-fixed upon any particular----"

"Oh, no!" he said, smiling; "the Governor isn't in
love--except--er--generally. He's a gay bird. The Governor never, in all
his career, saw a single specimen of your sex which--well, which
interested him as much--well, for example," he added in a burst of
confidence, "as much even as you interest me!"

"Which, of course, is not at all," she said, laughing.

"Oh, no--no, not at all----" he hesitated, biting his moustache and
looking at her.

"I'll tell you one thing," he said; "if the Governor ever did get
entirely well--er--recovered--you know what I mean?"

"Cured of his cardiac trouble?--this disease known as Lamour's disease?"

"Exactly. If he ever did recover, he--I'm quite sure he would be----" and
here he hesitated, gazing at her in silence. As for her, she had turned
her head and was gazing out of the window.

"I wonder what your name is?" he said, so naively that the colour tinted
even the tip of the small ear turned toward him.

"My name," she said, "is Mary Smith. Like you, I am Militant Secretary to
Professor Elizabeth Challis, President of the Federation of American
Women."

"I hope we will remain on pleasant terms," he ventured.

"I hope so, Captain Jones."

"Non-combatants?"

"I trust so."

"Even f-friends?"

She bent her distractingly pretty head in acquiescence.

"Then you'll give me back the papers?"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry for taking them?"

"No, sorry for keeping them."

"You don't mean to say that you are going to keep them, Miss Smith?"

"I'm afraid I must. My duty forces me to deliver them to Professor
Challis."

"But why does this terrible and strapping young lady desire to swipe the
draft of this bill?"

"Because it contains the evidence of a wicked conspiracy between the
Governor of New York, the Mayor of this city, and an abandoned
legislature. The women of America ought to know what threatens them
before this bill is perfected and introduced. And before they will permit
it to be debated and passed they are determined to march on Albany, half
a million strong, as did the heroines of Versailles!"

She stretched out her white gloved hand with an excited but graceful
gesture; he eyed her moodily, swinging the chenille cat by its fluffy
tail.

"What do they suspect is in that bill?" he said at last.

"We are not yet perfectly sure. We believe it is an insidious attempt to
sow dissension in the ranks of our sex--a bill cunningly devise