to do as I please?" asked the small
plotter.

"Sure!" said the Honorable David heartily, adding: "You can always
outfigure me, two to one, when it comes to the real thing. You've made a
fine art of it, Honoria, and I'll turn the steering-wheel over to you
any day in the week."

When she looked up she was smiling in the way which had made Evan Blount
wonder, in that midnight meeting at Wartrace Hall, how she could look so
young and yet be so wise.

"You deal with people in the mass, David, and no one living can do it
better. I am like most women, I think: I deal with the individual. That
is all the difference. When do the Annerses go out to the fossil-beds?"

"I don't know; any time when you will invite them to make Wartrace their
headquarters, I reckon."

"Then I think it will be to-morrow," decided the confident mistress of
policies. "It won't do to let Evan see too much of Patricia until after
his course of treatment is well under way. Shall we make it to-morrow?
And will you telephone Dawkins to bring down the biggest car? I have a
notion wandering around in my head somewhere that Miss Patricia Anners
will stand a little judicious impressing. She is exceedingly democratic,
you know--in theory."

IX

THE RANK AND FILE

Considerably to his surprise, and no less to his satisfaction, the newly
appointed "division counsel," as his title ran, was not required to take
over the old legal department offices in the second story of the station
building, where all the other offices of the company were located.
Instead, he was directed to fit up a suite of rooms in Temple Court, the
capital's most pretentious up-town sky-scraper, and there was something
more than a hint that the item of first cost would not be too closely
scrutinized.

It was the vice-president himself, writing from Chicago, who authorized
the new departure and loosened the purse strings. "Don't be afraid of
spending a little money," wrote the great man. "Make your up-town
headquarters as attractive as may be, and arrange matters with Ackerton
so that your office will not be burdened with too much of the routine
legal work. A successful legal representative will be a good mixer--as I
am sure you are--and will extend the circle of his acquaintance as
rapidly and as far as possible. Your appointment will be fully justified
when you have made your up-town office a place where the good citizens
of the capital and the State can drop in for a cordi