"I don't like to hear you talk like that, Jerome. I don't like to see you in that cynical mood. It wasn't an attitude, it was your real nature speaking."
"Well, a man must keep his real nature in subjection in politics."
"Please don't, Jerome; you mustn't keep your real nature in subjection in politics. We need just such men as you in our public life."
"Jerome," the girl said later, "do you really need money so badly?"
"Why don't you speak to father--I know he'd be glad to help you. He is very anxious to see you succeed, you know--or if you think that Mr. Pusey can harm you, why can't you let father speak to him? Father once did him some favor--don't you remember those sickening, fulsome articles he wrote?"
Garwood gasped at the thought of Emily's father penetrating that situation.
"Never that!" he said, bringing his fist down on his knee. "Don't you ever suggest such a thing, Emily, do you hear?" He turned and his eyes glowed as he looked at her. The girl laughed a little laugh of pride in him.
"I'm afraid, Jerome," she began in a playful way, "that you don't understand politics very well yourself." And then she became serious, and sighed.
"But how noble you are! And how high minded! And how I love you for it!"
They sat there a long while after that, in the darkness. But they did not talk politics any more.
When the Alton's early train drew out of the Canal Street station that morning, the last coach had its curtains drawn, with a touch of royal mystery. Though its polished panels were grimed from a long journey, though its roof lay deep in cinders, and though its gilt lettering was tarnished, still, as it moved onward with heavy dignity, it was plainly no ordinary car, for it rolled majestically at the end of that long train like some ship, to which clung the sentimental interest of a stormy voyage. As it passed, yardmen in blue overalls straightened their backs painfully and scrutinized it with professional eye, sometimes they swung their caps; laborers, men and women, on their morning way to work, halted by the crossing-gates and united in a cheer, their futile little celebration being dissipated by the clamor of the alarm bells, as the train whirled by in its cloud of dust, and the gates lifted to let the flood-tide of city life set in again for the day's work.