uch to the perfunctory character of the
disturbance was added by the leisurely stroll of the policeman turning
in at the head of the street. Before he reached the crowd it had
redissolved into the rapidly filling thoroughfare.

"It's no use, Penny. Our women have seen the light and beaten us to it;
we've got to go with them or with Noonan and his--Mike the Goat!"

Recollection of his wife's plight cut him like a knife. "The
Brewster-Smith women have got to choose for themselves!" He felt about
for his hat like a man blind with purpose.

The street sweeper was taking up the fragments of the shattered windows
half an hour later, when Martin Jaffry found himself going rather
aimlessly along Main Street with a feeling that the bottom had recently
dropped out of things--a sensation which, if the truth must be told,
was greatly augmented by the fact that he hadn't yet breakfasted. He had
remained behind the two younger men to get into communication with Betty
Sheridan and ask her to stay close to the telephone in case Miss Eliot
should again attempt to get into touch with her. He lingered still,
dreading to go into any of the places where he was known lest he should
somehow be led to commit himself embarrassingly on the subject of his
nephew's candidacy.

His middle-aged jauntiness considerably awry, he moved slowly down the
heedless street, subject to the most gloomy reflections. Like most men,
Martin Jaffry had always been dimly aware that the fabric of society is
held together by a system of mutual weaknesses and condonings, but he
had always thought of himself and his own family as moving freely in the
interstices, peculiarly exempt, under Providence, from strain. Now
here they were, in such a position that the first stumbling foot might
tighten them all into inextricable scandal.

It is true that Penny, at the last moment, had prevailed on George
to put off the relief of his feelings by public repudiation of his
political connections, at least until after a conference with the
police. And to George's fear that the newspapers would get the news from
the police before he had had a chance to repudiate, he had countered
with a suggestion, drawn from an item in the private history of the
chief--known to him through his father's business--which he felt certain
would quicken the chief's sense of the propriety of keeping George's
predicament from the press.

"My God!" said George in amazement, and Martin Jaffry had respond