. "May I come again
soon?" he asked, and held out his hand.

To his surprise Patty greeted his question with a laugh. "Do you really
like politics so much?" she retorted; and fled lightly toward the
staircase beyond the library.

CHAPTER XII

A JOURNEY INTO MEAN STREETS

Darrow's little car was waiting before the entrance; and as soon as
Stephen had taken his place by the old man's side, they shot forward
into the smoky twilight. A policeman, standing in the circle of
electric light at the corner, held up a warning hand; and then, as he
recognized Darrow, he nodded with a smile, and there stole into his face
the look of deference which Stephen had seen in the Governor's eyes.
Glancing up at the sombre ruggedness of the profile beside him, the
younger man asked himself curiously from what source of character or
Circumstance this old man had derived his strange impressiveness and his
Authority over men. With his gaunt length, his wide curving nostrils,
his thick majestic lips, he looked, as Stephen had first seen him, a
rock-hewn Pharaoh of a man. An unusual type to survive in modern
America--republican and imperial! Did he represent, this carpenter who
was also a politician, the political despotism of the worker--the crook
and scourge of the labourer's power?

Suddenly, while he wondered, Darrow turned toward him. "What do you
think of the Governor?"

"I hardly know," answered Stephen thoughtfully. "It is too soon to ask;
but I think he is honest."

"He is more than honest," rejoined the other quietly. "He is human. He
understands. He belongs to us."

"Belongs?" Stephen repeated the word with a note of interrogation.

Very slowly the old man answered. "I mean that he is more than anything
that he says or thinks. He is bigger than his message."

"I suppose he stands for a great deal?"

"A man stands only for what he is, not for an inch more, not for an inch
less. The trouble with all the leaders we've had in the past was that
their thought outstripped their characters. They believed more than they
were and they broke down under it. I'm an old man now. I've watched them
come and go."

"You think that Vetch is a great leader?"

"I think he is a great leader, but I don't mean that I think he will
ever lead us anywhere."

"You feel that he is losing his grip on the crowd?"

Up from Main Street the workers were pouring out of the factories; and
while they moved in a dark stream through the light and