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 He stood a moment in deep thought. The girl, certainly, was not out of his reach, and he had given her mind an impulse in the direction that he wanted it to take. He could manage her if he could manage Pritchard.

He shut his door noiselessly. He sat down to his desk 'phone and called a private number. "Is that you, Robert?" he asked, in a low voice. "Know who's speaking? It's Tom Warren. Can you come at once to my office in the State-house? The side entrance will be open. And my private door. I'll be alone. … Yes, right away, if you can. I'm going right down. … I have a personal favor to ask. … Yes. Thanks."

He hung up the receiver with a quick click. The man with whom he had been speaking was Robert Wardrup Miller—the "Wardrobe" Miller of whose attacks upon him he had spoken to his daughter—the Miller to whom the "parasites," as he had said, were already beginning to attach themselves.

He went out to the hall. She brought him his soft felt hat. He bent to give her his usual perfunctory kiss; but she wished to show her loyal sympathy with him in the worries of political life and the defections of the parasitical, and, instead of turning her cheek, she took the caress full on her lips, as if it had been her lover's, avidly. Warren understood that Pritchard had been kissing her. She smiled up at him, and it was the assured