"Leslie," he answered, his face ruddy with the swift walk and dampness, "they piled on top of me down at the club, but I got away from them--nearly tore the clothes from me, the beggars! You know what's happened, don't you?" For answer she looked at him critically, bursting out with: "Indeed I do! Stand off a moment--let me look at you--Governor Beekman." He laughed soberly. "It sounds fine, doesn't it?" Leslie continued to gaze at him with pride. "Do you know, Leslie," he went on, "I can't realise it--can't understand why Broderick--why the organisation picked me of all men for the office. Wanted a clean man, they said--the wave of reform demanded it, and they didn't know anyone who would fill the bill as well as I." Leslie sobered. "It's destiny," she said. "You were meant to go up, up, up...." "Stop!" he called out with a well-feigned frightened look on his face. "I'm high enough now." "Wouldn't it be fine," she continued with girlish enthusiasm, "if, after this, you could be United States Senator, Vice-President, and after that possibly----" "The Big Job?" He laughed. "Why, I haven't even been sworn in yet." He stopped suddenly. "But I want to see your father, Leslie," his voice losing its note of gaiety, "I want to tell him----" Leslie, too, left laughter behind her. "Father's in his Den," she said quietly, "smoking his quota of big black cigars. The poor old dear feels pretty blue. The Appellate Division decision...." On his way to the Den Beekman stopped and turned round, saying: "I can't for the life of me understand, Leslie, why they affirmed that sentence. If they only half read Colonel Morehead's brief, or even mine, they surely would have been convinced.... What do you suppose it is--whose influence is behind this thing?" Leslie shrugged her shoulders. "Father says that the National Banks have set their face against the Trust Companies--and it looks as if he were to be the victim of the clash." "Ground between the upper and nether mill-stones," mused Beekman, shaking his head in genuine anguish of mind. Then he stiffened and his eyes flashed. "It will never stand, Leslie; nor can I see how Ougheltree of the National Bank clique can have any weight with the courts. But at any rate, when this thing gets up at Albany before the Court of Appeals, all local influence will fade away. Peter V. Wilkinson will get justice there. The other side are fighting only for money, but with us, Durand, Morehead and myself, why it's a fight for life, almost--and we'll beat 'em out." Beekman's outburst took Leslie quite by storm. She had never seen him so roused, so strong, so fine. "You make me sorry that you're Governor, Eliot," she said, her heart beating fast, "for I suppose now you're unable to be my father's counsel--or does a governor still practise law?" Beekman's head drooped. "You're right," he said at length, "I suppose I'm out of the fight. But the others are just as determined to win."