"Politics is like poker," Cobbens commented sententiously. "Just now we 're raising the ante, but presently there 'll be a show down, and may the best hand win." "We ask nothing better," Emmet assured him, moving toward the stairs. "Good-night. I must be off." "Wait a moment!" Miss Wycliffe called after him. "Here--take this candle to light your way, and may good luck go with it." Emmet had already begun to descend the stairs when her voice arrested him. He turned as she approached, and because of his lower position her form hid him entirely from the view of the two men she had just left. Leigh saw the fur edge of her wrap standing out like a mist against the flaring light of the candle as she stooped to hand it down, and he thought she lingered longer than was absolutely necessary, as if to speak some parting words of encouragement. The impression that further words had passed between them was so disquieting, in view of his suspicion of Emmet's audacity, that he was fain to believe himself mistaken. It seemed that Cobbens also had lost nothing of this incident, for when she returned, he regarded her with as much disapproval as he dared to show. "You 'll turn the poor beggar's head, Miss Wycliffe," he said. "It's a mistaken kindness. His fall will be all the greater for your whim." "Sometimes beggars get on horseback," she retorted coolly, "and then they keep on riding." Leigh's knowledge of the lawyer's career enabled him to appreciate the sharpness of this remark, but Cobbens was more adroit than he could have thought possible in the face of such a taunt. "Well, when that poor beggar tries to mount the political horse, he 'll get thrown so hard that he 'll never try it again." Miss Wycliffe vouchsafed no reply, but turned toward the cabin, and they followed her in silence. During the subsequent session about the telescope, Leigh was not surprised to find that she domineered over her friends, or that they accepted her tyranny without question. In her self-appointed office of the instructor's assistant, she gave this one or that the chair, until the young astronomer thought it high time to protest. "I insist upon your taking a look yourself," he said. "I have something of peculiar interest reserved for you." And he trained the instrument upon Castor, in the constellation of the Twins. She took the chair and looked for a tantalising length of time in silence, while with one hand she waved off the questions and impatience of the others. He bent over her, almost oblivious of their presence. "It's a double star, you see. What do you think of it?" "Beautiful!" she answered. "I wondered why I was seeing double. Tell us about it." "They are two suns in one sphere, swinging on through space side by side. Two centuries of calculations have brought out the fact that it takes forty-four years for the light of Castor to reach us, and that a thousand years are consumed in one circuit of its orbit."