rl was
over one eye, his skirt was missing, his apron hung by one pin.

He ran headlong for a sofa and tried to scramble under it, but lovely and
vigorous arms seized his shins and drew him triumphantly forth.

"Hurrah!" they cried delightedly, "we have carried the entire ticket!"

"Hurrah!" echoed a sweet but tremulous voice, and a firm young arm was
slipped through the Governor's.

He turned to meet her beautiful, level gaze.

"Check!" she said.

"Make it check-mate," he said steadily.

"Mate _you_?"

"Will you?"

She bent her superb head a moment, then lifted her splendid eyes to his.

"Of course I will," she said, as steadily as her quickening heart
permitted. "Why do you suppose I ran after you?"

"Why?" whispered that infatuated man.

"Because," she said, naively, "I was afraid some other girl would get
you. . . . A girl never can be sure what another girl might do to a man.
. . . And I wanted you for myself."

"Thank God," he said, "that six-foot Professor Challis will never get me,
anyway."

She bent her adorable face close to his.

"Your excellency," she murmured, "_I_ am Professor Challis!"

At that instant a pretty and excited suffragette dashed up the stairs and
saluted.

"Professor," she cried, "all over the city desirable young men are being
pursued and married by the thousands! We have swept the State, with
Brooklyn and West Point yet to hear from!" Her glance fell upon the
Governor; she laughed glee-fully.

"Shall I call a taxi, Professor?" she asked.

An exquisite and modest pride transformed the features of Professor Betty
Challis to a beauty almost celestial.

"Let George do it," she said tenderly.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XVII

A FEW minutes later, amid a hideous scene of riot, where young men were
fleeing distractedly in every direction, where excited young girls were
dragging them, struggling and screaming, into cabs, where even the police
were rushing hither and thither in desperate search for a place to hide
in, the Governor of New York and Professor Elizabeth Challis might have
been seen whirling downtown in a taxicab toward the marriage license
bureau.

Her golden head lay close to his; his moustache rested against her
delicately flushed cheek. A moment later she sat up straight in dire
consternation.

"Oh, those papers! The draft of the bill!" she exclaimed. "Where is it?"

"Did you want it, Betty?" he asked, surprised.

"Why--why, no. Did