h reached by a different road. She would do well not to
meddle where she could not possibly accomplish any good. She could
question the servants and could get from them all the facts she needed
for urging her father at least to cut down the hours of labor.

The more she thought about Victor Dorn the more uneasy she became. She
had made more progress with him than she had hoped to make in so short
a time. But she had made it at an unexpected cost. If she had
softened him, he had established a disquieting influence over her. She
was not sure, but she was afraid, that he was stronger than she--that,
if she persisted in her whim, she would soon be liking him entirely too
well for her own comfort. Except as a pastime, Victor Dorn did not fit
into her scheme of life. If she continued to see him, to yield to the
delight of his magnetic voice, of his fresh and original mind, of his
energetic and dominating personality, might he not become
aroused--begin to assert power over her, compel her to--to--she could
not imagine what; only, it was foolish to deny that he was a dangerous
man. "If I've got good sense," decided she, "I'll let him alone. I've
nothing to gain and everything to lose."

Her motor--the one her father had ordered as a birthday present--came
the next day; and on the following day two girl friends from
Cincinnati arrived for a long visit. So, Jane Hastings had the help
she felt she perhaps needed in resisting the temptings of her whim.

To aid her in giving her friends a good time she impressed Davy Hull,
in spite of his protests that his political work made social fooling
about impossible. The truth was that the reform movement, of which he
was one of the figureheads, was being organized by far more skillful
and expert hands than his--and for purposes of which he had no notion.
So, he really had all the time in the world to look after Ellen
Clearwater and Josie Arthur, and to pose as a serious man bent upon
doing his duty as an upper class person of leisure. All that the
reform machine wished of him was to talk and to pose--and to ride on
the show seat of the pretty, new political wagon.

The new movement had not yet been "sprung" upon the public. It was
still an open secret among the young men of the "better element" in the
Lincoln, the Jefferson and the University clubs.

Money was being subscribed liberally by persons of good family who
hoped for political preferment and could not get it from