really was there. Mather felt the temptation, but there was too much behind his relations with Ellis for the younger man to be rude, and he presently found himself saying: "I don't suppose you play golf, Mr. Ellis?"

"No," Ellis answered. This was the first man who had greeted him freely that day, and yet the one who most might feel resentment. While his manner showed that he was about to speak again, Ellis looked the other over with a smile which concealed deliberation. It was not weakness that made Mather mild, in spite of Mrs. Harmon's belief, to which she clung the more because the Judge rejected it. "I knew his father," her husband had told her. "They are bulldogs[Pg 22] in that stock." Ellis took much the same view; once, at the beginning of his career, he had encountered Mather's father, and had found him a bulldog indeed. The son seemed the same in so many respects that Ellis wondered if he had thought quite long enough in seizing this morning's opportunity. He knew well that Mather would be stronger when next he entered the arena; besides, the reform politicians, those bees who buzzed continually and occasionally stung, had been after the young man, who, with the leisure to enter politics, might be formidable. Thus Ellis, hesitating, ran over the whole subject in his mind; and then, as he knew how to do, plunged at his object.

[Pg 22]

"Mr. Mather, I am sorry for what happened this morning."

"Fortune of war," returned the other.

The young man certainly had a right to be bitter if he chose, judging, at least, by the usual conduct of victims. Mather's peculiarity in this did not escape Ellis, who spoke again with some hope of forgiveness. "I trust that you and I may some day work together."

"I scarcely expect it," was the answer.

"Don't say that." Ellis was not sure what tone to adopt, but did his best. "This is not the place to speak of it, perhaps, but there is surely something I can do for you."

"Now that you have nothing to do, you know," said Judith.

Mather turned to her; he saw how she had put herself on Ellis's side; how her interest in this offer was due to Ellis, not to himself. And the reminder of his defeat was most unwelcome.

"Since this morning," he said, "I have been offered 

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