I think so," and the girl nodded her head, but she did not give
the reasons for her opinion. She knew that Ida Gulmore had been in love
with him, so she shrank instinctively from mentioning her name, partly
because it might make him pity her, and partly because the love
of another woman for him seemed to diminish her pride of exclusive
possession. She therefore kept silence while seeking for a way to warn
her lover without revealing the truth, which might set him thinking of
Ida Gulmore and her fascinating because unrequited passion. At length
she said:

"Mr. Gulmore has injured father. He knows him: you'd better take his
opinion."

"Your father advises me to have nothing more to do with the election."
He didn't say it to try her; he trusted her completely. The girl's
answer was emphatic:

"Oh, that's what you should do; I'm frightened for you. Why need you
make enemies? The election isn't worth that, indeed it isn't. If father
wants to run for Mayor, let him; he knows what he's about. But you, you
should do great things, write a great book; and make every one as proud
of you as I am." Her face flushed with enthusiasm. She felt relieved,
too; somehow she had got into the spirit of her part once more. But her
lover took the hot face and eager speech as signs of affection, and he
drew her to him while his face lit up with joy.

"You darling, darling! You overrate me, dear, but that does me good:
makes me work harder. What a pity it is, May, that one can't add a cubit
to his stature. I'd be a giant then.... But never fear; it'll be all
right. You wouldn't wish me, I'm sure, to run away from a conflict I
have provoked; but now I must see my father about those debts, and then
we'll have a drive, or perhaps you'd go with me to him. You could wait
in the buggy for me. You know I have to speak again this evening."

The girl consented at once, but she was not satisfied with the decision
her lover had come to. "It's too plain," she thought in her clear,
common-sense way, "that he's getting into a 'fuss' when he might just as
well, or better, keep out of it."

May was eminently practical, and not at all as emotional as one might
have inferred from the sensitive, quick-changing colour that at one
moment flushed her cheeks and at another ebbed, leaving her pallid, as
with passion. Not that she was hardhearted or selfish. Far from it. But
her surroundings had moulded her as they do women. Her mother had been
one of the belles