As the time drew near for Norton to take the field in the campaign whose fierce passions would mark a new era in the state\'s history, his uneasiness over the attitude of Cleo increased.

She had received the announcement of his approaching long absence with sullen anger. And as the purpose of the campaign gradually became clear she had watched him with growing suspicion and hate. He felt it in every glance she flashed from the depth of her greenish eyes.

Though she had never said it in so many words, he was sure that the last hope of a resumption of their old relations was fast dying in her heart, and that the moment she realized that he was lost to her would be the signal for a desperate attack. What form the attack would take he could only guess. He was sure it would be as deadly as her ingenuity could invent. Yet in the wildest flight of his imagination he never dreamed the daring thing she had really decided to do.

On the night before his departure he was working late in his room at the house. The office he had placed in Tom\'s hands before the meeting of the convention. The boy\'s eager young face just in front of him when he made his speech that day had been an inspiration. It had beamed with pride and admiration, and when[Pg 223] his father\'s name rang from every lip in the great shout that shook the building Tom\'s eyes had filled with tears.

Norton was seated at his typewriter, which he had moved to his room, writing his final instructions. The last lines he put in caps:

"Under no conceivable circumstances annoy me with anything that happens at home, unless a matter of immediate life and death, anything else can wait until my return."

He had just finished this important sentence when the sound of a footstep behind his chair caused him to turn suddenly.

Cleo had entered the room and stood glaring at him with a look of sullen defiance.

By a curious coincidence or by design, she was dressed in a scarlet kimono of the same shade of filmy Japanese stuff as the one she wore in his young manhood. His quick eye caught this fact in a flash and his mind took rapid note of the changes the years had wrought. Their burdens had made slight impression on her exhaustless vitality. Whatever might be her personality or her real character, she was alive from the crown of her red head to the tips of her slippered toes.

Her attitude of tense silence sparkled with this vital power more eloquently than when she spoke with quick energy in the deep voice that was her most remarkable possession.

Her figure was heavier by twenty pounds than when she had first entered his home, but she never produced the impression of stoutness. Her form was too sinuous, pliant and nervous to take on flesh. She was no[Pg 224] longer the graceful girl of eighteen whose beauty had drugged his senses, but she was beyond all doubt a woman of an extraordinary type, luxuriant, sensuous, dominant. There was not a wrinkle on her smooth creamy skin nor a trace of approaching age about the brilliant greenish eyes that were gazing into his now with such grim determination.

He wheeled from his machine and faced her, his eyes taking in with a quick glance the evident care with which she had arranged her hair and the startling manner in which she was dressed.

He spoke with sharp, incisive emphasis:

"It was a condition of your return that you should never enter my room while I am in this house."

"I have not forgotten," she answered firmly, her eyes holding his steadily.

"Why have you dared?"

"You are still afraid of me?" she asked with a light laugh that was half a sneer.

"Have I given you any such evidence during the past twenty years?"

There was no bitterness or taunt in the even, slow drawl with which he spoke, but the woman knew that he never used the slow tone with which he uttered those words except he was deeply moved.

She flushed, was silent and then answered with a frown:

"No, you haven\'t shown any fear for something more than twenty years—until a few days ago."

The last clause she spoke very quickly as she took a step closer and paused.

"A few days ago?" he repeated slowly.

"Yes. For the past week you have been afraid of me—not[Pg 225] in the sense I asked you just now perhaps"—her white teeth showed in two even perfect rows—"but you have been watching me out of the corners of your eyes—haven\'t you?"

"Perhaps."

"I wonder why?"

"And you haven\'t guessed?"

"No, but I\'m going to find out."

"You haven\'t asked."

"I\'m going to."

"Be quick about it!"

"I\'m going to find out—that\'s why I came in here to-night in defiance of your orders."

"All right—the quicker the better!"

"Thank you, I\'m not in a hurry."

"What do you want?" he demanded with anger.

She smiled tauntingly:

"It\'s no use to get mad about it! I\'m here now, you see that I\'m not afraid of you and I\'m quite sure that you will not put me out until I\'m ready to go——"

He sprang to his feet and advanced on her:

"I\'m not so sure of that!"

"Well, I am," she cried, holding his gaze steadily.

He threw up his hands with a gesture of disgust and resumed his seat:

"What is it?"

She crossed the room deliberately, carrying a chair in front of her, sat down, leaned her elbow on his table and studied him a moment, their eyes meeting in a gaze of deadly hostility.

"What is the meaning of this long absence you have planned?"[Pg 226]

"I have charge of this campaign. I am going to speak in every county in the state."

"Why?"

"Because I\'ll win that way, by a direct appeal to the people."

"Why do you want to win?"

"Because I generally do what I undertake."

"Why do you want to do this thing?"

He looked at her in amazement. Her eyes had narrowed to the tiniest lines as she asked these questions with a steadily increasing intensity.

"What are you up to?" he asked her abruptly.

"I want to know why you began this campaign at all?"

"I decline to discuss the question with you," he answered abruptly.

"I insist on it!"

"You wouldn\'t know what I was talking about," he replied with contempt.

"I think I would."

"Bah!"

He turned from her with a wave of angry dismissal, seized his papers and began to read again his instructions to Tom.

"I\'m not such a fool as you think," she began menacingly. "I\'ve read your platform with some care and I\'ve been thinking it over at odd times since your speech was reported."

"And you contemplate entering politics?" he interrupted with a smile.

"Who knows?"

She watched him keenly while she slowly uttered these words and saw the flash of uneasiness cross his face,[Pg 227] "But don\'t worry," she laughed.

"I\'ll not!"

"You may for all that!" she sneered, "but I\'ll not enter politics as you fear. That would be too cheap. I don\'t care what you do to negroes. I\'ve a drop of their blood in me——"

"One in eight, to be exact."

"But I\'m not one of them, except by your laws, and I hate the sight of a negro. You can herd them, colonize them, send them back to Africa or to the devil for all I care. Your program interests me for another reason"—she paused and watched him intently.

"Yes?" he said carelessly.

"It interests me for one reason only—you wrote that platform, you made that speech, you carried that convention. Your man Friday is running for Governor. You are going to take the stump, carry this election and take the ballot from the Negro!"

"Well?"

"I\'m excited about it merely because it shows the inside of your mind."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. It shows either that you are afraid of me or that you\'re not——"

"It couldn\'t well show both," he interrupted with a sneer.

"It might," she answered. "If you are afraid of me and my presence is the cause of this outburst, all right. I\'ll still play the game with you and win or lose. I\'ll take my chances. But if you\'re not afraid of me, if you\'ve really not been on your guard for twenty years, it means another thing. It means that you\'ve learned your lesson, that the book of the past is closed, and[Pg 228] that you have simply been waiting for the time to come to do this thing and save your people from a danger before which you once fell."

"And which horn of the dilemma do you take?" he asked coldly.

"I haven\'t decided—but I will to-night."

"How interesting!"

"Yes, isn\'t it?" she leaned close. "With a patience that must have caused you wonder, with a waiting through years as God waits, I have endured your indifference, your coldness, your contempt. Each year I have counted the last that you could resist the call of my body and soul, and at the end of each year I have seen you further and further away from me and the gulf between us deeper and darker. This absence you have planned in this campaign means the end one way or the other. I\'m going to f............