The experience had wrought a wonderful transformation in Leigh. Emmet's initial triumph and his claims were now forgotten. Had the mayor been allowed to speak, he would doubtless have scored a hit, but Cobbens had succeeded in reducing him to a mere pawn. The people had thrust him forward on the board; Cobbens had neatly lifted him off and usurped his square. The mayor's position had been far from heroic, battered between contending forces and finally rescued by the President's strong arm. Doubtless Cobbens had killed himself politically, but he had won a certain kind of victory. Emmet was already beaten when he failed to grasp the opportunity the President's visit presented and allowed the committee to thrust him aside. No amount of subsequent championing could restore him to a position of dignity. His enemies had decided that he must not be allowed to introduce the President, for they knew he would do it well. They had brought the fury of the people down upon their heads, but they had exhibited their chosen representative before them in a mute and inglorious role. They had even succeeded in making him an object of pity. The damage he had received in the imagination of his supporters was incalculable, and while they burned with indignation, they instinctively paid a treacherous tribute to Cobbens's amazing cleverness and audacity. Though no such tribute was paid the lawyer by Leigh, it was still true that the turn of affairs forced Emmet from his consideration until, instead of a star of the first magnitude, he became a mere point of light, and finally disappeared. During the President's speech, he felt that he had been holding secret communion with Felicity, and the accumulated excitement of the evening worked in his thoughts an unexpected license and daring. It was possible to allow Emmet's claims when he was receiving the homage of the people alone, and she had not yet appeared; but her presence had revived the old passionate torment in his heart. Love returned triumphant, making light of all other claims and considerations. Upon some natures oratory, the successful swaying of the crowd, has the same effect, irrespective of the tone and content of the speech, that is produced by the harmony of a great orchestra, an effect of exaltation and lawlessness. In the young mathematician this responsiveness was a marked trait, at variance with another more coldly intellectual quality. He began to feel that he ranged at will, freed from artificial and unreal restraints. He, too, would do some great thing. On that full wave of excitement he was carried beyond the dikes which in cooler moments he had erected against himself.