"An even chance?" repeated Eudoxia, rather dashed. "What I think of
offering is an even start. Doesn't it come to much the same thing?"

But Abner would none of it. Possessed of the fatalistic belief in the
efficacy of mere legislation such as dominates the rural townships of the
West, he grasped his companion firmly by the arm, set his sturdy legs in
rapid motion, walked her from assembly hall to assembly hall through this
State, that and the other, and finally fetched up with her under the dome
of the national Capitol. Senators and representatives co-operated here,
there and everywhere, the chosen spokesmen of the sovereign people; Abner
seemed almost to have enrolled himself among them. Confronted with this
august company, whose work it was to set things right, Eudoxia Pence felt
smaller than ever. What were her imponderable emanations of goodwill and
good intention when compared with the robust masculinity that was
marching in firm phalanxes over solid ground toward the mastery of the
great Problem? She drooped visibly. Little O'Grady, studying her pose and
expression from afar, wrung his hands. "That fellow will drive her away.
Ten to one we shall never see her profile here again!" Yes, Eudoxia was
feeling, with a sudden faintness, that the Better Things might after all
be beyond her reach. She looked about for herself without finding
herself: she had dwindled away to nothingness.




VI

"Do you take her money--_such_ money?" Abner asked of Giles with
severity. Eudoxia had returned to Medora and the samovar.