But Sam did not come, nevertheless, and Joe sat quietly by the fire, wishing she were alone, and yet unwilling to leave the house where she hoped to have the earliest information.

The two who seemed rapidly growing indifferent to the issue of the election were Sybil and Ronald, who sat together with a huge portfolio of photographs and sketches between them, laughing and talking pleasantly enough. Joe did not hear a word of their conversation, and Mrs. Wyndham paid little attention to it, though her practiced ears could have heard it all if need be, while she herself was profoundly occupied with some one else.

The four had a somewhat dreary meal together, and Ronald was told to go into Sam's study and smoke if he liked, while Mrs. Wyndham led Joe and Sybil away to look at a quant.i.ty of new things that had just come from Paris. Ronald did as he was bid and settled himself for an hour, with a plentiful supply of newspapers and railroad literature.

It was past three o'clock when Sam Wyndham entered the room, his face wet with the snowflakes and red with excitement.

"Hollo!" he exclaimed, seeing Ronald comfortably ensconced in his favorite easy-chair. "How are you?"

"Excuse me," said Ronald, rising quickly. "They told me to come in here after lunch, and so I was waiting until I was sent for, or told to come out."

"Very glad to see you, any way," said Sam cordially. "Well, I have been to hear about an election--a friend of ours got put up for senator. But I don't expect that interests you much?"

"On the contrary," said Ronald, "I have heard it so much talked of that I am as much interested as anybody. Is it all over?"

"Oh yes, and a pretty queer business it was. Well, our friend is not elected, anyway"--

"Has Mr. Harrington been defeated?" asked Ronald quickly.

"It's my belief he has been sold," said Sam. "But as I am a Republican myself and a friend of Jobbins, more or less, I don't suppose I feel so very bad about it, after all. But I don't know how my wife will take it, I'm sure," said Sam presently. "I expect we had better go and tell her, right off."

"Then he has really lost the election?" inquired Ronald, who was not altogether sorry to hear it.

"Why, yes--as I say, Jobbins is senator now. I should not wonder if Harrington were a good deal cut up. Come along with me, now, and we will tell the ladies."

The three ladies were in the drawing-room. Mrs. Wyndham and Joe sprang to their feet as Sam and Ronald entered, but Sybil remained seated and merely looked up inquiringly.

"Oh now, Sam," cried Mrs. Wyndham, in great excitement, "tell us all about it right away. We are dying to know!"

Joe came close to Mrs. Wyndham, her face very pale and her teeth clenched in her great anxiety. Sam threw back the lapels of his coat, put his thumbs in the armholes of his broad waistcoat, and turned his head slightly on one side.

"Well," he said slowly, "John's wiped out."

"Do you mean to say he has lost the election?" cried Mrs. Wyndham.

"Yes--he's lost it. Jobbins is senator."

"Sam, you are perfectly horrid!" exclaimed his spouse, in deepest vexation.

Josephine Thorn spoke no word, but turned away and went alone to the window. She was deathly pale, and she trembled from head to foot as she clutched the heavy curtain with her small white fingers.

"Poor Mr. Harrington!" said Sybil thoughtfully. "I am dreadfully sorry."

Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham and Ronald moved toward the fire where Sybil was sitting. No one spoke for a few seconds. At last Mrs. Wyndham broke out:

"Sam, it's a perfect shame!" she said. "I think all those people ought to be locked up for bribery. I am certain it was all done by some horrid stealing, or something, now, was not it?"

"I don't know about that, my dear," said Sam reflectively. "You see they generally vote fair enough in these things. Well, may be that fellow Ballymolloy has made something out of it. He's a pretty bad sort of a scamp, any way, I expect. Sorry you are so put out about it, but Jobbins is not so very bad, after all."

Sybil suddenly missed Joe from the group, and looked across to where she stood by the window. A glance told her that something was wrong, and she rose from her seat and went to her friend. The sight of Josephine's pale face frightened her.

"Joe, dear," she said affectionately, "you are ill--come to my room."

Sybil put one arm round her waist and quietly led her away. Ronald had watched the little scene from a distance, but Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham continued to discuss the result of the election.

