"I've resigned from office," said he, swift and calm. "I've told
the President I'll not take the Attorney-Generalship. I've
telegraphed your people at Lenox that we're not coming. And I'm
going home to run for Governor. My telegrams assure me the
nomination, and, with the hold I've got on the people, that means
election, sure pop. I make my first speech day after to-morrow
afternoon--with you on the platform beside me."
"You are mistaken," she said in a cold, hard voice. "You--"
"Now don't speak till you've thought, and don't think till I
finish. As you yourself said, Washington's no place for us--at
present. Anyhow, the way to get there right is to be sent there
from the people--by the people. You are the wife of a public man,
but you've had no training."
"I--" she began.
"Hear me first," he said, between entreaty and command. "You think
I'm the one that's got it all to learn. Think again. The little
tiddledywinks business that I've got to learn--all the value there
is in the mass of balderdash about manners and dress--I can learn
it in a few lessons. You can teach it to me in no time. But what
you've got to learn--how to be a wife, how to live on a modest
income, how to take care of me, and help me in my career, how to
be a woman instead of, largely, a dressmaker's or a dancing-
master's expression for lady-likeness--to learn all that is going
to take time.
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