"I am conducting this campaign," answered the little doctor, "and I am in confidential relations with Judy. I'll tell you, Jack, but you must keep the secret, that it was Judy herself who conceived and planned and organized Boyd's candidacy. She made one of the best diagnoses I ever heard of in his case, and her therapeutics is matchless. Let her alone. She has made up her mind to elect Westover with such a majority as shall be convincing even to him, and she will do it you may be sure. If she wants to see any of us she'll have Edgar Coffey whisper a hint of her desire into our ears. Until she does that we mustn't interfere. She might resent it as a reflection on her skill in political management. Now let me drop a hint into your ear. I said just now that I was managing this campaign. That was a vainglorious boast. I didn't persuade Butler to retire in Westover's favor, but somebody arranged that. Have you any idea who it was? And if at the end of the campaign Butler should find himself elected to the lower house of the Legislature by virtue of the entire mountain vote added to the regular Democratic poll down here, do you imagine for an instant that the result would take him by surprise? Now keep mum about all these things. I am only making suggestions by way of preventing you from making mistakes. Don't say a word to Boyd about it." XXXIII CONSPIRACIES Jack Towns was particularly pleased with the reassurance that Farnsworth gave him respecting the campaign. It set him free. In his loyalty to Boyd Westover he would have ridden all night and all day in aid of his friend's election; but he greatly preferred to go to Dr. Carver's and dance all night with Millicent. In fact he did very nearly that. He put his name down on her card for every set that wasn't taken in advance, and he danced all of them but three or four which she elected to "sit out." If she had been accompanied by a chaperon, she would have had to restrict Mr. Towns's allowance of sets, but chaperons were not deemed necessary for well-bred young women in Virginia. Such young women were supposed to know how to behave properly, and as for protection, was not the entire adult male population ready and eager to render it upon occasion? Moreover, Jack Towns did not in fact secure an undue proportion of Millicent's sets, for the reason that all the young men in the company, who managed to get possession of her card in time, put their names on it, for one dance each. She rigidly restricted them to one. Perhaps she considered Jack. But she put no restriction on Jack Towns in the matter, and Jack was so ill-mannered in his infatuation that he asked no other young woman for her card, except in the case of Charlotte Deane. Charlotte was no longer as young as she could have wished, and she was distinctly not beautiful or brilliant. So Jack, observing that there were no throngs of young men about her, asked for her card and put his name down for two dances.