“Give it to me.”

“Why, it’s of no consequence.  Flowers quickly fade.”

“Won’t you understand?... you maddening lady.  I’ve known all these girls since they were born.  When they offer me flowers, shall I hurt their feelings and refuse?  Give it to me.”

She shook her head slowly.

“Don’t you know that I’ll prize it—­and why?” said he in a low voice.  “Give it to me.”

Their eyes met; hers fluttered down; but she raised them suddenly and put the flower in his buttonhole, her face so close that he felt her breath on his cheek.

Beside him at supper, she took up the thread of their earlier talk.

“If you must give up your business, why shouldn’t it be for something bigger than the college—­public life for instance?”

“I may say,” West answered her, “that as yet there has not been that sturdy demand from the public, that uproarious insistence from the honest voter ...”

“At dinner the other evening I met one of your fine old patriarchs, Colonel Cowles.  He told us that the new Mayor of this city, if he was at all the right sort, would go from the City Hall to the Governorship.  And do you know who represents his idea of the right sort of Mayor?”

West, picking at a bit of duck, said that he hadn’t the least idea.

“So modest—­so modest!  He said that the city needed a young progressive man of the better class and the highest character, and that man was—­you.  No other, by your leave!  The Mayoralty, the Governorship, the Senate waiting behind that, perhaps—­who knows?  Is it wise to bottle one’s self up in the blind alley of the college?”

Thus Delilah:  to which Samson replied that a modern college is by no means a blind alley; that from the presidential retreat he would keep a close eye upon the march of affairs, doubtless doing his share toward moulding public opinion through contributions to the Post and the reviews; that, in fact, public life had long had an appeal for him, and that if at any time a cry arose in the land for him to come forward ...

“For a public career,” said Delilah, with a sigh, “I should think you had far rather be editor of the Post, for example, than head of this college.”

Samson made an engaging reply that had to do with Colonel Cowles.  The talk ran off into other channels, but somehow Delilah’s remark stuck in the young man’s head.

Soul is not all that flows at the Thursday German, and it has frequently been noticed that the dance becomes gayest after supper.  But it becomes, too, sadly brief, and Home Sweet Home falls all too soon upon the enthralled ear.  Now began the movement toward that place, be it never so humble, like which there is none; and amid the throng gathered in the vestibule before the cloak-rooms, West again found himself face to face with Miss Weyland with whom he had stepped many a measure that evening.