ut now that I've won the race, they'll find that I'm
my own master. Won't you smoke?"

Stephen shook his head. "Not now. There is always the next race to be
considered, I suppose."

The Governor's rugged, rather heavy features hardened suddenly until
they looked as if they were formed of some more durable substance than
flesh. Under the thick sandy hair his eyes lost their blueness and
appeared as gray as Stephen had once thought them. "Have you ever
heard," he asked with biting sarcasm, "that I was easy to manage and
that that was why certain people put me in office?"

"Yes, I've heard that." As the young man replied, Darrow turned from the
window and looked at him attentively.

"And may I ask what else you have heard?" inquired Vetch.

Stephen laughed and coloured. "I've heard that it was becoming difficult
to do anything with you."

"Because I have the people behind me?"

"Well, because you think you have the people behind you."

Vetch leaned forward with a confiding movement, and flicked the ashes
of his objectionable cigar on the immaculate sleeve of Stephen's coat.
Yet, even in the careless gesture, a breath of freshness and health, of
mental and physical cleanliness, seemed to emanate like an invigorating
breeze from his robust spirit. "Of course I admit," he said
thoughtfully, "that we are obliged to have some kind of party
organization to begin with. There must be method and policy and all
sorts of team-pulling and log-rolling until you get started. That kind
of thing is useful just as far as it helps and not a step farther. I won
my fight as an Independent--and, by George, I'll remain an Independent!
I've got the upper hand now. I am strong enough to stand alone. If any
party on earth thinks it can manage me--well, I'll show it that I can be
my own party!"

Was it true, what they said of him,--that success had already gone to
his head, that the best way to get rid of him was to give him a
political rope with which he might hang himself? Or was there some solid
foundation of fact in his blustering assumption of power? Was he
actually a force that would have to be reckoned with in the future? From
a mass of confused impressions Stephen could gather nothing clearly
except his inability to form a definite opinion of the man. On the one
side was the weight of prejudice, of preconceived judgment; and on the
other he could place only the effect of a personal magnetism which was
as real and as intangible as