconsequently, and so light-hearted she seemed that Frank wondered if her more serious moods were not for the most part make-believe, to tease him. At Union Square they crossed by Seventeenth Street back to Fifth Avenue. When they had tacked their way northward for a dozen or more blocks, the cheer of an elaborate dining-room streamed out on the wet pavement. "It's a good while till dinner," Frank observed. "If your stern parents would not mind, I should suggest that we go in there and have, let me see--something hot and not too filling--I think an omelette soufflé would be rather near it, don't you?" "Wonderful!" she agreed, "and, do you know, Father said the other day--of course, he's a gentle soul and too confiding--but I heard him say that you were one person he was perfectly willing I should be with, anywhere. I don't see why, unless it is that you know the city so well." "Mr. Deane's judgment is not to be lightly questioned," avowed the young man, as they turned in the direction of the lights. "Besides," she supplemented, "I'm so famished. I should never be able to wait for dinner. I can smell that omelette now. And may I have pie--pumpkin pie--just one piece? You know we never had pie abroad, and my whole childhood was measured by pumpkin pies. May I have just a small piece?" Half an hour later, when they came out and again made their way toward the Deane mansion, the wind had died and the rain had become a mild drizzle. As they neared the entrance of her home they noticed a crouching figure on the lower step. The light from across the street showed that it was a woman, dressed in shabby black, wearing a drabbled hat, decorated with a few miserable flowers. She hardly noticed them, and her face was heavy and expressionless. The girl shrank away and was reluctant to enter.