"Yes, Your Excellency," I hurled at him defiantly.

"You witch, you," he answered me with a pleased, teasing whimsicality
coming into his eyes. "Of course, you guessed the letter and it was dear
to have you do it, but we both know it is impossible. Nobody must hear
of it, and the telling you has been the best I could get out of it
anyway. Jasper, take my compliments to Petunia, this chicken is
perfection!"

That eighth wonder of the world which got lost was something even more
mysterious than the Sphinx. It was a marvel that could have been used
for women to compare men to. That man sat right there at my side and
ate four waffles, two large pieces of chicken and a liver-wing, drank
two cups of coffee, and then devoured a huge bowl of peaches and cream,
with three muffin-cakes, while enduring the tragedy of the realization
of having to decline the Governorship of his State.

I watched him do it, first in awe and then with a dim understanding of
something, I wasn't sure what. Most women, under the circumstances,
would have gone to bed and cried it out or at least have refused food
for hours. We've got to get over those habits before we get to the point
of having to refuse to be Governors of the States and railroad
presidents and things like that.

And while he ate, there I sat not able to more than nibble because I was
making up my mind to do something that scared me to death to think
about. That gaunt, craggy man in a shabby gray coat, cut ante-bellum
wise, with a cravat that wound itself around his collar, snowy and
dainty, but on the same lines as the coat and evidently of rural
manufacture in the style favored by the flower and chivalry of the day