Throughout the hot
campaign he had refused to stump the State for himself or his party, and
was said to be holding steadfastly aloof in the bargaining and
dickering. Weighing the two men one against the other--Reynolds was
sitting in an adjacent box with Kittredge and Bentley and two other
railroad officials--Blount admitted a twinge of regret that chance, or
his convictions, had made him a partisan of the weaker.
Having been lost in the shuffle, as he expressed it, Blount made the
most of these reflective excursions during the period of the box-party
captivity. From the rising of the curtain to the going down thereof the
Weatherfords, mother and daughter, kept him from exchanging so much as a
word with Patricia, whom Gantry was shamelessly monopolizing. But on the
short return walk to the hotel, Blount asserted his rights and gave
Patricia his arm.
"I think you owe me an abject apology," was the way she began on him,
when they had gained such privacy as the crowded sidewalk conferred.
"Consider it made, and then tell me what for," he rejoined, striving,
man-fashion, to catch step with her mood.
"For making us leave that dear, delightful, out-of-date, and
out-of-place Georgian mansion in the hills and come to town when we want
to get a sight of your face."
"If anybody else should say a thing like that, I'd blush and call it a
compliment," he retorted.
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