little legal business in prospect down here that will require some
handling, and I wish you'd come down after the campaign and talk it
over, with us. I've just about made up my mind that you're he man to
tackle it."

"All right, I'll come," I said.

"And stay with me," said George....

We went to his yellow-brick house for refreshments, salad and ice-cream
and (in the face of the Hutchins traditions) champagne. Others had been
invited in, some twenty persons.... Once in a while, when I looked up,
I met Maude's eyes across the room. I walked home with her, slowly, the
length of the Hutchinses' block. Floating over the lake was a waning
October moon that cast through the thinning maples a lace-work of
shadows at our feet; I had the feeling of well-being that comes to
heroes, and the presence of Maude Hutchins was an incense, a vestal
incense far from unpleasing. Yet she had reservations which appealed to
me. Hers was not a gushing provincialism, like that of Mrs. George.

"I liked your speech so much, Mr. Paret," she told me. "It seemed so
sensible and--controlled, compared to the others. I have never thought a
great deal about these things, of course, and I never understood before
why taking away the tariff caused so much misery. You made that quite
plain.

"If so, I'm glad," I said.

She was silent a moment.

"The working people here have had a hard time during the last year,"
she went on. "Some of the mills had to be shut down, you know. It has
troubled me. Indeed, it has troubled all of us. And what has made it
more difficult, more painful is that many of them seem actually to
dislike us. They think it's father's fault, and that he could run all
the mills if he wanted to. I've been around a little with mother and
sometimes the women wouldn't accept any help from us; they said they'd
rather starve than take charity, that they had the right to work. But
father couldn't run the mills at a loss--could he?"

"Certainly not," I replied.

"And then there's Mr. Krebs, of whom we were speaking at supper, and who
puts all kinds of queer notions into their heads. Father says he's an
anarchist. I heard father say at supper that he was at Harvard with you.
Did you like him?"

"Well," I answered hesitatingly, "I didn't know him very well."

"Of course not," she put in. "I suppose you couldn't have."

"He's got these notions," I explained, "that are mischievous and
crazy--but I don't dislike him."

"I'm glad to hear