alities have to do with
vote-buying in Tuscarora. I'll tell you. It's true that not every
candidate is a Lincoln, that not a few men are personally unworthy of
the offices they hold or seek; but this also is true, that many an
unworthy man is worthy of election, even by bribery,--I say it
deliberately,--because of his party's sake, for that party's success
may signify the country's salvation. You have, of course, heard sad
things said of me. You will hear more, and I shall not run around
among my friends to deny them. Worthy or unworthy, I merge my
personality in that of my party, in whose ultimate patriotism I have
enduring faith."

Ruth was no logician.

"I don't believe you unworthy," she said.

"That's better than a hundred votes," laughed the man, vastly pleased.
"Let me promise you something. If I'm elected to Congress, I will do
and say everything a new member can to wipe out the tariff on objects
of art."

It was her turn for mystification; if he had his shallows, he also had
his depths.

Shelby did not ask if she were pleased; he saw it.

"You wouldn't have thought it of a practical politician--one of the
'aesthetically dead,'" he smiled. "Yet it is the politician you should
seek to interest in these things. He'll see their value if he's
taught. You opened my eyes--did it in a social way, which is the best
way. It's through his social side, be it in barroom or drawing-room,
that the politician is most easily reached, for he's a human being.
Reformers don't see that; they aim at the intellect direct. You didn't
dream, in talking about art to me now and then, that you were doing a
possible public service. That's the key-note of woman's best influence
in politics, I've come to believe--unconscious argument, not
speechmaking. You have influenced me more than I can tell. I've
grown. You have broadened my horizon. Will you make it broader? I
ask you to marry me."

It was a little moment before she took his meaning, so much did his
blunt proposal seem a part of the staccato chat of politics from which
it issued.

"I cannot," she said at last.

"Why?"

It seemed ridiculous to speak of the affections to this businesslike
creature who apparently counted them not worth mentioning; so she
answered that they were unsuited to one another.

Shelby shook his head emphatically.

"I can't agree with you. Are you engaged to marry any one else?"

Ruth colored under his cross-examination, but re