g in their front
windows. That's what we do with 'em in town, you know. It's American.
You're all good Americans in Little Poland, aren't you?" A thought
struck him, and from a roll of banknotes, destined for campaign uses,
he extracted a ten-dollar bill. "I dare say Joe Hilliard will pay your
doctor, Kiska," he went on, "but there'll be other things you'll want.
Winter's coming; buy the yellow-haired kids some shoes; get the wife a
warm dress. You can pay me when Poland gets its independence."

Kiska took the money. "I vould like to vork for you," he exclaimed.

"Would you?" laughed the politician. "I think perhaps you may some
day."

The minor social conventions, which, after all, are possibly the major
ones, were consistently ignored by Shelby.

"Not at home?" he repeated after Ruth's maid. "I guess you're
mistaken. I saw Miss Temple at the window as I drove in the gate.
Just look around a bit, and you'll find her."

He walked calmly past the bewildered girl to the drawing-room. In the
centre of the apartment stood Ruth, her cheeks waving crimson, like a
poppy field astir.

"Angry?" said the man.

Ruth waited till the open-mouthed maid had retreated down the hall.

"I'm furious," she answered, and looked the part.

"Think I'm a boor?"

She could not trust herself to reply. Had he dared smile then, she
would have swept by him, but he was wholly grave.

"I'll tell you what you're thinking," he said quietly. "You are
thinking that I have fallen short of your notion of me. You listened
the other night at the court-house and thought kindly things. Then you
were told by my enemies that I had used in part what was not my own.
You were vexed, for it impeached your judgment of character. Then I
failed of my appointment, and did you a more grievous wrong--I piqued
your woman's vanity."

Ruth gasped.

"Your effrontery is--is fascinating."

Shelby's eyes hinted a smile. She had said what she thought.

"I shall not defend myself to you against the charges of the _Whig_,"
he went on. "I doubt even if I shall answer them publicly. Greater
men than I have had their names blackened in a campaign, and deemed
silence the wisest answer. People don't ascribe many virtues to the
politician, but even he occasionally turns the other cheek. As for my
tardiness to-day--well, I could have avoided it."

"You admit it?" blazed Ruth.

"Yes. I had my choice."

"And you chose--" The shabby figure she