"It is exactly like you, Sam, to be talking in that way, instead of telling me just how it happened," said Mrs. Wyndham. "And then to say it is not so very bad after all!"

"Oh, I will tell you all about it right away, my dear, if you'll only give me a little time. You're always in such an immense fever about everything that it's perfectly impossible to get along."

"Are you going to begin?" said Mrs. Wyndham, half vexed with her husband's deliberate indifference.

"Well, as near as I can make out it was generally thought at the start that John had a pretty good show. The Senate elected him right away by a majority of four, which was so much to the good, for of course his friends reckoned on getting him in, if the Senate hadn't elected him, by the bigger majority of the House swamping the Senate in the General Court. But it's gone just the other way."

"Whatever is the General Court?" asked Ronald, much puzzled.

"Oh, the General Court is when the House and the Senate meet together next day to formally declare a senator elected, if they have both chosen the same man, or to elect one by a general majority if they haven't."

"Yes, that is it," added Mrs. Wyndham to Ronald, and then addressing her husband, "Do go on, Sam; you've not told us anything yet."

"Well, as I said, the Senate elected John Harrington by a majority of four. The House took a long time getting to work, and then there was some mistake about the first vote, so they had to take a second. And when that was done Jobbins actually had a majority of eighteen. So John's beaten, and Jobbins will be senator anyhow, and you must just make the best you can out of it."

"But I thought you said when the House and the Senate did not agree, the General Court met next day and elected a senator?" asked Ronald again; "and in that case Mr. Harrington is not really beaten yet."

"Well, theoretically he's not," said Sam, "because of course Jobbins is not actually senator until he has been elected by the General Court, but the majority for him in the House was so surprisingly large, and the majority for John so small in the Senate, and the House is so much larger than the Senate, that the vote to-morrow is a dead sure thing, and Jobbins is just as much senator as if he were sitting in Washington."

"I suppose you will expect me to have Mr. Jobbins to dinner, now. I think the whole business is perfectly mean!"

"Don't blame me, my dear," said Sam calmly. "I did not create the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature, and I did not found the State House, nor discover America, nor any of these things. And after all, Jobbins is a very respectable man and belongs to our own party, while Harrington does not. When I set up creating I'll make a note of one or two points, and I'll see that John is properly attended to."

"You need not be silly, Sam," said Mrs. Wyndham. "What has become of those girls?"

"They went out of the room some time ago," said Ronald, who had been listening with much amus.e.m.e.nt to the description of the election. He was never quite sure whether people could be serious when they talked such peculiar language, and he observed with surprise that Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham talked to each other in phrases very different from those they used in addressing himself.

Sybil had led Joe away to her room. She did not guess the cause of Joe's faintness, but supposed it to be a momentary indisposition, amenable to the effects of eau-de-cologne. She made her lie upon the great cretonne sofa, moistening her forehead, and giving her a bottle of salts to smell.

But Joe, who had never been ill in her life, recovered her strength in a few minutes, and regaining her feet began to walk about the room.

"What do you think it was, Joe, dear?" asked Sybil, watching her.

"Oh, it was nothing. Perhaps the room was hot, and I was tired."

"I thought you looked tired all the morning," said Sybil, "and just when I looked at you I thought you were going to faint. You were as pale as death, and you seemed holding yourself up by the curtains."

"Did I?" said Joe, trying to laugh. "How silly of me! I felt faint for a moment--that was all. I think I will go home."

"Yes, dear--but stay a few minutes longer and rest yourself. I will order a carriage--it is still snowing hard." Sybil left the room.

Once alone, Joe threw herself upon the sofa again. She would rather have died than have told any one, even Sybil Brandon, that it was no sickness she felt, but only a great and overwhelming disappointment for the man she loved.

Her love was doubly hers--her very own--in that it was fast locked in her own heart, beyond the reach of any human being to know. Of all that came and went about her, and flattered her, and strove for her graces, not one suspected that she loved a man in their very midst, pa.s.sionately, fervently, with all the strength she had. Ronald's suspicions were too vague, and too much the result of a preconceived idea, to represent anything like a certainty to himself, and he had not mentioned them to her.