"I was thinking of it from the point of view of the newspaper. If you're going to answer him in The Patriot, I should think you'd want to know just what his basis was. Besides, if he's wrong, I believe he'd take it back."

"After all the damage has been done. He won't get the chance."

Banneker's jaw set firm.

"What shall you do now?"

"Wait my chance, load my pen, and shoot to kill."

"Let me see the editorial before you print it."

"All right, Miss Meddlesome. But you won't let your ideas of fair play run away with you and betray me to the enemy? You're a Laird man, aren't you?"

Her voice fell to a caressing half-note. "I'm a Banneker woman--in everything. Won't you ever remember that?"

"No. You'll never be that. You'll always be Io; yourself; remote and unattainable in the deeper sense."

"Do _you_ say that?" she answered.

"Oh, don't think that I complain. You've made life a living glory for me. Yet"--his face grew wistful--"I suppose--I don't know how to say it--I'm like the shepherd in the poem,

'Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade.'

Io, why do I always think in poetry, when I'm with you?"

"I want you always to," she said, which was a more than sufficient answer.

Io had been back in Philadelphia several days, and had 'phoned Banneker that she was coming over on the following Tuesday, when, having worked at the office until early evening, he ran around the corner to Katie's for dinner. At the big table "Bunny" Fitch of The Record was holding forth.

Fitch was that invaluable type of the political hack-writer, a lackey of the mind, instinctively subservient to his paper's slightest opinion, hating what it hates, loving what it loves, with the servile adherence of a medieval churchman. As The Record was bitter upon reform, its proprietor having been sadly disillusioned in youth by a lofty but abortive experiment in perfecting human nature from which he never recovered, Bunny lost no opportunity to damn all reformers.

"Can't you imagine the dirty little snob," he was saying, as Banneker entered, "creeping and fawning and cringing for their favors? Up for membership at The Retreat. Dines with Poultney Masters, Jr., at his club. Can't you hear him running home to wifie all het up and puffed like a toad, and telling her about it?"

"Who's all this, Bunny?" inquired Banneker, who had taken in only the last few words.

"Our best little society climber, the Honorable Robert Laird," returned the speaker, and reverted to his inspirational pen-picture: "Runs home to wifie and crows, 'What do you think, my dear! Junior Masters called me 'Bob' to-day!"

In a flash, the murderous quality of the thing bit into Banneker's sensitive brain. "Junior Masters called me 'Bob' to-day." The apotheosis of snobbery! Swift and sure poison for the enemy if properly compounded with printer's ink. How pat it fitted in with the carefully fostered conception, insisted upon in every speech by Marrineal, of the mayor as a Wall Street and Fifth Avenue tool and toady!

But what exactly had Bunny Fitch said? Was he actually quoting Laird? If so, direct or from hearsay? Or was he merely paraphrasing or perhaps only characterizing? There was a dim ring in Banneker's cerebral ear of previous words, half taken in, which would indicate the latter--and ruin the deadly plan, strike the poison-dose from his hand. Should he ask Fitch? Pin him down to the details?

The character-sketcher was now upon the subject of Judge Enderby. "Sly old wolf! Wants to be senator one of these days. Or maybe governor. A 'receptive' candidate! Wah! Pulls every wire he can lay hand on, and then waits for the honor to be forced upon him.... Good Lord! It's eight o'clock. I'm late."

Dropping a bill on the table he hurried out. Half-minded to stop him, Banneker took a second thought. Why should he? His statement had been definite. Anyway, he could be called up on the morrow. Dining hastily and in deep, period-building thought, Banneker returned to the office, locked himself in, and with his own hand drafted the editorial built on that phrase of petty and terrific import: "Junior Masters called me 'Bob' to-day."

After it was written he would not for the world have called up Fitch to verify the central fact. He couldn't risk it. He scheduled the broadside for the second morning following.... But there was Io! He had promised.

Well, he was to meet her at a dinner party at the Forbes's. She could see it then, if she hadn't forgotten.... No; that, too, was a subterfuge hope. Io never forgot.

As if to assure the resumption of their debate, the talk of the Forbes dinner table turned to the mayoralty fight. Shrewd judges of events and tendencies were there; Thatcher Forbes, himself, not the least of them; it was the express opinion that Laird stood a very good chance of victory.

"Unless they can definitely pin the Wall Street label on him," suggested some one.

"That might beat him; it's the only thing that could," another opined.

Hugging his withering phrase to his heart, Banneker felt a growing exultation.

"Nobody but The Patriot--" began Mrs. Forbes contemptuously, when she abruptly recalled who was at her table. "The newspapers are doing their worst, but I think they won't make people believe much of it," she amended.

"Is Laird really the Wall Street candidate?" inquired Esther Forbes.

Parley Welland, Io's cousin, himself an amateur politician, answered her: "He is or he isn't, according as you look at it. Masters and his crowd are mildly for him, because they haven't any objection to a decent, straight city government, at present. Sometimes they have."

"On that principle, Horace Vanney must have," remarked Jim Maitland.

"He's fighting Laird, tooth and nail, and certainly he represents one phase of Wall Street activity."

"My revered uncle," drawled Herbert Cressey, "considers that the present administration is too tender of the working-man--or, rather, working-woman--when she strikes. Don't let 'em strike; or, if they do strike, have the police bat 'em on the head."

"What's this administration got to do with Vanney's mills? I thought they were in Jersey," another diner asked.

"So they are, the main ones. But he's backing some of the local clothing manufacturers, the sweat-shop lot. They've been having strikes. That interferes with profits. Uncle wants the good old days of the night-stick and the hurry-up wagon back. He's even willing to spend a little money on the good cause."

Io, seated on Banneker's left, turned to him. "Is that true, Ban?"

"I've heard rumors to that effect," he replied evasively.

"Won't it put The Patriot in a queer position, to be making common cause with an enemy of labor?"

"It isn't a question of Horace Vanney, at all," he declared. "He's just an incident."

"When are you going to write your Laird editorial?"

"All written. I've got a proof in my pocket."

She made as if to hold out her hand; but withdrew it. "After dinner,"

she said. "The little enclosed porch off the conservatory."

Amused and confirmatory glances followed them as they withdrew together.

But there was no ill-natured commentary. So habituated was their own special set to the status between them that it was accepted with tolerance, even with the good-humored approval with which human nature regards a logical inter-attraction.

"Are you sure that you want to plunge into politics, Io?" Banneker asked, looking down at her as she seated herself in the cushioned _chaise longue_.

Her mouth smiled assent, but her eyes were intent and serious. He dropped the proof into her lap, bending over and kissing her lips as he did so. For a moment her fingers interlaced over his neck.

"I'll understand it," she breathed, interpreting into his caress a quality of pleading.

Before she had read halfway down the column, she raised to him a startled face. "Are you sure, Ban?" she interrogated.

"Read the rest," he suggested.