is autocrat,
who held that punctuality should be the politeness of democracy no less
than princes, had been caught napping. It was clear that she meant to
bury the hatchet, and Cora, with her own point carried, saw no reason
why she should not add a shovelful of symbolic earth herself. Thus,
beginning with a trickle, the flow of her good humor presently
broadened to the width of the sluice-gate, as she entered upon an
absorbing scrutiny of the quaint old house which by tradition had
served one of the earlier governors. It was a rambling structure of
unexpected turns and endless alcoves stored with curios, art treasures,
and trophies of travel.

Perceiving their interest in their surroundings, Mrs. Van Dam gladly
played the cicerone.

"That chair and desk came from the Senate Chamber of the old State
House," she said, following Shelby's eyes. "They were used by my
grandfather, and I luckily got them at the demolition. His wooden
inkstand and pounce-box are there too. That Stuart over the
mantelpiece is his portrait."

"I've heard of him," answered Shelby, warmly. "He upheld De Witt
Clinton's hands in the fight for the canal."

She left him momentarily to give Cora the history of a faded Flemish
tapestry that lay in a cabinet, and then included them both in the
romantic tale of a Murillo, unearthed in a Mexican pawnshop, which she
assumed would interest so steadfast a champion of art as the governor
had shown himself in his congressional career. Cora basked in the
exquisite flattery of being treated as a person of greater cultivation
than she was, and strained on tiptoe to merit her reputation. Had her
mind been free to register its ordinary impressions, two things might
have struck her as singular; the absence of other guests, and, stranger
still, in a temple of punctuality, the lack of clocks.

The same happy atmosphere enveloped the dinner itself, whose perfection
of service and cookery betrayed no hint of delay. Mrs. Shelby found
her views of life and the sphere of woman sought for and appreciated,
and the governor was enticed into political by-paths illustrated by
Tuscarora stories told in his happiest vein. He was frankly charmed.
Many women had attracted him in many ways, ranging from the earthy
fascination of the sometime Mrs. Hilliard to that commingling of
girlish impulse, mature good sense, and an indefinite something else in
Ruth which swayed him still; but none of them had met him on quite th