the opportunity to introduce for her own defense a bit of guile with her
sympathy. "I quite understand how you feel about the loss of Mrs. Britt,
sir. And I'm glad because you remain so loyal to her memory."

Mr. Britt, like a man who had received a dipperful of cold water in the
face, backed away from anything like a proposal at that unpropitious
moment. But in all his arid nature he felt the need of some sort of
consolation from a feminine source. "Vona, I've just had a terrible
setback," he mourned. "There's only one other disappointment that could
be any worse--and I don't dare to think of that right now."

Miss Harnden apprehensively proceeded to keep him away from the
prospective disappointment, dwelling on the present, asking him
solicitously what had happened.

He told her of his ambition and of what Ossian Orne had reported.

"But why should that be so very important for a man like you--to go to
the legislature--Mr. Britt?"

He opened his mouth, hankering to blurt out what he had been treasuring
as dreams whose realization would serve as an inducement to her. He had
been picturing to himself their honeymoon at the state capital, away
from the captious tongues of Egypt--how he would stalk with his handsome
bride into the dining room of the capital's biggest hotel; how she would
attract the eyes of jealous men, in her finery and with her jewels; how
she would sit in the gallery at the State House and survey him making
his bigness among the lawmakers; for some weeks he had been laboring on
the composition of a speech that he intended to deliver. But her second
dash of cold water kept him from the disclosure of his feelings. He