A little hardness--one might even have thought it bitterness--became
apparent in her expression. "And I'm glad there's SOMEbody in that
house, at last, with a little imagination!"

"From everything I have heard," I returned, summoning sufficient
boldness, "it would be difficult to say which has more--Mr. Beasley or
the child."

Her glance fell from mine at this, but not quickly enough to conceal a
sudden, half-startled look of trouble (I can think of no other way to
express it) that leaped into it; and she rose, for the lunch-bell was
ringing.

"I'm just finishing the death of Jean Valjean, you know, in Les
Miserables," she said, as we moved to the door. "I'm always afraid I'll
cry over that. I try not to, because it makes my eyes red."

And, in truth, there was a vague rumor of tears about her eyes--not as
if she had shed them, but more as if she were going to--though I had not
noticed it when I came in.

... That afternoon, when I reached the "Despatch" office, I was
commissioned to obtain certain political information from the Honorable
David Beasley, an assignment I accepted with eagerness, notwithstanding
the commiseration it brought me from one or two of my fellows in the
reporter's room. "You won't get anything out of HIM!" they said. And
they were true prophets.

I found him looking over some documents in his office; a reflective,