freedoms a man or a sister might have done with me. She would touch
my arm, lay a hand on my shoulder as I sat, adjust the lapel of a
breast-pocket as she talked to me. She says now she loved me always
from the beginning. I doubt if there was a suspicion of that in her
mind those days. I used to find her regarding me with the clearest,
steadiest gaze in the world, exactly like the gaze of some nice
healthy innocent animal in a forest, interested, inquiring,
speculative, but singularly untroubled. . . .



5


Polling day came after a last hoarse and dingy crescendo. The
excitement was not of the sort that makes one forget one is tired
out. The waiting for the end of the count has left a long blank
mark on my memory, and then everyone was shaking my hand and
repeating: "Nine hundred and seventy-six."

My success had been a foregone conclusion since the afternoon, but
we all behaved as though we had not been anticipating this result
for hours, as though any other figures but nine hundred and seventy-
six would have meant something entirely different. "Nine hundred
and seventy-six!" said Margaret. "They didn't expect three
hundred."

"Nine hundred and seventy-six," said a little short man with a
paper. "It means a big turnover. Two dozen short of a thousand,
you know."