reached many that
wouldn't have been reached otherwise. They think that's my great use--to
take hold of the outsiders, as it were; of those who are prejudiced or
thoughtless, or who don't care about anything unless it's amusing. I
wake up the attention."

"That's the class to which I belong," Ransom said. "Am I not an
outsider? I wonder whether you would have reached me--or waked up my
attention!"

Verena was silent awhile, as they walked; he heard the light click of
her boots on the smooth bricks. Then--"I think I _have_ waked it up a
little," she replied, looking straight before her.

"Most assuredly! You have made me wish tremendously to contradict you."

"Well, that's a good sign."

"I suppose it was very exciting--your convention," Ransom went on, in a
moment; "the sort of thing you would miss very much if you were to
return to the ancient fold."

"The ancient fold, you say very well, where women were slaughtered like
sheep! Oh, last June, for a week, we just quivered! There were delegates
from every State and every city; we lived in a crowd of people and of
ideas; the heat was intense, the weather magnificent, and great thoughts
and brilliant sayings flew round like darting fireflies. Olive had six
celebrated, high-minded women staying in her house--two in a room; and
in the summer evenings we sat in the open windows, in her parlour,
looking out on the bay, with the lights gleaming in the water, and
talked over the doings of the morning, the speeches, the incidents, the
fresh contributions to the cause. We had some tremendously earnest
discussions, which it would have been a benefit to you to hear, or any
man who doesn't think that we can rise to the highest point. Then we had
some refreshment--we consumed quantities of ice-cream!" said Verena, in
whom the note of gaiety alternated with that of earnestness, almost of
exaltation, in a manner which seemed to Basil Ransom absolutely and
fascinatingly original. "Those were great nights!" she added, between a
laugh and a sigh.

Her description of the convention put the scene before him vividly; he
seemed to see the crowded, overheated hall, which he was sure was filled
with carpet-baggers, to hear flushed women, with loosened
bonnet-strings, forcing thin voices into ineffectual shrillness. It made
him angry, and all the more angry, that he hadn't a reason, to think of
the charming creature at his side being mixed up with such elements,
pushed and elbowed by th