Then to Larkin: "Well, Joe, you'll have to try promises.
Will you keep this cash or shall I?"

"You might as well keep it," replied Larkin, with a string of oaths.
"It'd be ruination to pay one without paying all. Perhaps you can use
some of it between ballots to-morrow." Then, sharply to Culver:
"You've telegraphed Mr. Dumont?"

"Of course," said Culver. "And it took some time as I had to put the
whole story into cipher."

As Culver and Merriweather were seated, with the dinner before them
which Culver did not touch, and which Merriweather ate placidly, Culver
asked him whether there was "any hope at all."

"There's always hope," replied Merriweather. "Promises, especially
from Joe Larkin, will go a long way, though they don't rouse the white
hot enthusiasm that cold cash in the pocket does. We'll pull through
all right." He ate for a while in silence. Then: "This Mrs. Dumont
must be an uncommon woman." A few more mouthfuls and with his small,
icy, mirthless laugh, he added: "I've got one something like her at
home. I keep her there."

Culver decided to spend the night at the hotel. He hung round the
hotel office until two in the morning, expecting and dreading Dumont's
reply to his telegram. But nothing came either for him or for
Merriweather. "Queer we don't get word of some sort, isn't it?" said
he to Merriweather the next morning, as the latter was leaving for the
convention.

Merriweather made no reply beyond a smile so faint that Culver barely
saw it.

"She was right, after all," thought Culver, less despondent. "I'll get
the money just before I leave and take it back. And I'll not open this
subject with Dumont. Maybe he'll never speak of it to me."

And Dumont never did.

XX.

A MAN IN HIS MIGHT.

Olivia came to attend the convention as Fred was a delegate from Marion
County. Pauline and Gladys accepted her invitation and shared her
box--the convention was held in the Saint X Grand Opera House, the
second largest auditorium in the state. Pauline, in the most retired
corner, could not see the Marion County delegation into which
Scarborough went by substitution. But she had had a glimpse of him as
she came in--he was sitting beside Fred Pierson and was gazing straight
ahead, as if lost in thought. He looked tired and worn, but not cast
down.

"You should have been here, Polly, when Scarborough came in," said
Olivia, who was just in front of her. "They almost tore the roof off.