Those who did not know Langdon intimately suggested that "this fellow
ought to be 'taken care of.' What in God's name does he want? A
committee chairmanship? An ambassadorship for some Mississippi
charcoal burner? A couple of Federal judgeships for his friends? Well,
whatever it is, give it to him and get him in with the rest of us!"

Again it was Peabody who had the deciding say.

"There's only one thing worse than a young reformer, and that's an old
one," he laughed bitterly at a secret conclave at his apartment in the
luxurious Louis Napoleon Hotel. "The young one thinks he is going to
live and wants our future profits for himself. The old one thinks he's
going to die, and he's sore at leaving so much graft behind him."

Heads and hearts thinking and throbbing together, Langdon and his
secretary had learned to lean on each other, the young gaining
inspiration from the old, the old gaining strength from the young.
They loved each other, and, more than any love, they trusted one
another. And Hope Georgia watched it all and rejoiced, for she
believed with all the accrued erudition of eighteen years of innocent
girlhood that Mr. Bud Haines was quite the finest specimen of young
manhood this world had ever produced. How could he have happened? She
was sure that she had never met his equal, not even in that memorable
week she had spent in Jackson.

The passing weeks taught Haines that he was deeply in love with
Carolina, and, though he had endeavored to keep the knowledge of this
from her, her woman's intuition had told her his secret, and she
stifled the momentary regrets that flitted into her mind, because she