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“You were talking to some one else,” she said almost inaudibly.

“Yes ma’am, Goldstein, but–“

“Oh, no!” She turned toward him, lifting her hand. “You were quite the lion among ladies.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Protheroe,” he said, truthfully.

“What were you talking to all those women about?”

“It was about the ‘Sunday Baseball Bill.'”

“Ah! The bill you attacked in your speech, last Wednesday?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I hear you haven’t made any speeches since then,” she said indifferently.

“No ma’am,” he answered gently. “I kind of got the idea that I’d better lay low for a while at first, and get in some quiet hard work.”

“I understand. You are a man of intensely reserved nature.”

“With men,” said Alonzo, “I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I think a good woman ought to be told–“

“But you are interested,” she interrupted, “in defeating that bill?”

“Yes ma’am,” he returned. “It is an iniquitous measure.”

“Why?”

“Mrs. Protheroe!” he exclaimed, taken aback. “I thought all the ladies were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that she’d rather see me in my grave than votin’ for such a bill, and I’d rather see myself there!”

“But are you sure that you understand it?”

“I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That’s enough for me!”

She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly.

“No. You’re wrong,” she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon his sleeve.

“I don’t understand why–why you say that,” he faltered. “It sounds kind of–surprising to me–“

“Listen,” she said. “Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying such things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to the world, even if it must be only in small ways.”

“I think that is a noble ambition!” he exclaimed. “I think all good women ought–“

“Wait,” she interrupted gently. “Now, that bill is a worthy one, though it astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don’t understand the conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man’s only day of recreation–and what recreation is he offered?”

“He ought to go to church,” said Alonzo promptly.

“But the fact is that he doesn’t–not often–not at all in the afternoon. Wouldn’t it be well to give him some wholesome way of employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and it keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor on the grounds.”

“Yes, I know,” said Alonzo plaintively. “But it ain’t right! I was raised to respect the Sabbath and–“

“Ah, that’s what you should do! You think I could believe in anything that wouldn’t make it better and more sacred?”

“Oh, no, ma’am!” he cried reproachfully. “It’s only that I don’t see–“

“I am telling you.” She lifted her veil and let him have the full dazzle of her beauty. “Do you know that many thousands of labouring people spend their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low country road-houses because the game is played at such places on Sunday? They go there because they never get a chance to see it played in the city. And don’t you understand that there would be no Sunday liquor trade, no working-men poisoning themselves every seventh day in the low groggeries, as hundreds of them do now, if they had something to see that would interest them?–something as wholesome and fine as this sport would be, under the conditions of this bill; something to keep them in the open air, something to bring a little gaiety into their dull lives!” Her voice had grown louder and it shook a little, with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more poignant. “Oh, my dear Senator,” she cried, “don’t you see how wrong you are? Don’t you want to help these poor people?”

Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she leaned back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to conceal from him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm upon the leather cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring fixedly into the gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along which they were now coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him, and the only sound was the monotonous chug of the machine.