“Don’t go,” he pleaded quickly.  “Back out of it some way, and give me just this one evening to myself.  Won’t you do that, Patricia?”

“I’ll try,” she agreed.  “But if Mrs. Blount has accepted—­”

“Confound Mrs. Blount!” he growled.  And then the newly aroused underman in him added:  “You tell her that I want you to give me the evening, and let that settle it.”

As it turned out a little later, Miss Anners found it unnecessary to be rude to her hostess.  For some reason best known to herself, Mrs. Honoria had declined the invitation—­engraved in the correctest shaded Old English and made to include the senator and Miss Anners—­and was planning a free evening for herself and her guest.

After the cafe dinner—­a dinner at which Evan Blount, once more calling himself all the hard names in the hypocrite’s vocabulary, made the fourth—­Mrs. Honoria proposed an adjournment to the hotel parlors, which were in the mezzanine lounge.  Later, she found herself alone on the divan which had been drawn up to command a view of the spirited scene in the lobby below.  The senator had gone down to mingle with the politicians, and she could see him—­big, masterful, and smiling—­moving about from group to group.  On the opposite side of the mezzanine gallery, Evan and Patricia were “doing time,” as the little lady musingly phrased it:  walking up and down and talking quietly; a handsome couple, as the approving glances of more than one passing guest testified.

To Mrs. Honoria, thus isolated, came at the appointed time the sober-eyed young traffic manager for the railroad company.  Gantry had been under orders from the little lady for the better part of the afternoon, but the business of the day had given him no chance to report earlier.

“You got my note?” he asked, taking the place she made for him on the tete-a-tete divan.

“Yes; a little while before dinner.  It came just in time to let me send frightfully late ‘regrets’ to Mrs. Weatherford.”

“I couldn’t come sooner.  I’ve had the Hathaway crowd on my hands all afternoon.  There is something in the wind, and those fellows are scared stiff.  They say that Evan’s speech-making has stirred up the working men and the rank and file like a declaration of war with Mexico, and nobody can tell what is going to happen next Tuesday.”

“Is that all?”

“No, not quite all.  There is a mild panic on in at least three of the city wards over the disappearance of a fellow named Gryson, a sort of—­er—­wire-puller and all-around general-utility man.  Some say he has been doing crooked work and had to disappear; others say that he has taken his pay for whatever job he was doing and has skipped out, leaving his journeymen strikers to hold the bag.”

“Gryson,” said the little lady, her eyes narrowing; “Gryson—­the name is curiously familiar.  He is what you call a ward-worker, isn’t he?”

Gantry nodded.  “Something of the sort, yes.  Evan calls him one of the ‘pie-eaters,’ and away along early in the game they had a set-to in Evan’s office and Evan fired him; told him if he ever came back he’d throw him out.”