“I have thrown down, instead, my heart,” he replied in a swift undertone.

But Diana was watching her father and apparently did not hear him. Colonel Royall had moved to his usual big chair by the hearth. A few logs were kindling there, for, though it was early in April, it was a raw chill evening. The firelight played on the noble and gentle lines of the colonel’s old face, on his white hair and moustache and in the mild sweetness of his absent-minded eyes. His daughter, looking at him fondly, thought him peculiarly sad, and wondered if it was because they were approaching an anniversary in that brief sad married life which seemed to have left a scar too deep for even her tender touch.

“I don’t mind about the amount—six cents may be as sacred to him as six dollars,” he was saying. “The man has a primitive face, the lines are quite remarkable, and—” he leaned back and looked over at the young man by the piano—“Jacob, I’ve heard of this Caleb Trench three times this week in politics.”

“A village orator?” mocked Eaton, without dropping his air of nonchalant superiority, an air that nettled Colonel Royall as much as a heat-rash.

He shook his head impatiently. “Ask Mahan,” he said. “I don’t know, but twice I’ve been told that[9] Caleb Trench could answer this or that, and yesterday—” he leaned back, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked into the fire—“yesterday—what was it? Oh—” he stopped abruptly, and a delicate color, almost a woman’s blush, went up to his hair.

[9]

“And yesterday?” asked Eaton, suddenly alert, his mocking tone lost, the latent shrewdness revealing itself through the thin mask of his commonplace good looks.

“Well, I heard that he was opposed to Aylett’s methods,” Colonel Royall said, with evident reluctance, “and that he favored Yarnall.”

Mrs. Eaton started violently and dropped her pack of cards, and Diana and she began to gather them up again, Cousin Jinny’s fingers trembling so much that the girl had to find them all.

Jacob stood listening, his eyelids drooping over his eyes and his upper lip twitching a little at the corners like a dog who is puckering his lip to show his fangs. “Yarnall is a candidate for governor,” he said coolly.

Colonel Royall frowned slightly. “I’d rather keep Aylett,” he rejoined.

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