Genevieve looked about the dining-room, with a pleased interest. She dearly loved beautiful appointments and was really imagining herself mistress of just such a house, and visioning herself at the head of such a table. The long room stretched from north to south, parallel with the hall, though not adjoining. The table was not in the centre, but toward the southern end, and Mr. Wheeler, at the end near the windows, had Keefe and Miss Lane on either side of him. Appleby, as guest of honor, sat at Mrs. Wheeler’s right, and the whole effect was that of a formal dinner party, rather than a group of which two were merely office employés. “It is one of the few remaining warm evenings,” said Mrs. Wheeler, as she rose from the table, “we will have our coffee on the veranda. Soon it will be too cool for that.” “Which veranda?” asked Genevieve of Maida, as they went through the hall. “The north one, I hope.” “Your hopes must be dashed,” laughed the other, “for it will be the south one. Come along.” The two girls, followed by Keefe, took possession of a group of chairs near Mrs. Wheeler, while the two older men sat apart, and soon became engrossed in their own discussions. Nor was it long before Samuel Appleby and his host withdrew to a room which opened on to that same south veranda, and which was, in fact, Mr. Wheeler’s den. “Well, Sam,” Keefe heard the other say, as he drew down the blind, “we may as well have it out now. What are you here for?” Outwardly placid, but almost consumed with curiosity, Curt Keefe changed his seat for one nearer the window of the den. He hoped to hear the discussion going on inside, but was doomed to disappointment, for though the murmuring of the voices was audible, the words were not distinct, and Keefe gathered only enough information to be sure that there was a heated argument in progress and that neither party to it was inclined to give in a single point. Of course, he decided, the subject was the coming election campaign, but the details of desired bargaining he could not gather. Moreover, often, just as he almost heard sentences of interest, the chatter of the girls or some remark of Mrs. Wheeler’s would drown the voices of the men in the room. One time, indeed, he heard clearly: “When the Sycamore on the ridge goes into Massachusetts——” but this was sheer nonsense, and he concluded he must have misunderstood. Later, they all forgathered in the living-room and there was music and general conversation. Genevieve Lane proved herself decidedly entertaining, and though Samuel Appleby looked a little amusedly at his stenographer, he smiled kindly at her as he noticed that she in no way overstepped the bounds of correct demeanor. Genevieve was thinking of what Keefe had said to her: “If you do only what is absolutely correct and say what is only absolutely correct, you can do whatever you like.”